Partnerships Coordinator - Programme at Danish Refugee Council (DRC)

Purpose

DRC Nigeria is looking for an experienced Partnerships Coordinator - Programmes to fulfill a new role, serving as the focal point for supporting development of new partnership relationships, programs, and capacity development in Nigeria. They will be responsible for developing strategic framework and systems to strengthen DRC Nigeria's partnerships with national NGOs andCSOsNigeria. The Partnerships Coordinator – Programmes will play a lead role in strengthening DRC Nigeria's approaches to partnership, building on global partnership principles and civil society engagement strategies, aligned with DRC Nigeria’s 2025 Strategy. This role works across departments to establish systems and approaches for identifying, pursuing, and maintaining effective partnerships that contribute to DRC’s strategic objectives. The Partnerships Coordinator - Programmes will map and identify new partnership opportunities, assess partner organization capacities, facilitate relevant capacity strengthening support, and provide ongoing support to the partner organizations throughout the project lifecycle.

Duties and Responsibilities

Partnership Development

• Conduct and update partner mapping.
• Support and lead the partnership selection and due diligence process including leading preliminary meetings with partners, leading on DRC’s partnership assessment, and supporting partners to submit the needed documentation for partnerships.
• Provide support to partners on required partnership documentation such as MoUs, agreements, budgets and supporting documents.
• Establish and maintain a partnership database that maps out partner capacity, influence, and strategic alignment with DRC programming.

Capacity Assessment and Management

• Coordinate across Coordination Unit and Area Offices to conduct partner organizational capacity assessments and analyse assessments to identify specific capacity building and organizational development needs, and provide training and targeted capacity strengthening support.
• Review existing partnerships resources and identify additional needs to support capacity assessment, monitoring, compliance, project cycle management, etc.
• With the Partnerships Coordinator – Support, develop comprehensive capacity assessment tools related to project and programme design and management, including grants management processes.
• Establish and maintain productive relationships between NGO partners and staff, and with DRC Program teams.
• Hands-on support to partners on capacity-building incl. being embedded in partners’ offices.

Grants Management

• Work with the Grants Management Specialist to ensure that partnership tools and financial standards meet donor requirements and allow for adaptation and flexibility and advocate for these changes at country and donor level.
• Lead individual grant opening meetings with partners and review key resources including reporting templates, schedule of deadlines, communications processes, and highlight key parts of sub-grant agreement.
• Maintain comprehensive partner report tracker and communication with partners around reporting deadlines. Ensure partners have correct templates, understand quality standards for reporting.
• Provide review of partner reports, offering supportive guidance and feedback to partner organizations as part of capacity strengthening plans.
• With Finance, monitor partner spending, ensuring partners are compliant with eligibility rules, are monitoring project spending, and remain within obligated amounts.
• Issue agreement modification for amendments including obligation increases, budget realignments, and no-cost extensions.

Qualifications

• At least five years of professional experience in a relevant field, preferably in an NGO or humanitarian actor
• Three years' experience preferred with project or programme management and proven organizational skills
• Significant experience engaging with national partners and local/government authorities
• Strong knowledge of donor compliance rules and regulations.
• Demonstrated experience in training and coaching.
• Demonstrated capacity to work collaboratively in a multi-cultural environment with competing priorities, tight deadlines, and in a complex emergency context.
• Ability to live and work in an insecure and high stress environment.
• Willingness to travel to other DRC bases in Nigeria.
• Excellent writing, editing and communications skills in English required.
• Univeristy degree in a relevant field such as international development, humanitarian assistanace, political science or other related field
• Certificates and advanced degrees an advantage.
• Hausa and other languages used in northeast Nigeria an asset, but not essential to the position.

General Regulations

• The employee shall follow DRC instructions on safety, confidentiality, and ethical guidelines, including the Code of Conduct and the Humanitarian Accountability Framework
• Employees should not engage in any other paid activity during the DRC contract period without prior authorization.
• Employee should not engage in any activity that could harm DRC or the implementation of any project during the DRC contract period.
• Employee should not give interviews to the media or publish project-related photos or other material without prior authorization.
• Employee shall return all borrowed equipment for the project to DRC after the end of the contract period or upon request.