Job Overview
Reporting to the EECD Coordinator, Head of Unit, the ECW CORE Consortium Lead provides overall coordination and program management leadership for the ECW CORE consortium and serves as the primary day-to-day coordination focal point across consortium members.
The Consortium Lead is responsible for ensuring the program operates as one coherent consortium, with partners progressing against agreed workplans, results, budgets, timelines and donor commitments. The position leads consortium planning and implementation follow-up, performance and financial monitoring, donor reporting, risk management, localization and institutional capacity strengthening, and cross-partner coordination and problem-solving.
The Consortium Lead will also lead and coordinate responsibilities under Outcome 3, working closely with MEHE, the Education Sector/LEG, consortium members and relevant stakeholders to strengthen sector-level crisis preparedness and education continuity mechanisms. The role works closely with consortium functional leads across Technical, PGI, MEAL, Finance and Safeguarding/PSEA while respecting the leadership and accountability assigned to each consortium member.
Major Responsibilities
1. Consortium Leadership, Governance, and cross functional coordination
- Lead the day-to-day coordination and management of the ECW CORE consortium, acting as the central coordination point between members and ensuring timely information flow, joint planning and coherent implementation across partners, outcomes and geographic areas.
- Support IRC and AAA as Co-Lead Grantees and Co-Chairs in preparing and facilitating Consortium Steering Committee meetings (agendas, performance, risks and decisions) and coordinate systematic follow-up of SC decisions and actions.
- Ensure consortium governance structures and Task Teams operate in line with agreed Terms of Reference, the Consortium Agreement and ECW requirements.
- Coordinate across the Technical, PGI, MEAL, Finance, Safeguarding/PSEA and implementation functions, maintaining clear roles and accountabilities, and facilitate cross-functional problem-solving, including working with the Technical Lead and PGI Function so that implementation findings requiring adaptation are followed through.
- Ensure agreed consortium-wide tools, protocols and ways of working are applied consistently across members.
- Promote equal partner participation, transparency, shared accountability and locally led decision-making in line with the program’s localization commitments.
- Escalate strategic issues affecting program scope, results, budgets, risks or partner performance to the Co-Leads and Steering Committee through agreed governance mechanisms, with clear recommendations for action.
2. Consortium Program Management, Implementation Oversight and financial performance
- Lead and oversee implementation of IRC’s scope of work under the ECW CORE program, ensuring IRC and sub-partners’ activities, deliverables, targets, budgets and commitments are delivered in accordance with the approved programme and agreed timelines.
- Coordinate across relevant IRC teams and departments to ensure the inputs and actions required for IRC to fulfil its programme responsibilities are planned, coordinated and delivered on time.
- Lead development, consolidation and regular review of the overall consortium workplan, ensuring alignment across partner workplans, program outcomes, results framework, budgets and implementation timelines.
- Maintain consolidated oversight of implementation across the program, regularly reviewing progress against activities, outputs, targets, milestones and donor commitments.
- Convene regular consortium implementation and performance reviews to identify delays, bottlenecks, cross-partner dependencies and emerging risks, and agree and track corrective actions.
- Ensure program adaptations are appropriately coordinated and remain coherent across workplans, results frameworks, activities, budgets and partner implementation plans.
- Maintain a consolidated overview of key program milestones, deliverables, commitments, decisions and action points.
- Escalate significant implementation or performance issues to the Co-Leads and Steering Committee, as appropriate, with clear recommendations for action.
- Work with the IRC-led MEAL Task Team and partner MEAL focal points to maintain a consolidated view of performance, ensure consistency between partner data, program achievements and the ECW Results Framework, and support harmonized monitoring, data-quality and beneficiary-deduplication processes.
- Work with IRC Finance and sub-partners to maintain a consolidated program-level view of financial performance, facilitate joint program-finance reviews, and ensure financial considerations are integrated into planning, adaptations and risk management.
- Lead IRC’s responsibilities under Outcome 3 and coordinate the internal and external inputs required for its delivery, working closely with MEHE, the Education Sector, consortium members, relevant IRC departments and other stakeholders to support sector-level crisis preparedness, education continuity and response mechanisms.
3. ECW Reporting, Communications and Visibility
- Lead the consortium's ECW reporting calendar and reporting process, ensuring consortium members and functional leads understand requirements, responsibilities and deadlines.
- Coordinate and consolidate partner inputs into high-quality consortium narrative and performance reports.
- Ensure consistency across program narrative, results, indicators, reach, expenditure, risks and partner reporting.
- Coordinate internal review and quality assurance of reports through the agreed consortium governance process prior to submission.
- Track ECW feedback, management actions and reporting commitments and ensure timely consortium follow-up.
- Serve as a key program-level focal point with ECW on implementation and reporting matters, as delegated by the Co-Leads, and coordinate preparations for ECW monitoring visits and program reviews.
- Coordinate with Policy, Advocacy and Communications focal points to develop and implement the program communications, advocacy and visibility plan, ensuring timely delivery of ECW communication and visibility requirements and coordinated documentation and dissemination of program results, learning and impact.
4. Partner Coordination, Performance Follow-Up and Localization
- Maintain regular bilateral and consortium-wide follow-up with consortium members on implementation progress, deliverables, results, expenditure, risks and agreed actions.
- Ensure sub-partners concerns, implementation challenges and operational constraints are appropriately addressed and reflected in consortium decision-making.
