Senior International Institutional Development Consultant

Position Information

Position Title: Senior International Institutional Development Consultant

Number of Positions: One (1)

Contract Type: International Individual Consultancy Contract

Contract Duration: (12) months

Extension: Possible, subject to satisfactory performance, funding availability, and programme requirements

Duty Station: Iraq – Hybrid Working Arrangement

Working Modality: Approximately 65% remote and 35% field missions within Iraq

Reporting Line: Executive Director

Technical Supervision: Project Director

Supervisory Responsibility: Three (3) National Institutional Development Consultants

Nationality Eligibility: Open to qualified international applicants of all nationalities

Organizational Background

Human for Human Organization (H4H) is an Iraqi national non-governmental organization implementing humanitarian, development, institutional capacity-building, livelihoods, economic empowerment, peacebuilding, and civil society-strengthening programmes in cooperation with international development partners.

H4H seeks to apply internationally recognized standards in governance, institutional development, programme management, financial accountability, human resources, safeguarding, Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL), and organizational sustainability.

Through this international recruitment process, H4H invites highly qualified international experts to provide strategic leadership and specialized technical assistance for an institutional development programme supporting partner organizations in Iraq.

Programme Context

The institutional development programme aims to strengthen the governance, leadership, operational effectiveness, accountability, resilience, and long-term sustainability of selected partner organizations.

The programme will provide participating organizations with:

• Comprehensive Organizational Capacity Assessments.
• Customized Institutional Development Plans.
• Governance and Board-development support.
• Organizational restructuring and management-system development.
• Institutional policies, manuals, and Standard Operating Procedures.
• Leadership coaching and executive mentoring.
• Human resources and performance-management development.
• Financial management and internal-control strengthening.
• Sustainability and resource-mobilization strategies.
• Training, coaching, mentoring, and continuous technical assistance.

All interventions must be aligned with internationally recognized organizational-development practices while remaining appropriate to Iraq’s legal, institutional, operational, and cultural context.

Position Summary

The Senior International Institutional Development Consultant will serve as the programme’s lead international technical advisor and will be responsible for planning, designing, coordinating, supervising, and assuring the quality of all institutional-development interventions.

The Consultant will work directly with Boards of Directors, Executive Directors, senior management teams, and relevant personnel to assess institutional capacities, identify organizational risks and development priorities, and support the implementation of practical and sustainable organizational reforms.

The Consultant will provide strategic leadership, executive coaching, technical guidance, and quality assurance across governance, strategic planning, organizational structure, human resources, financial management, internal controls, programme management, MEAL, accountability, resource mobilization, and organizational sustainability.

The Consultant will also supervise, mentor, and provide technical direction to three National Institutional Development Consultants and ensure that all programme products and deliverables meet international quality standards.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

Organizational Capacity Assessments

The Consultant will:

• Lead comprehensive Organizational Capacity Assessments for participating organizations.
• Develop, select, or adapt internationally recognized organizational assessment methodologies and tools.
• Assess governance, leadership, strategy, organizational structure, programme management, human resources, financial management, procurement, internal controls, risk management, safeguarding, MEAL, accountability, information management, partnerships, and sustainability.
• Conduct document reviews, interviews, focus-group discussions, workshops, and stakeholder consultations.
• Identify institutional strengths, capacity gaps, operational weaknesses, compliance risks, and development priorities.
• Prepare evidence-based assessment reports containing findings, recommendations, priorities, and proposed corrective actions.
• Ensure that assessments are participatory, confidential, gender-responsive, conflict-sensitive, and appropriate to the local context.

Institutional Development Planning

The Consultant will:

• Develop customized Institutional Development Plans based on assessment findings.
• Define institutional development objectives, activities, responsibilities, timelines, required resources, and performance indicators.
• Prioritize actions according to organizational risk, urgency, feasibility, and anticipated impact.
• Develop capacity-development roadmaps and implementation schedules.
• Support partner organizations in integrating institutional priorities into their strategic and operational plans.
• Establish mechanisms for monitoring, reviewing, and updating Institutional Development Plans.

