Kenya/Nigeria/Senegal: Climate Resilience Designer

Oct 4, 2022 | International Rescue Committee
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The Airbel Impact Lab aims to design, test, and scale life-changing, cost-effective solutions with people affected by conflict and disaster. With over 100 million people displaced, the world is facing an unprecedented crisis. To address the evolving and growing nature of this crisis requires not just more aid, but new thinking. Airbel works to develop breakthrough solutions by combining creativity and rigor, openness and expertise, and a desire to think afresh with the experience of a large-scale implementing organization.

Job Overview

The IRC is seeking to hire a full-time user-centred designer with experience in agro-pastoral and/or climate resilience work to join and launch projects within our climate resilience portfolio in Africa, the Middle East, and/or Asia. You will help us find the most impactful and cost-effective products, services and delivery systems possible. We plan to increase the resilience of agro-pastoral livelihoods in the areas hardest hit by climate change and conflict – with a focus on women, who are disproportionately affected by climate impacts and already face significant challenges in agriculture. Our multi-disciplinary teams build, facilitate and contribute on projects that span research and ideation through prototyping, piloting, evaluation and scaling.

In the first year, the Climate Resilience Designer will take forward work on improved seed security solutions and identify potential new solutions for disaster risk reduction. They will facilitate the articulation of the key problem areas, conduct landscaping exercises of existing solutions, and coordinate a multidisciplinary team of colleagues to identify solutions with high impact potential to advance to the prototyping stage.

Major Responsibilities:

  • Ensure UCD tools and solutions are fit-for-purpose: Tailor the GRIP’s UCD practices, activities, and outputs to our contexts and our colleagues’ bandwidth across the various stages of design including: design research, testing, and product development.
  • Product design: Guide the team in considering solutions spaces based on existing evidence, user research, scalability, and market analysis. This may entail collaboration with Behavioral Science colleagues to create behavioral maps, proposal of prioritization frameworks, facilitation of brainstorms on potential scaling pathways, and syntheses of key informant interviews.
  • Prototype Creation and Testing: Connect the dots between user research, evidence and expert direction from the team, and generating testable prototypes. Examples of prototypes include low-fidelity print outs, clickable mockups, sample messages, high fidelity mock-ups of service experience, user journeys, and illustrations to test for understanding.
  • Prototype testing: Work with the team to test prototypes with key users and collaborators (remote and/or in person where possible).
  • Final assets: Ensure final assets are of high quality, print ready, and implementation ready. Sample outputs include insights from the initial user research, product strategy, program feedback, program implementation, solution storyboards, and final program recommendations.
  • Sourcing and Building Teams: Build and maintain a local network of collaborators and partners who can support the development of new products and services, including individuals, collectives, implementers and start ups. You should also have experience building relationships, onboarding, training and facilitating collaboration among diverse partners with varying degrees of familiarity with design.
  • Piloting: Co-create instruction guides for using and implementing final assets, partner with the monitoring and evaluation team to draft questions to be answered during the piloting phase, and adapt the final assets and guides after the pilots based on feedback from the research conducted by the M&E/project team.

Job Requirements:

Work Experience:                                                                                 

  • User-Centered Design experience of 5+ years
  • Digital design experience of 2-3 years.
  • Portfolio demonstrating digital and non-digital design projects in low-resource settings in the Middle East, Africa, and/or Asia.
  • Preferred experience working in agriculture, livelihoods, and climate resilience.
  • Preferred experience working with smallholder farmers, low-literacy adults, displaced populations including refugees, and other vulnerable groups.

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:

  • Visual Design: Building high quality visual design from scratch and create simple, credible brand systems. This includes creating graphics, illustrations, printed and digital materials.
  • Interaction Design: Creating hand-drawn, static and clickable mockups that are clean and appropriate for team, partner and user communication; able to use established patterns for web, mobile and tablet apps.
  • User Interface Design: Making effective choices of UI elements and create new elements which are designed and styled effectively.
  • Qualitative Research: Designing and implement effective quality research programs in person and remotely that accommodate the other demands and constraints often placed on team members. Training others in qualitative research as well as creatively leverage proximate skills.
  • Experiment Design: Able to design an effective lean experiment, analyze results and help partners and team members interpret data and make decisions.
  • Tools: In line with our efforts to de-colonialize our tools and practices, modify tools and UCD approaches to suit the context and the implementer. Willing to seek out and learn new tools when necessary.
  • Communication: Excellent verbal, written and visual communication skills as well as, an overall ability to be clear and concise in all communications, especially with non-designers. Conducts themselves with respect and empathy when engaging with clients and colleagues. Seeks out and incorporates feedback into their work.
  • Flexibility: Creates contingency plans and is able to adjust quickly and with good humour when things don’t go according to plan

Language Skills: 

  • English
  • Strong preference for French working proficiency

Working Environment: 

  • Mix of remote and in person work. Applicants must have a home or alternate workspace they can effectively complete their work from during regularly scheduled work hours.
  • Up to 30% travel to the Middle East, Africa, and/or Asia is expected, Covid-19 restrictions permitting.

The IRC is an equal opportunity employer and we value diversity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.

IRC et les employés de IRC doivent adhérer aux valeurs et principes contenus dans le IRC WAY (normes de conduite professionnelle). Ce sont l’Intégrité, le Service, et la Responsabilité. En conformité avec ces valeurs, IRC opère et fait respecter les politiques sur la protection des bénéficiaires contre l’exploitation et les abus, la protection de l’enfant, le harcèlement sur les lieux de travail, l’intégrité financière, et les représailles.