USA/Remote: Environmental Health Global Practice Lead

Mar 3, 2024 | International Rescue Committee
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The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world's largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 40 countries and more than 25 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees delivers lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions.  

IRC’s Technical Excellence team is comprised of five teams or sector “Units” which have deep expertise in their respective fields: Education, Economic Wellbeing, Governance, Health, and Violence Prevention and Response, as well as teams which provide measurement and finance/grant management support. Technical teams are also matrixed with a team that focuses on the quality and content of cross-sectoral programming in emergency responses.



IRC’s Technical Excellence teams offer five core services to IRC country programs and the wider organization:

  1. Program Design: Technical Excellence teams support country and regional teams to design state of the art programming, incorporating the best available evidence, cost data, and expertise of what has worked elsewhere, with the knowledge that country teams, partner organizations and its clients bring to the table.
  2. Quality Assurance:  Technical Excellence teams partner with their measurement teams to design and drive the use of indicators to measure progress towards outcomes; they partner with regional and country teams to review program delivery progress and help address implementation challenges and adapt interventions to changed circumstances.
  3. Business Development:  Technical Excellence teams partner within and outside the IRC to design winning bids and identify winning consortia; they deploy technical expertise in public events and private meetings to position IRC as a partner of choice.
  4. Research & Learning: Technical Excellence teams partner with the research lab to design cutting edge research to fill evidence gaps, and with country teams to learn from implementation such that they continuously improve future design and delivery.
  5. External Influence: Technical Excellence teams showcase the IRC’s programs, technical insights and learning in order to influence and improve the humanitarian sector’s policy and practice.



Technical Excellence is currently going through a change process called "Regional and Technical Alignment." Technical Excellence teams are doing this to ensure that the impact of its programs and the influence of its ideas create meaningful change for people affected by crisis. This next phase of IRC's commitment to program quality will more deliberately resource and link global thought leadership with practice on the ground. Updated Technical Unit structures will have new roles with clearer mandates. The Global Practice Lead is a new leadership role introduced by this change process.

Health Unit

IRC’s health programs comprise the largest proportion of its overall program budget and are essential to both IRC emergency response and long-term programming worldwide. 

The Health Technical Unit is a dynamic team of more than 70 professionals in Primary Health Care, Sexual and Reproductive Health, Nutrition, Mental and Environmental Health. They provide IRC’s 40 plus country offices and emergency response team with world class technical expertise, capacity building and a cross country view of what works to achieve outcomes in terms of both evidence and practical experience. They also lead focused research agenda, influencing donor policy to support interventions and innovations proven cost effective to achieve positive change in people’s lives.



Job Overview 

The Global Practice Lead, Environmental Health is the organizational leader for Environmental Health for the Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) department and is a core member of the Health Unit’s Leadership Team. They are responsible for devising and leading strategies to raise the quality, impact, and scale of IRC’s Environmental Health programming. 

The Global Practice Lead in Environmental Health will ensure the scope, quality and relevance of global technical standards, including the generation and promotion of evidence in their technical area. Global Practice Lead will closely collaborate with Regional Leads , EH Technical Advisors, and Technical Coordinators in promoting technical best practice in CRRD programming. They will facilitate Technical Unit-led and high impact strategic business development by providing excellent technical insights and developing and maintaining strategic relationships and networks. In line with the Health strategy, the Global Practice Lead will lead strategic planning for the environmental health practice area. The Global Practice Lead, Environmental Health reports into the Senior Director, Health Unit and may manage highly specialized experts/specialists colleagues to generate global evidence and best practice as their portfolio requires. 

The EH lead is responsible for establishing a center of excellence on water and coordinate the Health Unit efforts on addressing climate change in health programming.

Major Responsibilities 

Strategy, Program Design and Business Development

  • Act as the organizational leader for CRRD in Environmental health internally and externally
  • Lead strategic direction and delivery planning for Environmental Health in line with the organizational global strategy (both S100 and Health Strategy)
  • Lead the development of sustainable and scalable water solutions, mitigating the impacts of climate change on water security and human health.
  • Responsible for identifying global areas of programmatic risk in EH and elevating issues to Regional Leads and Health Unit leadership. 
  • Collaborate with other Global Practice Leads to promote integrated program designs within Health, and across all IRC sectors that increase scale and deepen impact, 
  • Facilitate collaboration across Health, Nutrition and EH Practice Areas on the development of climate adaptation, mitigation, and anticipatory actions.
  • Lead Technical Unit led global business development for Environmental Health and support strategic project level proposals.
  • Lead coordination with AMU to drive fundraising from Public and Institutional donors and with ER to drive fundraising from Private donors to meet the Health Unit strategic priorities related to EH 



Global Practice Implementation Support

  • Responsible for drawing on evidence-based best practice to provide technical oversight of IRC’s global technical standards, methodologies, and tools for EH, in partnership with Technical Advisors and specialists
  • Accountable for the development of a limited number of high-value tools and methodologies to better integrate cross-cutting issues into EH programs (e.g., gender equality, diversity and inclusion, climate adaptation, etc.).
  • Accountable for establishing information and knowledge management systems that support Regional Leads and Technical Advisors stay up to date on global technical standards, methodologies, and tools.
  • Establish competency framework for EH practice area and work closely with Regional Leads to identify competency gaps and drive capacity strengthening.
  • Accountable for ensuring Technical Advisors and Technical Coordinators have the tools and resources that are needed to measure EH programs.
  • Oversee Technical Unit-led strategic awards in EH, working closely with regional Technical Advisors as applicable and the Grant Operations and Analytics Team
  • Line manage global specialists, as applicable.
  • Support Technical Advisors and Technical Coordinators with thorny technical problems, career planning support, and mentorship, as appropriate.