Governance and Board Effectiveness

The Consultant will:

• Review governance arrangements, bylaws, Board structures, committee mandates, and decision-making processes.
• Advise Boards on their strategic, fiduciary, ethical, oversight, and accountability responsibilities.
• Strengthen the separation and coordination between governance and executive-management functions.
• Develop or revise Board charters, committee terms of reference, governance calendars, codes of conduct, and conflict-of-interest procedures.
• Facilitate Board-development workshops, governance retreats, self-assessments, and performance-improvement processes.
• Promote transparent, inclusive, accountable, and ethical organizational decision-making.
• Strengthen mechanisms for organizational integrity, disclosure, accountability, and prevention of conflicts of interest.

Organizational Structure and Management Systems

The Consultant will:

• Review organizational structures, departments, functions, staffing arrangements, and reporting lines.
• Recommend structures appropriate to each organization’s mandate, strategy, programme portfolio, and available resources.
• Develop or revise organizational charts, departmental mandates, job descriptions, delegation frameworks, and responsibility matrices.
• Strengthen internal coordination, reporting, communication, supervision, and decision-making processes.
• Identify duplication, unclear responsibilities, structural gaps, and operational bottlenecks.
• Develop practical recommendations to improve efficiency, accountability, and organizational performance.

Institutional Policies and Procedures

The Consultant will lead or supervise the development and review of institutional policies, manuals, and Standard Operating Procedures, which may include:

• Governance and Board policies.
• Strategic and operational planning procedures.
• Human Resources Manual.
• Recruitment and performance-management procedures.
• Finance and Accounting Manual.
• Procurement and asset-management policies.
• Delegation-of-authority and internal-control frameworks.
• Risk-management policy and organizational risk register.
• Anti-fraud and anti-corruption policy.
• Whistleblowing and complaints policies.
• Conflict-of-interest policy.
• Safeguarding and child-protection policies.
• Prevention of Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment policy.
• Gender equality, diversity, inclusion, and non-discrimination policies.
• Data-protection and information-security procedures.
• Programme and project-management manuals.
• MEAL policy and procedures.
• Beneficiary feedback and accountability mechanisms.
• Partnership, sub-grant, and sub-recipient management procedures.
• Security, safety, crisis-management, and business-continuity procedures.

All institutional documents must be practical, internally consistent, and aligned with applicable laws, donor requirements, organizational needs, and relevant international standards.

Organizational Change Management

The Consultant will:

• Design and guide organizational change-management processes.
• Assess organizational readiness for change.
• Identify institutional resistance, risks, enabling factors, and stakeholder concerns.
• Develop internal communication and stakeholder-engagement plans.
• Support management teams in introducing new policies, structures, systems, and working practices.
• Promote staff participation and institutional ownership of proposed reforms.
• Monitor implementation and recommend corrective measures where organizational changes encounter delays or resistance.

Leadership Development and Executive Coaching

The Consultant will:

• Provide confidential executive coaching to Executive Directors and senior managers.
• Advise senior leaders on strategic decision-making, delegation, communication, team leadership, and performance oversight.
• Develop leadership competency and professional-development plans.
• Facilitate leadership workshops, management retreats, and organizational reflection sessions.
• Support senior leaders in addressing complex organizational and management challenges.
• Promote adaptive, inclusive, ethical, accountable, and results-oriented leadership.
• Develop approaches for leadership succession and institutional knowledge transfer.

Human Resources and Performance Management

The Consultant will:

• Assess human-resource structures, policies, procedures, and practices.
• Strengthen workforce planning, recruitment, onboarding, retention, professional development, and succession planning.
• Develop or review competency frameworks, job descriptions, grading structures, and performance-management tools.
• Support the establishment of transparent and objective staff-performance appraisal systems.
• Develop staff learning and professional-development plans.
• Strengthen staff welfare, duty of care, diversity, inclusion, safeguarding, and workplace accountability.
• Promote fair, transparent, merit-based, and non-discriminatory human-resource practices.

Financial Management and Internal Controls

The Consultant will:

• Review financial-management structures, budgeting systems, accounting procedures, and internal controls.
• Support the development or revision of financial policies and authorization matrices.
• Strengthen segregation of duties, financial reporting, cash-flow planning, cost allocation, and budget monitoring.
• Review procurement, asset management, inventory control, and financial-documentation procedures.
• Advise partner organizations on fraud-risk management, donor compliance, audit readiness, and corrective-action tracking.
• Support the development of systems for managing restricted and unrestricted funding.
• Coordinate with financial specialists when highly specialized financial or accounting expertise is required.

