Partnership Officer

General Description of the Programme:

GOAL’s Strategy 2025 highlights the importance of working in partnership with local actors via local systems as a key organisational value and presents an opportunity for GOAL to become a ‘go-to’ organisation for advancing the localisation agenda. GOAL’s ‘value-add’ is s a facilitator of change alongside permanent local actors, knowing they are the principal catalysts for systemic change at scale.

GOAL would like to work with a more diverse range of partners, increase the quantity and quality of granting to partners, and collectively strengthen the good governance and support structures of its partners. The Partnership Officer will be responsible for delivering on this approach, working to develop a strategic framework and systems to strengthen our partnerships with the government, civil society, the private sector, research institutions, community led organisations and others. GOAL has established a Global Partnership Centre, based in Uganda, with support from Ireland’s Department for Foreign Affairs.  The centre is expanding our team in the Middle East to have a more global footprint to strengthen GOAL’s partnership portfolio and ways of working with partner organisations, in line with GOAL’s commitment to localisation and the Crisis to Resilience framework, as set out in GOAL’s strategy 2023-2025.   It is a key feature of GOAL’s multi-year Irish Civil Society Programme (2023-2027, ICSP) programme of work and a critical part of GOAL’s ambition to make a meaningful contribution to the localisation agenda and presents a great opportunity to leverage learning, not only on partnership management but also on embedding our systems approaches across the GOAL’s ICSP programme of work.

The Global Partnerships Centre has 4 objectives:

1. To identify local partner agencies for strategic investment (toward strengthening their capacities in transforming crisis to resilience).
2. To strengthen the leadership and governance of partner agencies (toward quicker and more effective transition towards locally-led decisions and actions).
3. To provide technical guidance and support in enabling systemic change that is sustainable and scale-able.
4. To facilitate strategic networking, collaboration and shared learning between partner agencies.

Job purpose:

Reporting to Global Partnership Coordinator, the Partnership Officer will work closely with colleagues across departments (Programme, Operations, MEAL, Program Development, Compliance, Audit, Safeguarding, and Finance) to support the coherent implementation of our Partnership approach across sectors and diverse contexts throughout the partnership project cycle. Our partnership approach will align with GOAL’s 8 Partnership Standards which establish a vision based on a shared commitment to a set of principles that will guide all relevant programming and will equitably support local actors to own and manage their progress.

• System Analysis and Design
• Onboarding and monitoring partners
• Financial strengthening
• Emergency Preparedness
• Leadership and Governance of partner agencies
• Networking and collaboration
• Measurement and performance

The Partnership Officer is a key role supporting GOAL Global partner portfolio. With the overall aim of achieving high quality and compliant partnerships, the Partnership Officer will ensure effective sub-grants management and due diligence with partners, assisting in monitoring and evaluating GOAL partners performance, contributing to strong respectful and long-term working relations with partners and management of the Partnership Information Tracker.  As part of the Partnership Department the incumbent will oversee the ongoing due diligence supporting ME countries and ensure all new partners will be onboarded based on the policy. S/he will also play the role as primary contact point on information tracker and due diligence.

Duties, objectives and competencies

Job Responsibility#1: Management of the Partnership Information Tracker:

20% of Time: 

• Make sure all data are entered and managed in a timely manner.
• Provide capacity building and training for country level staff.
• Provide regular updates on the system.
• Ensure all date inputs are done in a timely manner and according to agree dynamic.
• Ensure regular reports are created and shared with in country and HQ staff.
• Knowledge and Skills required of MIS or data management.
• Participates effectively in sensitive, complex, and/or high-impact relationships and networks.
• Builds strong relationships and trust with a broad range of stakeholders through openness and honesty.
• Maintain GOAL local NGO Mapping Database and ensure it is updated regularly.
• Ensure partner selection process is transparent, documented and aligned with GOAL Partnership process and procedures.
• Coordinate with Grants Management and Program teams to collect partner inputs for new proposals, concept notes and donor grant modification requests.

Job Responsibility#2: Partner Capacity Building

20% of Time: 

• Coordinate with GOAL Grants Management, Program and System teams in order to collect inputs and relevant information on partners’ gaps in capacities and training needs, develop work plans and mechanism for follow up and progress reporting.
• Assist partners with understanding GOAL required policies and procedures as per the sub-grant agreement and best practices (procurement, financial reporting, child safeguarding, etc.)
• Liaise with GOAL departments including Grants, programmes, MEAL, GESI, Safeguarding, MIS and Systems to identify ongoing partner priority capacity gaps and facilitate capacity-building support for partners.
• Support the Global Partnership Coordinator in ensuring that the partners’ GESI, Safeguarding, and Accountability policies meet the quality benchmarks by liaising with GOAL related departments.
• Maintain tracker on current partner policy revision dates and coordinate policy reviewal processes with relevant GOAL staff departments and partner. Coordinate feedback to partners on the reviewal process and revisions.