Research, Data, Knowledge Management, and Organizational Learning

  • Set up and lead a Community of Practice and other channels for EH to ensure pro-active and inclusive management with sustained learning, development, innovation, and best practice sharing. 
  • Coordinate with Regional Leads and Technical Advisors to lift up program learning for cross-sharing and incorporation into global best practice.
  • Guide research and evidence use efforts in EH, the Climate-health nexus, working closely with colleagues and leaders in Airbel, the Health  Technical Unit, other technical units, and regional colleagues.
  • Provide technical inputs to EH-specific MEAL tools and methodologies, and support data interpretation in learning routines.



External Influence, Relationships and Representation

  • Act as a key strategic advisor to Policy & Advocacy, Research & Innovation, and External Relations teams on advocacy campaigns and priority policy and practice shifts related to EH. 
  • Responsible for identification, development, and maintenance of strategic relationships and global partnerships with relevant stakeholders (e.g. donors, UN agencies, NGOs, research and educational institutions, private sector actors) in EH Global Practice area. 
  • Represent IRC in external forums as relevant.



Key Working Relationships 

  • Position Reports to:Senior Director, Health Unit, CRRD Technical Excellence
  • Member of Health Unit’s Leadership Team
  • Direct Reports:1-2 Technical Experts/Specialists, TU-led Project Directors as applicable



Key Internal Relationships: 

  • Health Unit Senior Management Team
  • Health Unit’s Deputy Director, Enabling Areas Leads and other Global Practice Leads
  • Health Regional Lead team across 6 regions, and regional Technical Advisors
  • Policy Solutions, Advocacy Influence, and Systems Change Global Teams
  • CRRD Senior Management Team and Leadership Group; Regional Leadership Teams
  • Global leaders in the areas of ERD, Education, Governance
  • Global HQ and AMU, EHAU, Airbel Team
  • Key External Relationships: INGO counterparts; UN Agencies, Public and Private Donors



Desired Experience and Skills 

  • Established or growing recognition as an expert in the practice area, at regional or global level, with a minimum of 12+ years of progressive experience of designing, leading and implementing programs with 7+ years in the Environmental Health
  • Demonstrated experience leading programs in fragile/humanitarian settings and across the humanitarian development nexus.
  • Strong track record of driving uptake of evidence-based practice
  • Demonstrated experience in sectoral strategy design and planning.
  • Experience with sectoral policy and advocacy efforts and campaigns for change (as relevant)
  • Excellent communication, influencing, and storytelling skills. 
  • Excellent management and leadership skills including coaching, mentoring, and performance management.
  • Demonstrated ability to identify and convert business development opportunities for self and staff. 
  • Demonstrated ability to influence across a wide range of diverse stakeholders internally and externally.
  • Demonstrated ability to shape the vision and agenda within the domain area they are working.
  • Ability to work, manage, and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment; outstanding business acumen, critical thinking, problem solving and decision-making skills required.
  • Superb inter-personal, written and verbal communication skills with ability to collaborate across countries, cultures, and departments. 
  • Track record of scaled innovations preferred, ideally including experience working on both digital and analog solutions.
  • Fluency in English required; Arabic, French and/or Spanish also strongly preferred.
  • Ability to travel globally up to 25% of the time, occasionally on short notice.



Education: Master’s degree in environmental health, Public Health and/or related fields or an equivalent professional experience background is required. Sound training on the use of data and research evidence for programmatic decisions and rigorous analytic skills are an advantage.



Compensation: Posted pay ranges apply to US-based candidates. Ranges are based on various factors including the labor market, job type, internal equity, and budget.  Exact offers are calibrated by work location, individual candidate experience and skills relative to the defined job requirements.



US Benefits: The IRC offers a comprehensive and highly competitive set of benefits. All US employees are eligible for sick time, a 403b retirement savings plans: up to 4.5% immediately vested matching contribution, plus an 3-7% additional IRC contribution, and an Employee Assistance Program which is available to its staff and their families to support in times of crisis and mental health struggles.



In addition, full-time employees are eligible for 10 US paid holidays, 20-25 paid time off days, disability & life insurance, medical, dental, and vision insurance (employee contribution starting at $135, $7, and $5 per month respectively) and FSA for healthcare, childcare, and commuter costs. Part-time employees are eligible for a proportionate amount of paid time off. These additional benefits apply to employees who work at least 6 months within a 12 month time period.

Standard of Professional Conduct: The IRC and the IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in the IRC Way – its Code of Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Accountability, and Equality.


Commitment to Gender, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: The IRC is committed to creating a diverse, inclusive, respectful, and safe work environment where all persons are treated fairly, with dignity and respect. The IRC expressly prohibits and will not tolerate discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or bullying of the IRC persons in any work setting. IRC aims to increase the representation of women, people that are from country and communities it serves, and people who identify as races and ethnicities that are under-represented in global power structures.