Early Childhood Development Senior Manager – Damascus

About the role

The Early Childhood Development (ECD) Senior Manager will provide technical leadership and strategic guidance to strengthen the quality, relevance, integration and scale‑up of ECD programming in Syria. The role supports the design, adaptation, implementation and continuous improvement of evidence‑based approaches while building the technical capacity of IRC staff and partners.

Key responsibilities

• Develop and contextualize country‑specific technical standards and guidance for child‑ and caregiver‑facing ECD programming.
• Ensure ECD curricula, tools and program models align with local and national early childhood development and education standards.
• Lead technical quality assurance, adaptation and rollout of ECD training packages for IRC staff and partners.
• Provide technical guidance to guarantee activities are age‑appropriate, inclusive, gender‑sensitive and conflict‑sensitive.
• Collaborate with the MEAL team to strengthen monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning systems.
• Work closely with local partners, municipalities, government counterparts, NGOs and internal IRC units to ensure contextual relevance and sector integration.
• Support scaling up of ECD interventions across multiple governorates.

Required profile

• Minimum 7‑10 years of experience in early childhood development programming in humanitarian or conflict‑affected settings.
• Proven experience managing multi‑disciplinary teams and overseeing large‑scale programs.
• Strong knowledge of national ECD/ECE standards and international best practices.
• Experience collaborating with NGOs, government agencies and donor coordination mechanisms.
• Excellent analytical, planning and reporting abilities.
• Fluency in English; Arabic proficiency preferred.

Required skills