Job Responsibility #3:  Partnership Management and Performance Monitoring & Evaluation

30% of Time:

• Support GOAL Global Partnership Coordinator in implementing a two-way partnership evaluation process and evaluation framework in collaboration with other GOAL cross-cutting technical areas (Gender Equality and Social Inclusion, Protection, Accountability and Data Protection).
• Organize regular meetings to review GOAL and partner performance within the framework; lead on formulation of joint action plans to address issues and follow up on action plan implementation with relevant partners and GOAL staff.
• Assist the Global Partnership Coordinator in reporting to the Programme Quality Management on partnership performance; ensure that any critical concerns are flagged in a timely manner.

Job Responsibility #4:  Partner Reporting, Coordination and Communications

30% of Time:

• Support and contribute when required to the agenda and materials for partner grant opening meetings, in coordination with support functions and program staff, to ensure projects start with clear expectations of both parties.
• Support the communication with GOAL partners, and with all GOAL relevant departments for partnership related issues pertaining to performance monitoring including but not limited to indicators performance, objectives and status of action plans.
• Maintain the communication plans for GOAL MENA partners updated to facilitate understanding of available focal points and communication channels, and how to access them.
• Participate and lead when required, Partner Management Team meetings with GOAL and Partner focal points. Ensure meeting minutes are recorded and disseminated with action points. Lead on action point follow-up with GOAL and partner focal points.
• Ensure that partners’ contractual reports are reviewed and internal feedback from program and MEAL teams is compiled and sent to partners in a timely manner.

Other:

• Be an active participant in the Partnership Department, supporting the overall objectives and outputs of the Partnership Unit.
• Other duties as requested by the Partnership Coordinator.
• Provide cover for the Partnership Coordinator in his/her absence.

Requirements (essential)

• Bachelor’s degree in subject relevant to position (social science, business economics, information management, project management etc), or commensurate experience.
• 2-3 years working in the NGO sector in humanitarian programming with local partners.
• Fluency in English and Arabic, both written and oral.

Requirements (desired)

• Experience of donor compliance and managing institutional donor funding (e.g. BHA, UN, and ECHO would be an advantage.)
• Demonstrated experience in safeguarding principles and practices (preferrable).
• Strong understanding of Accountability, and MEL principles and processes.
• Experience with report writing for donors and other external audiences.
• Proficient in MS Office applications (PowerBI Preferrable).

Interested?

Then apply for this position via clicking on the “apply now” button and fill out the application form. All applicants must send a cover letter and an updated CV (no longer than four pages). Both must be in English. Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Application deadline is 4 September 2024.  

Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

“Please note that GOAL does not charge a fee of any kind or any other financial obligation at any stage of its recruitment process (application, interview, processing, training, induction) or other fees, or request information on applicants’ bank accounts. GOAL does not work with intermediary institutions and individuals or employment agencies during the recruitment process. If any fee or payment is requested from you at the application or any stage of the recruitment process, please do not respond.”

GOAL’ün, işe alım sürecinin (başvuru, başvuruların işlenmesi, mülakat, eğitim, oryantasyon) hiç bir aşamasında hiç bir şekilde ücret talep etmediğini, başvuru sahibine herhangi bir finansal yükümlülük yüklemediğini ya da başvuru sahibine ait banka bilgilerini talep etmediğini unutmayınız. GOAL işe alım süreci boyunca hiç bir aracı kurum ya da kuruluş yahut istihdam bürosuyla çalışmamaktadır. Eğer başvuru sırasında ya da işe alım sürecinin herhangi bir aşamasında sizden herhangi bir ücret ya da ödeme talep edilirse lütfen yanıt vermeyiniz.

General terms and conditions

Safeguarding

Children and vulnerable adults a must be safeguarded to the maximum possible extent from deliberate or inadvertent actions and failings that place them at risk of abuse, sexual exploitation, injury and any other harm. One of the ways that GOAL shows this on-going commitment to safeguarding is to include rigorous background and reference checks in the selection process for all candidates.

Accountability within GOAL

Alongside our safeguarding policy, GOAL is an equal opportunities employer and has a set of integrity policies. Any candidate offered a job with GOAL will be expected to adhere to the following key areas of accountability:

• Comply with GOAL’s policies and procedures with respect to safeguarding, Code of Conduct, health and safety, data protection and confidentiality, do no harm principles and unacceptable behaviour protocols.
• Report any concerns about the welfare of a child or vulnerable adult or any wrongdoings within our programming area.
• Report any concerns about inappropriate behaviour of a GOAL staff or partner.

This Job Description only serves as a guide for the position available. GOAL reserves the right to change this document. Any published closing dates are estimated.  Due to the nature of GOAL’s work we aim to fill vacancies as quickly as possible.  This means that we will close adverts as soon as we have found the right candidate and this may be before the published closing date.  We would therefore advise interested applicants to submit an application as early as possible.

Thank you.