MEAL, Accountability, and Knowledge Management

The Consultant will:

• Assess and strengthen Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning systems.
• Support the development of results frameworks, indicators, data-collection tools, and reporting mechanisms.
• Strengthen beneficiary feedback and complaints-response mechanisms.
• Improve organizational learning, documentation, knowledge management, and evidence-based decision-making.
• Support data-quality assurance, confidentiality, data protection, and information management.
• Ensure that lessons learned are incorporated into strategic planning and programme improvement.

Sustainability and Resource Mobilization

The Consultant will:

• Assess institutional sustainability and financial resilience.
• Develop or strengthen organizational sustainability and resource-mobilization strategies.
• Support funding diversification, donor mapping, partnership development, and donor-engagement planning.
• Strengthen institutional profiles, capability statements, organizational positioning, and partnership approaches.
• Advise organizations on sustainable service-delivery and revenue-generation models where appropriate.
• Support strategic partnerships with donors, government institutions, international organizations, the private sector, academic institutions, civil society organizations, and professional networks.

Training and Capacity Building

The Consultant will:

• Conduct institutional capacity-building needs assessments.
• Design and deliver workshops, seminars, coaching sessions, technical clinics, and mentoring programmes.
• Develop training curricula, presentations, facilitator guides, participant materials, templates, and practical tools.
• Apply participatory adult-learning and professional facilitation methodologies.
• Provide customized technical assistance between formal training activities.
• Measure the effectiveness of capacity-building interventions and recommend necessary improvements.

Supervision and Quality Assurance

The Consultant will:

• Supervise and provide technical direction to three National Institutional Development Consultants.
• Prepare work assignments and coordinate the consultants’ technical activities.
• Mentor the national consultants and strengthen their professional and technical capacities.
• Review and approve assessment tools, reports, plans, policies, manuals, training materials, and other technical products.
• Ensure consistency of methodology and quality across all participating organizations.
• Facilitate regular technical meetings and learning sessions.
• Promote the transfer of international knowledge and expertise to national personnel.
• Ensure that all deliverables meet the organization’s and donor’s quality requirements.

Coordination, Monitoring, and Reporting

The Consultant will:

• Coordinate with the Executive Director, Project Director, project team, donors, partner organizations, and national consultants.
• Participate in inception, planning, coordination, review, and donor meetings.
• Conduct regular field missions and technical monitoring visits within Iraq.
• Maintain accurate records of consultations, activities, findings, recommendations, and follow-up actions.
• Prepare monthly progress reports identifying achievements, challenges, risks, lessons learned, and upcoming priorities.
• Prepare reports following each field mission.
• Present technical findings and recommendations to senior management and relevant stakeholders.
• Prepare and submit a comprehensive final consultancy report.

Expected Deliverables

The Consultant will be expected to deliver, at a minimum:

1. Inception report, detailed methodology, and six-month work plan.
2. Organizational Capacity Assessment methodology and assessment tools.
3. Organizational Capacity Assessment reports for participating organizations.
4. Institutional Development Plans containing measurable actions, responsibilities, indicators, and timelines.
5. Governance-development recommendations and Board-strengthening tools.
6. Revised organizational structures and reporting arrangements.
7. Priority institutional policies, manuals, and Standard Operating Procedures.
8. Leadership coaching and executive-mentoring plans.
9. Capacity-building curricula, presentations, tools, and participant materials.
10. Sustainability and resource-mobilization strategies.
11. Institutional-development monitoring and performance-tracking tools.
12. Technical supervision and quality-assurance reports.
13. Field mission and monitoring reports.
14. Monthly progress reports.
15. Final consultancy report documenting results, institutional improvements, challenges, lessons learned, and recommendations.

The detailed number, scope, and submission schedule of the deliverables will be agreed upon during the inception phase and incorporated into the approved work plan.

Required Academic Qualifications

Applicants must possess:

• A PhD or Master’s degree in Organizational Development, Business Administration, Public Administration, Organizational Psychology, Institutional Governance, Strategic Management, Leadership, International Development, or another closely related discipline.
• Professional certification in Organizational Development, Change Management, Executive Coaching, Project Management, Institutional Governance, Human Resources Management, Monitoring and Evaluation, or another relevant field is highly desirable.

