Program Lead, Ebola Response

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 29 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees deliver lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions. If you're a solutions-driven, passionate change-maker, come join us in positively impacting the lives of millions of people world-wide for a better future. BACKGROUND: Responding to the world’s worst humanitarian crises in a great variety of roles, the International Rescue Committee’s staff is a force for humanity and hope. If you’re skilled and passionate, we would like to add your energy to ours. Through its Emergency Unit (EmU), the IRC is one of the world’s largest humanitarian agencies, leading rapid emergency responses that provide life-saving assistance, early recovery, and stabilization support to people affected by conflict, displacement, natural disasters, and complex emergencies across multiple contexts worldwide. We are committed to innovation, agility, and strong partnerships to deliver timely and effective humanitarian action. Active in public health, education in emergencies, cash and basic needs and protection and promotion of rights, we assist people from harm to home. The IRC recognizes that people affected by crisis and the actors closest to them are best placed, have the right, and should have the power and resources to respond and drive lasting change. We commit to increasing the share of funding channeled to local actors in emergencies, ask ‘Why not partner?’ whenever we plan programming, and partner as equals. CONTEXT: The Ministry of Public Health of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) declared the country's 17th Ebola outbreak on May 15, 2026, following laboratory confirmation of Bundibugyo virus disease (BVD) in Ituri Province. On May 17, 2026, WHO declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), and it has since become the largest Ebola outbreak ever reported in DRC and the fastest-expanding on record. The outbreak is unfolding in a highly complex humanitarian and security context marked by chronic insecurity, armed group activity, repeated population displacement, and high levels of cross-border movement, particularly with Uganda and South Sudan. The IRC is supporting containment of the outbreak in Ituri and North Kivu. IRC's primary focus is to support existing primary health care (PHC) facilities to ensure safe continuity of services, strengthen infection prevention and control (IPC) practices and infrastructure, raise community awareness of behaviors that limit further spread, and reinforce the protective environment, including through MHPSS support. JOB OVERVIEW: The position of Program Lead, Ebola Response (PL) is a member of the Ebola Response Senior Management Team and is integral to the successful implementation of IRC's programs in the affected provinces. Working under the direction of the Ebola Response Director, the PL will be responsible for overall leadership in the design, implementation, and management of the Ebola Response’s programs to address clients’ needs and priorities. She/he will be responsible for providing strategic direction of programs, conceptualizing and promoting innovations, and continuing to deepen the impact of IRC’s programs on the ground. The PL assists the Ebola Response Director in the integrated planning and implementation of activities crucial to the success of local programs. This includes internal and external coordination and stakeholder engagement, including with donors, government and non-government partners, and IRC technical and regional support teams; overseeing multi-sector project design and implementation; managing sector teams to propose, coordinate, and deliver quality programs aligned with strategic priorities and beneficiary needs; and managing strategic funding opportunity tracking, partnering and pre-positioning decisions. MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES: Program Strategy, Design and Fundraising

• Lead the operationalization of IRC's current Ebola Response strategy and actively engage in strategic planning processes to shape the response's longer-term direction.
• Perform regular analysis of the outbreak and ensure IRC's strategy and operational presence is responsive to those needs and highly mobile program models.
• Work closely with Coordinators and HQ-based Emergency Unit and Technical Unit staff to ensure that project design reflects IRC's program quality standards and adheres to industry best practices.
• Lead efforts to achieve sustainable program growth, proactively identifying opportunities for new programming initiatives and placing particular emphasis on securing multi-year funding to sustain them.
• Provide leadership and strategic support to program and grants teams as they develop competitive, evidence-based, and cost-effective funding applications.
• Provide guidance, strategies, and tools to ensure that program choices are grounded in the findings of needs assessments (drawing on both primary and secondary data), rigorous analysis, meaningful input from affected communities, a thorough understanding of context, technical best practices, and operational viability.
• Formulate integrated program initiatives that allow technical sectors to complement one another, while promoting the mainstreaming of protection principles and gender-responsive approaches throughout programming. Program Management — Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation
• Provide overall leadership of IRC's Ebola Response program portfolio, ensuring strategic coherence, well-managed growth, and full compliance with IRC and donor regulations.
• Build the capacity of program team members, both individually and as a team.
• Work with Program Coordinators and the Operations team to develop and adapt detailed, realistic, and feasible implementation plans.
• Collaborate with the Senior Management Team to uphold management, compliance, and performance standards, and to maintain effective systems for budget, knowledge, and risk management.
• Support program staff in capturing, documenting, and disseminating lessons learned and best practices, feeding them into future project design.
• Work with program staff to develop robust monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plans, including methodologies and tools that strengthen data collection, analysis, and reporting quality.
• Review M&E and accountability data with program staff to identify and address gaps in operational performance.
• Champion IRC's "partner first" approach, building strategic, respectful, and empowering relationships with local organizations, and ensuring partners are actively engaged in decision-making, program design, and service delivery, positioning IRC as a partner of choice.
• Ensure partnership management is high-quality, accountable, and collaborative, including oversight of partner-led delivery, adaptive technical support, and consistent application of IRC's partnership framework and principles. Grants Management
• Provide strategic leadership in developing and executing a comprehensive funding strategy: expanding and strengthening the donor base, driving excellence in grants management and compliance, strengthening program and grants information systems, and contributing to high-quality proposals and reporting.
• Oversee internal and external reporting in coordination with the Ebola Response Director across programs and finance, ensuring reports are well-written, timely, and meet donor, IRC, and partner requirements; conduct thorough review of all external re