Country Director

International Rescue Committee

Lead the country program by establishing and maintaining open and professional relations with colleagues, promoting a strong team spirit throughout the country program, and providing guidance, oversight, and resources to enable staff to perform successfully.

Lead strategic representation and positioning with Lebanese government authorities, major institutional donors, UN agencies, international and local NGOs, and coordination fora, ensuring IRC remains a partner of choice. Develop and maintain a high level of understanding of donor priorities and planned funding.

Provide leadership for strong, mutually beneficial, and effective partnerships with Lebanese and local organizations.

Seek out and pursue opportunities to raise the profile of the work of IRC and its partners in Lebanon, as well as the lives and the needs of the people IRC seeks to serve.

Play a leadership role in efforts to improve humanitarian response coordination in Lebanon.

Lead country program collaboration with colleagues in the IRC s MENAU region to deliver regional programming and advocacy.

Ensure leadership and management processes enable the IRC to effectively adapt to contextual changes and fully leverage opportunities to expand humanitarian access and assistance.

Collaborate closely with regional leadership and neighboring country programs to address cross-border and regional issues coherently and effectively.

Ensure the strategic vision and direction of the country program is aligned with IRC s strategy to serve people with responsive, high-quality, and accountable programming, and secure the resources necessary for realization.

Ensure the strategy action plan is of quality, implemented and guides decision making, to achieve IRC s ambitions in Lebanon and contribute to IRC s strategic objectives globally.

Ensure program quality through consistent use throughout the country program of rigorous assessment, design, and proposal development and review processes; comprehensive monitoring & evaluation, accountability and learning systems; staff development investments; and partner organization capacity strengthening.

Actively seek out and pursue opportunities to expand, in line with the IRC s mission, humanitarian, resilience and development programming in Lebanon, in terms of populations and areas served.

Ensure timely submission of competitive, responsive, and high-quality proposals, and support colleagues in negotiations with donors.

Lead implementation of IRC s objective of expanding partnerships with Lebanese civil society organizations, and ensuring strong collaborative, principled partnerships that deliver effective and efficient program outcomes.

Remain current on national and regional issues impacting the country program and partners and develop responsive strategies to changing contexts.

Ensure the SMT delivers the leadership, management structures, staffing skills and approaches, and operational systems required to ensure a coherent one IRC approach to achieve Lebanon and regional objectives.

Identify opportunities for appropriate expansion and growth of programs, supported by the acquisition and investment of human resources.

Take primary responsibility for overall strategic and operational emergency response readiness and action for the country program.

Lead Country Context Analysis, Emergency Response Planning and Strategy Development as well as In-Country Emergency Response Teams

Ensure the country program maintains robust emergency preparedness and response capacity, including crisis management structures, clear decision-making protocols, and surge readiness to enable rapid operational scale-up or adaptation in volatile contexts.

Lead and oversee the management timely, well-coordinated, and principled responses to emergencies, including conflict escalation, displacements, critical incidents, and program disruptions.

Engage with Regional and Global Emergency Response Teams prior to, during and post emergency response, in line with organizational Emergency Guidelines.

Represent IRC with peer organizations, the UN and other emergency response agencies operating in Lebanon.

Ensure coordinated emergency response in the event of cross-border/regional emergencies.

Take primary responsibility for overall management of safety and security for the country program.

Lead and oversee the management of all security risks and incidents, ensure timely, well-coordinated, and ensure primacy of the wellbeing and security of our clients, staff and partners.

Create and maintain a culture of safety and security awareness throughout the country program, including training and briefings that prepare all country program staff for security incident prevention and response.

Keep security, evacuation, and contingency plans current and accessible to country program staff.

Maintain close coordination and communication with the Regional Safety and Security Director on safety and security concerns and evolving issues that could adversely affect IRC staff or operations.

Liaise with the regional office, with peer agencies and use the tools and information portals available to keep abreast of all security-related matters; In case of necessity, ensure adequate roll-out of emergency procedures.

Supervise and mentor direct-report staff, including communicating clear expectations, setting performance objectives, providing regular and timely performance feedback, and leading documented semi-annual performance reviews.

Provide direct oversight and guidance to multi-disciplinary teams across cross-cultural settings, ensuring performance excellence and alignment with strategic objectives.

Effectively manage staff across various functions and locations, including setting clear expectations, performance monitoring, and accountability frameworks.