Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) Coordinator at International Rescue Committee

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.

On 15 May 2026, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) declared its seventeenth Ebola outbreak after cases were confirmed in Ituri Province. The outbreak has since spread to North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uélé, and Tshopo. As of 12 August 2026, 4,566 confirmed cases and 2,128 deaths had been recorded across 53 of 140 health zones. The response is unfolding amid conflict, displacement, and weak health systems, with persistent gaps in infection prevention, WASH infrastructure, and essential supplies that heighten the risk of healthcare-associated transmission. These challenges continue to increase the risk of healthcare-associated transmission, compromise the safety of health workers and patients, and disrupt the continuity of essential health services.

In response, IRC has rapidly launched an integrated Ebola emergency response in close collaboration with the Ministry of Health, provincial and health zone authorities, and other partners. The response combines Health, Infection Prevention and Control (IPC), WASH, Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE), Protection, and Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) interventions to strengthen outbreak prevention, detection, and response at both health facility and community levels. To support the implementation and scale-up of these interventions, IRC is recruiting a Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) Coordinator, for an initial 12-month assignment, to provide continued strategic technical leadership and operational support for RCCE programming. The RCCE Coordinator will be responsible for the delivery of RCCE programming for the Ebola response, including cross-cutting support to mainstream accountability and safeguarding across IRC’s multisectoral response.

Scope of work

The RCCE Coordinator will provide technical oversight and support the delivery of community-based RCCE activities for the Ebola response, working closely with RECOs, community leaders, health authorities, and other sectors. He/She will support RECOs to conduct two-way responsive information and risk communication, community engagement, rumor management, community feedback, early alert promotion, and engagement on Ebola prevention measures. Where required, the Coordinator may support activities in health facilities, ensuring strict adherence to IPC procedures and appropriate PPE use in high-risk areas.

Reporting Lines: The RCCE Coordinator will report to the Ebola Deputy Director of Programs, working in close coordination with emergency team and country program counterparts, particularly the Protection, Health, and WASH/EH Coordinators. The position directly supervises the RCCE Managers (Ituri and North Kivu), with technical oversight of the RCCE Officers, and community engagement officers across the response.

Strategy and technical leadership

• Lead the continued implementation of IRC's RCCE strategy for the Ebola response, and workplan, including community-based activities, RECO engagement, capacity building, monitoring, and adaptation based on community feedback and emerging risks,scale-up plans, staffing, resource requirements, and geographic prioritization.
• Lead implementation and technical support to the expansion of RCCE activities to new or emerging areas for IRC’s Ebola response.
• Ensure RCCE programming is aligned with IRC's Emergency Response Framework, national response priorities, and global technical standards.
• Contribute to programme development and resource mobilisation for RCCE, including development of concept notes, proposals, budgets, donor reports, and other programme documents to support sustained RCCE programming
• Build safeguarding risk analysis and relevant risk mitigation measures into project design and implementation.
• Champion a culture of effective and respectful partnerships. Promote partner-led programming in line with IRC’s “why not partner?” and “partner as equals” approach.
• Ensure partnership considerations are embedded throughout the emergency response plan, with local partners actively engaged in response design and delivery, so that each program's approach reflects how IRC can best support, reinforce, and complement local actors.

Program Leadership and Quality

• Lead the ongoing management, staffing, and capacity-building of the RCCE team and RECOs, ensuring adequate coverage across targeted communities and continuity of key RCCE functions, and promoting collaboration and cross-learning across Ebola response sites.
• Ensure RCCE activities are implemented according to quality standards and adapted to the local context, community needs, feedback, rumors, and evolving Ebola risks.
• Ensure effective RCCE programme management, including activity planning, monitoring, procurement, budget and expense tracking, MEAL indicators, documentation, and timely programme/project reporting.
• Coordinate closely with the wider DRC country programme and other sectors to ensure alignment between Ebola RCCE programming, community structures, and longer-term RCCE, health promotion, and community engagement strategies.
• Actively contribute to the relevant sections of Partner Capacity Analysis (PCA) and the subsequent development of partner support plans.
• Review and provide feedback on partner technical tools, reports, and data as required. Collaborate with partners on recommended adaptations or process improvements.

People Management

• Directly manage, coach, and support the professional development of RCCE Managers, Officers, Assistants, and RECOs, ensuring clear workplans, regular supervision, and performance management.
• Lead recruitment, onboarding, and continuous capacity-building of RCCE staff and RECOs, including induction, technical training, coaching, and mentoring on RCCE approaches and Ebola-related communication.
• Foster a collaborative, safe, inclusive, and accountable team culture across dispersed RCCE teams and community-based structures.

Technical Support

• Identify and execute new approaches to strengthen community engagement, increase awareness and understanding of the IRC’s work, and open, two-way communication between the community and the IRC. Ensure that RCCE proactively solicits and addresses community perceptions, information needs and gaps, preferences, priorities, and barriers to social behavior change.
• Work closely with the IPC/WASH teams to ensure that they are incorporating inclusive, two-way community engagement activities into their work, and to ensure that sufficient community engagement and information activities precede IPC/WASH work in new locations.
• Work closely with the Protection teams to support and strengthen their community engagement activities. Serve as a bridge between the IPC/WASH activities and the Ebola community engagement and risk mitigation activities carried out by Protection
• Maintain up-to-date awareness of community perceptions of and feedback on Ebola response efforts, particularly those led by the IRC. This may involve secondary document reviews, carrying out community meetings, etc.
• Lead and strengthen the work of RECOs and other community structures to ensure regular community sensitization, dialogue, feedback collection, rumor identification and referral of alerts through established mechanisms.
• Establish and strengthen community feedback and accountability mechanisms, ensuring that community concerns, rumors, perceptions, and information needs are systematically documented, analyzed, referred, and used to adapt RCCE activities and programme approaches.
• Ensure RCCE activities and messages are informed by community feedback, social and behavioral data, and evolving Ebola risks, with particular attention to inclusion of women, youth, persons with disabilities, and other potentially marginalized groups.=

Stakeholder Coordination

• Represent and / or coordinate with focal points to ensure IRC’s active engagement in key response coordination fora, including RCCE, Communicating with Communities, and MHPSS.
• Maintain working relationships with UN and NGO partners carrying out RCCE activities to promote strong coordination, information sharing, and referrals across the response.
• Contribute to strong internal coordination and information sharing across IRC’s response, including emergency and country team focal points for Health, WASH, Protection, Safeguarding, and others.

CLICK HERE TO APPLY