• Dates: The assignment should commence in October 2021 with the draft partnership arrangements due in February 2022 (The timeframe may be negotiable)
• Days: Up to 33 days of intermittent work
• Location: Flexible within Australia

Background

The Australian Humanitarian Partnership (AHP) is a five-year (2017-2021) disaster response and disaster management partnership between the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and six leading Australian humanitarian NGOs: the Church Agency Network – Disaster Operations (CAN DO) led by Caritas Australia, CARE Australia, Oxfam Australia, Plan International Australia, Save the Children Australia, and World Vision Australia. In addition, the Australian NGOs (ANGOs) have their own consortium arrangements bringing a total of 23 Australian and international agencies and organisations into the AHP. The AHP is supported by an external Support Unit (AHPSU). The AHP was established to enable rapid response to sudden onset disasters, provide assistance to protracted crises globally, and to support disaster preparedness and resilience in the Pacific and Timor-Leste through the Disaster READY program. The AHP was officially launched in 2017 and the design underpinning the mechanism is currently being updated for a second five-year phase (2022-2027).

The proposed partnership brokering process will align with the ongoing design update of the overall AHP mechanism and design refresh of the Disaster READY resilience and preparedness program. It will provide an in-depth review of the partnership and explore the extent to which the partnership has developed over the first five-year phase, identify any continuing challenges with the partnership model, and outline ways in which the partnership can be further strengthened in the next five-year phase.

The partnership broker will explore the relationships between lead Australian NGO partners, DFAT and the AHPSU. It will also include (though to a lesser extent), the secondary relationships with other key Australian civil society humanitarian mechanisms, thought-leaders and coordination bodies including the Australian Red Cross, Australia Assists/RedR Australia and the Australian Council for International Development/Humanitarian Reference Group (ACFID/HRG).

It is expected that the new AHP partnership principles will also help to inform the individual partnership arrangements for consortiums that Australian NGOs leads currently have in place for the AHP mechanism. These individual arrangements are governed by the lead agencies and present as very different models depending on the complexity of the consortium structures. However, high-level partnership principles will assist in ensuring minimum standard approaches and commitments to partnership arrangements at the different levels of the mechanism.

There is an opportunity for the partnership brokering process to explore how partnership is being articulated through the long-term Disaster READY program, within different countries, where structures have been put into place to encourage greater coordination and collaboration.

Role of the AHP Partnership Broker

The Partnership Broker will facilitate the partnership review process and the development of the new AHP Phase 2 partnership arrangements. This will importantly integrate with the AHP design update, including the refresh of the Pacific Disaster READY design.

For more information, please refer to the Terms of Reference attached.

Specifications

The Partnership Broker will require the following skills:

• Accredited partnership broker with minimum 15 years’ experience in international development and a proven background in partnership brokering and facilitation, particularly of complex and multi-layered programs.
• Experience facilitating and/or developing partnership arrangements with Australian NGOs and civil society actors and Pacific NGOs and civil society partners.
• Experience working remotely with partners, including remote interviews and workshops.
• Demonstrated understanding of localisation and working through local partnerships.
• Strong communication and writing skills and a proven ability to deliver high quality products.

Desirable skills include:

• Strong understanding of disaster risk management, disaster risk reduction and humanitarian issues, with specific understanding of key cross-cutting areas and of the Pacific humanitarian context.
• Strong understanding of DFAT’s humanitarian and civil society partnerships.
• Experience working in the Pacific and Timor-Leste and/or with partners active in the region.
• Post-graduate tertiary qualifications in international development or equivalent.