Inclusive Systems Coordinator

Location: Benishangul Gumuz or Gedaref (TBD), Ethiopia

Deadline: 13 Feb 2026

Job Description

Overall purpose of the role:

The Hope, Empowerment and Resilience (HER) Project is a multi-country, consortium-led initiative implemented in Sudan and Ethiopia with financial support from Agence française de Développement (AfD). The project aims to strengthen the resilience of displacement-affected women and girls by addressing immediate humanitarian needs while laying the foundations for inclusive, gender-responsive, and sustainable systems recovery across protection, health and nutrition, economic recovery, and social cohesion.

Operating in highly complex and fragile environments, characterized by displacement, thin and distorted markets, weakened public systems, and evolving political and economic constraints, the HER Project adopts an inclusive systems approach. This approach emphasizes working through and strengthening local systems and actors, rather than substituting them, while remaining responsive to urgent needs and protection risks.

The Inclusive Systems Coordinator is a core technical position within the Consortium Management Unit (CMU). The role provides strategic leadership, technical guidance, and hands-on support to ensure that HER interventions are designed and implemented using coherent, context-appropriate systems approaches that balance humanitarian responsiveness with longer-term resilience and recovery objectives.

The Inclusive Systems Coordinator is responsible for leading and embedding inclusive systems thinking and practice across the HER Project. The role ensures that interventions are deliberately designed to strengthen local economic, social, and institutional systems, particularly those affecting women and girls, while remaining feasible and safe in fragile, displacement-affected contexts. The position operates at the interface between the CMU and country implementation teams, ensuring alignment between strategic oversight and field-level implementation.

Your main duties and responsibilities will be:

A. Systems-Based Technical Design and Quality Assurance

• Provide technical leadership and quality assurance on the application of inclusive systems approaches across the HER project lifecycle, including design, implementation, adaptation, and scale considerations.
• Guide the consortium in applying systems analysis methodologies appropriate to context (e.g. market systems analysis, institutional mapping, political economy and risk analysis), with particular attention to gender, power, and exclusion dynamics.
• Support the design of layered and sequenced intervention packages that combine immediate support with medium- and longer-term systems strengthening outcomes.
• Advise on when and how to balance direct delivery with facilitation, partnerships, and system-level influence in fragile and volatile environments.

B. Economic Recovery and Women’s Economic Empowerment

• Provide technical guidance on inclusive economic recovery strategies, including market-based programming, livelihoods, and financial inclusion approaches that are viable within displacement-affected and conflict-impacted systems.
• Ensure that women’s economic empowerment is embedded across systems interventions, addressing structural barriers such as access to skills, finance, markets, services, and decision-making power.
• Support the identification and engagement of private sector, community, and public system actors relevant to women-led recovery and livelihoods pathways.

C. Integration Across Sectors and HDP Nexus Programming

• Work closely with technical leads across protection, health and nutrition, peacebuilding, and social cohesion to promote integrated systems programming.
• Support cross-sectoral design that reduces protection risks, mitigates GBV, and strengthens social cohesion while pursuing economic and systems outcomes.
• Contribute to Technical Working Groups (TWGs) to ensure coherence between sectoral interventions and overarching systems objectives.

D. Adaptive Management, MEAL, and Learning

• Collaborate with the MEAL and Accountability Coordinator to ensure that MEAL systems are fit-for-purpose for tracking systems-level change, indirect outcomes, and contribution pathways.
• Support the development of theories of change, results chains, and learning questions that reflect systems logic.
• Promote adaptive management by supporting teams to interpret evidence, test assumptions, and adjust interventions in response to changing contexts and system behavior.
• Document and disseminate learning on inclusive systems practice within the consortium and to relevant stakeholders.

E. Capacity Strengthening and Partner Support

• Build the capacity of consortium partners, country teams, and operations staff to understand and apply inclusive systems approaches in their respective roles.
• Provide targeted coaching, mentoring, and training on systems thinking, facilitation skills, and adaptive programming.
• Support organizational readiness by identifying constraints and opportunities related to applying systems approaches within humanitarian and nexus programming.

F. Contribution to Governance and Strategic Decision-Making

• Act as a core technical advisor within the CMU, contributing to strategic discussions, risk analysis, and decision-making.
• Provide systems-focused analysis and recommendations to inform CMU and Project Steering Committee (PSC) deliberations.
• Support alignment between consortium strategy, field realities, and AfD expectations on sustainability and systems change.

Experience and technical competencies:

Experience

• Minimum 7–10 years of progressively responsible experience in inclusive systems, market systems development, economic recovery, or related fields.
• Demonstrated experience applying systems approaches in fragile, conflict-affected, or displacement contexts.
• Strong understanding of the HDP nexus and experience designing or supporting nexus-oriented programming.
• Proven experience working with local partners, private sector actors, and public institutions.
• Experience in East Africa and/or Sudan/Horn of Africa contexts is a strong asset.

Technical Competencies

• Strong expertise in systems analysis and facilitation-based programming.
• Experience integrating gender equality and protection considerations into systems interventions.
• Familiarity with adaptive management and complexity-aware MEAL approaches.
• Excellent analytical, facilitation, and strategic thinking skills.

Education: (include certificates, licenses etc.)

• Master’s degree in Economics, Development Studies, Social Sciences, Business Management, or a related field.
• A Bachelor’s degree combined with substantial relevant experience may be considered.

Languages: (indicate fluency level)

• Full professional proficiency in English (required).
• Arabic and/or Amharic strongly preferred.

In this position, you are expected to demonstrate DRC’ five core competencies: 

Striving for excellence: You focus on reaching results while ensuring an efficient process.

Collaborating: You involve relevant parties and encourage feedback.

Taking the lead: You take ownership and initiative while aiming for innovation.

Communicating: You listen and speak effectively and honestly.

Demonstrating integrity: You uphold and promote the highest standards of ethical and professional conduct in relation to our values and Code of Conduct, including safeguarding against sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment.

We offer

Contract length: 12 Months

Contract Type: National Contract

Band: G1 – Non- Management

Designation of Duty Station: Benishangul Gumuz, with frequent travel to Gedaref and Addis Ababa (TBD) or Gedaref, with frequent travel to Benishangul Gumuz and Addis Ababa (TBD)

 Start date:  ASAP

Salary and conditions will be in accordance with Danish Refugee Council’s Terms of Employment for National employees

 

How to Apply

Application process

All applicants must upload a cover letter and an updated CV (no longer than four pages) in English through: >>https://drc.ngo/job?id=175196. Applications sent by email will not be considered.

Closing date for applications: Feb 13, 2026

For further information about the Danish Refugee Council, please consult our website drc.ngo.

Gender Equality: DRC is committed to achieving gender parity in staffing at all levels. In light of this, women candidates are particularly encouraged to apply to bridge the gendergap.

Equal Opportunities: DRC is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and we are committed to creating an inclusive environment based on mutual respect for all employees. We do not discriminate on the basis of age, sex, disability status, religion, ethnic origin, colour, race, marital status, or other protected characteristics

We strongly encourage female candidates to apply for the position!

DRC considers all applicants based on merit.