Required Professional Experience

Applicants must demonstrate:

• A minimum of fifteen (15) years of progressively responsible professional experience in organizational development, institutional strengthening, governance, management consulting, or international development.
• At least ten (10) years of experience leading organizational-development or institutional capacity-building programmes.
• Extensive experience advising Boards of Directors, Executive Directors, chief executives, and senior-management teams.
• Proven experience conducting Organizational Capacity Assessments and preparing Institutional Development Plans.
• Demonstrated experience developing governance systems, institutional policies, organizational structures, strategic plans, and operational frameworks.
• Strong experience in change management, leadership development, executive coaching, and organizational transformation.
• Experience working with international NGOs, civil society organizations, government institutions, international organizations, or donor-funded programmes.
• Demonstrated experience working with international donors and applying donor compliance and accountability requirements.
• Experience supervising multidisciplinary and multicultural consulting teams.
• Proven ability to deliver multiple high-quality technical products within demanding timelines.
• Experience working in fragile, conflict-affected, transitional, or politically sensitive contexts.

Desirable Experience

The following will be considered an advantage:

• Previous professional experience in Iraq, the Middle East, or the MENA region.
• Experience supporting Iraqi civil society organizations or public institutions.
• Knowledge of Iraq’s legal, regulatory, donor-compliance, and operational environment.
• Experience with localization, locally led development, capacity sharing, and equitable partnerships.
• Experience integrating gender equality, social inclusion, safeguarding, accountability, and conflict sensitivity into institutional-development programmes.
• Experience supporting humanitarian, development, peacebuilding, livelihoods, governance, or civil society programmes .
• Experience introducing digital management systems, organizational dashboards, or knowledge-management platforms.
• Relevant publications, institutional manuals, assessment tools, research papers, or professional presentations.

Required Competencies

• Strategic Leadership.
• Organizational Development.
• Institutional Governance.
• Organizational Assessment.
• Change Management.
• Executive Coaching and Mentoring.
• Policy and Systems Development.
• Capacity Building.
• Stakeholder Engagement.
• Team Leadership and Technical Supervision.
• Analytical and Critical Thinking.
• Problem Solving and Decision-Making.
• Negotiation and Facilitation.
• Cultural and Political Sensitivity.
• Professional Communication.
• Technical Report Writing.
• Presentation Skills.
• Quality Assurance.
• Results-Based Management.
• Professional Integrity and Confidentiality.

Language Requirements

• Excellent written and spoken English is mandatory.
• Demonstrated ability to prepare professional reports, policies, manuals, and presentations in English is essential.
• Arabic language mandatory.
• Knowledge of Kurdish or another language relevant to the Iraqi context will be considered an additional asset.
  
  

Travel and Working Arrangements

The consultancy will follow a hybrid working arrangement consisting approximately of:

• 65% remote work, including document reviews, virtual meetings, technical-product development, reporting, online coaching, and coordination.
• 35% field-based work, including assessments, consultations, workshops, executive coaching, monitoring visits, and technical-support missions within Iraq.

The selected Consultant must be available and medically fit to undertake field missions within Iraq, subject to security assessments and the organization’s applicable safety and travel procedures.

Arrangements concerning international travel, visas, insurance, accommodation, and in-country transportation will be specified in the consultancy contract.

Application Requirements

Interested international candidates must submit the following documents in English:

1. Updated Curriculum Vitae clearly demonstrating relevant international experience.
2. Cover Letter explaining the candidate’s suitability for the consultancy.
3. Copies of academic certificates.
4. Copies of relevant professional certifications.
5. At least two examples of relevant institutional-development reports, manuals, policies, tools, or publications, where available.
6. Confirmation of availability and earliest possible starting date.
7. Confirmation of willingness and ability to undertake field missions within Iraq.

Applications must be submitted by email to: jobs@h4hi.org 

Application Deadline: 22/10/2026 at 4:00 PM Baghdad time

The email subject line must state:

Application – Senior International Institutional Development Consultant – H4H-HR-VA-2026-001

Incomplete applications, applications submitted through unofficial channels, or applications received after the deadline may not be considered.