- Track sub-partners’ commitments under the Consortium Agreement and program workplan and ensure timely follow-up on agreed actions.
- Coordinate with relevant functional leads where partners require technical, MEAL, PGI, safeguarding, financial, operational or institutional support.
- Lead implementation of the consortium's localization and institutional capacity-strengthening agenda, coordinating with relevant IRC departments and consortium members to assess institutional needs and develop, cost and implement appropriate capacity-strengthening plans.
- Coordinate and mobilize appropriate support from IRC technical and support functions, including MEAL, Finance, Grants, Partnerships, Safeguarding/PSEA and other relevant teams, and ensure agreed capacity-strengthening actions are implemented, monitored and followed through.
- Promote mutual capacity sharing and institutional strengthening that increases national partners' capacity and readiness to manage and lead future programs and access donor financing directly.
5. Government, Sector and External Coordination
- Coordinate with relevant MEHE and CERD focal points on program-wide implementation matters in close collaboration with consortium Co-Leads and functional leads.
- Ensure program activities requiring ministry approval, coordination or follow-up are identified early, tracked and progressed in a timely manner.
- Coordinate consortium engagement with the Education Sector, LEG and other relevant government and sector structures, ensuring consistent representation, information sharing and messaging.
- Represent the consortium, together with the Co-Leads as appropriate, with ECW, government counterparts, donors and other strategic stakeholders.
- Ensure program engagement strengthens and works through existing government and sector systems rather than establishing parallel mechanisms.
6. Risk Management, Safeguarding and Compliance
- Maintain and coordinate the consortium-wide risk-management process and consolidated risk register, covering contextual, programmatic, operational, financial, fiduciary, safeguarding/PSEA, data-protection and environmental risks, ensuring each risk has a clear owner, mitigation actions and follow-up, and escalate high or critical risks promptly to the Co-Leads and Steering Committee.
- Ensure program management and consortium coordination processes comply with ECW requirements, Consortium Agreement provisions, IRC policies and agreed consortium standards.
- Work with the IRC-led Safeguarding Task Team and IRC Safeguarding/PSEA focal points to ensure common requirements, follow-up and escalation protocols are operationalized and monitored across consortium delivery, and that sensitive concerns are managed through designated confidential reporting mechanisms.
- Promote accountability to affected populations and ensure relevant program feedback informs implementation and adaptation.
7. Team Management and Capacity Development
- Supervise and manage IRC consortium staff reporting to the position, setting clear priorities, responsibilities and performance expectations.
- Provide regular guidance, coaching and performance feedback to direct reports.
- Support effective onboarding and professional development of direct reports.
- Foster a collaborative, accountable and solution-oriented working culture across the consortium.
Key Working Relationships
Reports to: EECD Coordinator, Head of Unit
Internal IRC: EECD team; MEAL; Finance; Grants; Partnerships; Safeguarding/PSEA; Protection/MHPSS; Policy, Advocacy and Communications; Supply Chain; and relevant Regional and Global teams.
Consortium: AAA as Co-Lead Grantee and Technical Lead; FISTA as PGI Lead; ISF as PGI Co-Lead; consortium functional leads and focal points; Consortium Steering Committee and Task Teams.
External: ECW; MEHE; CERD; Education Sector; LEG; relevant government institutions; UN agencies; donors; and other relevant national and local education stakeholders.
Direct reports to this position: EECD Technical Manager, EECD Senior Officer.
Job Requirements
- Minimum 7–10 years of progressively responsible experience managing large, complex education, humanitarian or development programs, including experience coordinating multi-partner programs or consortia.
- Demonstrated experience managing multi-million-dollar, multi-year programs involving multiple partners, workstreams and geographic areas.
- Strong experience in program management, work planning, results monitoring, budget oversight, risk management and donor reporting.
- Demonstrated ability to coordinate multiple organizations while maintaining clear accountability and respectful, equitable partnerships.
- Strong experience working with MEAL frameworks, indicators, results tracking and adaptive program management.
- Experience overseeing program financial performance, forecasts and expenditure in coordination with Finance teams.
- Demonstrated experience with institutional donors; ECW, education pooled funds or comparable large institutional grants is strongly preferred.
- Strong understanding of education and/or education in emergencies programming.
- Experience in localization, institutional capacity strengthening and partnership management strongly preferred.
- Experience working with government ministries, national partners, UN agencies and humanitarian/development coordination structures.
- Demonstrated experience managing teams and facilitating senior-level multi-stakeholder processes.
- Strong leadership, diplomacy, negotiation, facilitation and problem-solving skills.
- Ability to synthesize complex program, financial and performance information and translate it into clear decisions and actions.
- Excellent organizational skills and ability to manage competing priorities in a rapidly changing operating environment.
- Ability and willingness to travel regularly to consortium program locations across Lebanon.
Education
Master’s degree in education, International Development, Humanitarian Affairs, Program Management, Social Sciences or another relevant field preferred. A bachelor's degree with substantial relevant senior-level experience may be considered.
Language Skills
Fluency in English and Arabic required, with excellent written and verbal communication skills. Strong English report-writing skills are essential.
Working Environment
- Position is based in the IRC Beirut office.
- Regular travel to consortium partner offices, program locations, government institutions and implementation sites across Lebanon is required.
- The role requires frequent coordination across organizations, functions and geographic locations and the ability to operate effectively in a rapidly changing crisis context.
