Manager, Supply Chain Management (Re-Announced)

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, with a network of 191-member National Societies (NSs). The overall aim of IFRC is “to inspire, encourage, facilitate, and promote at all times all forms of humanitarian activities by NSs with a view to preventing and alleviating human suffering and thereby contributing to the maintenance and promotion of human dignity and peace in the world.” IFRC works to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people before, during and after disasters, health emergencies and other crises.

IFRC is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (Movement), together with its member National Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The work of IFRC is guided by the following fundamental principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality.

IFRC is led by its Secretary General, and has its Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The Headquarters are organized into three main Divisions: (i) National Society Development and Operations Coordination; (ii) Global Relations, Humanitarian Diplomacy and Digitalization; and (iii) Management Policy, Strategy and Corporate Services.

IFRC has five regional offices in Africa, Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and the Americas. IFRC also has country cluster delegations and country delegations throughout the world. Together, the Geneva Headquarters and the field structure (regional, cluster and country) comprise the IFRC Secretariat.

IFRC has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment and other forms of harassment, abuse of authority, discrimination, and lack of integrity (including but not limited to financial misconduct). IFRC also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles.

About Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA)

Community engagement and accountability is a way of working that recognises and values all community members as equal partners, whose diverse needs, priorities, and preferences guide everything we do. We achieve this by integrating meaningful community participation, open and honest communication, and mechanisms to listen to and act on feedback, within our programmes and operations. Evidence, experience, and common sense tells us when we truly engage communities and they play an active role in designing and managing programmes and operations, the outcomes are more effective, sustainable, and of a higher quality. 

Working in partnership with communities is at the core of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. We commit to involving people in the management of aid, holding ourselves accountable to those we seek to assist, and building on local capacity in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement’s Code of Conduct in Disaster Relief. The Principles and Rules for Red Cross and Red Crescent Humanitarian Assistance commit to including transparent communication and feedback mechanisms in emergency responses. In December 2019, the first set of ‘Movement-wide Commitments for Community Engagement and Accountability’ was approved at the Council of Delegates.

The Movement is not alone in its efforts to strengthen community engagement and accountability. There are several global initiatives also working to support this aim. These shared commitments support collective action on improving community engagement across agencies and include the Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS), which sets out nine commitments that organisations and individuals involved in humanitarian response can use to improve the quality and effectiveness of the assistance they provide, the Interagency Standing Committee Commitments on Accountability to Affected People, and the Grand Bargain Commitments to increasing the participation of affected communities in addressing humanitarian needs.

About the Protection Gender and Inclusion (PGI)

The CEA approach also works together with PGI components as these both are a crosscutting issue that to be integrated in the programs and operations as an organization’s value. The Protection Gender and Inclusion identified as one of the strategic priorities in Strategy 2030 in its objective to mitigate violence discrimination and exclusion with particular attention to people who are vulnerable, excluded and marginalised. The PGI Policy approved at the 2022 General Assembly supported by the PGI Operational Framework developed in 2021 accentuate integration of value, power and inclusion as key features. The PGI policy define IFRC stand on addressing violence, discrimination and exclusion as “interlinked and to effectively address causes, risks and consequences of any of these issues we need to address them together” further affirmed by the framework that Protection Gender and Inclusion “integrates issues of gender, diversity and inclusion into any protection response to make it more appropriate, adapted and effective”.

The core emphasis of PGI approach has been to be mainstreaming PGI into programme and operations while also emphasising specific themes in mainstreamed and specialised work addressing the marginalised, excluded and vulnerable and to develop the tools, guidance and procedures that addresses them in an integrated way.

To support the programmatic guidance, institutional structures and systems to be developed and refined, with core PGI competencies being established for all staff and volunteers, and specific competencies being established for those specialised in PGI. Accompanying training and accreditation processes ensure a consistent quality across the national society.

All these policies, strategies, and tools have one single common aim to provide better help for people affected by violence, discrimination and exclusion.