Ireland’s Rapid Response Roster

Please note: Ireland's Rapid Response Roster is not currently accepting applications.

Under the Rapid Response Roster, Ireland deploys highly-skilled and experienced individuals to humanitarian crises around the world.

The roster works with Ireland’s UN partners to assist with humanitarian and emergency response efforts.

Comprising over 100 humanitarian experts, the roster members have specialised skills in gender, nutrition, education in emergencies, information management, engineering, humanitarian coordination, protection and other areas.

Victor Okeyo, one of Ireland’s Rapid Response Roster experts, deployed this year to UNICEF Zambia to help improve water quality monitoring and ensure safe drinking water.

Victor helped to train Environmental Health Technicians to monitor water quality at community water points. He also supported a data system that provides real-time tracking of water quality. This data system provides an early warning for low chlorine levels, so corrective action can be taken. Reliable water quality testing means safer water for these communities.

One of Ireland’s Rapid Response Roster experts, Evin Joyce, deployed this year to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Democratic Republic of Congo to help those forced to flee their homes.

Evin worked with local associations in Goma, DRC to support Internally Displaced People (IDPs), including those with disabilities. Evin’s work helped these local associations survey 1775 IDPs with disabilities living in 16 camps around Goma in just two weeks. They then used a €1,000 grant to buy things like crutches and pay for sign language classes and physiotherapy sessions, helping to meet some of the needs identified in the survey. These local organisations can often reach people in need quickly and effectively.

Grace Maclean, one of Ireland’s Rapid Response Roster experts, deployed this year to Tigray, Ethiopia to help reduce malnutrition in communities impacted by conflict and drought.

Grace worked with the regional government health bureau, NGOs, and UN agencies as a Nutrition Sector Coordinator. She helped ensure that agencies were maximizing resources for the treatment of malnutrition. This work has helped families like Teamu’s, whose twin babies, Robel and Hewan, were diagnosed with severe malnutrition at a local nutrition clinic supported by GOAL and Irish Aid. They received therapeutic food provided by UNICEF and are now gradually improving and gaining weight.

Joseph Macharia, one of Ireland’s Rapid Response Roster experts, deployed to the UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office to help scale up their nutrition programmes.

Joseph provided country offices with technical guidance on scaling up their response, a challenging task considering that severe wasting affects 1 in 20 children in the region. He helped put systems in place to prevent the misuse of nutrition commodities meant for rehabilitating children. He also helped support fundraising for digital solutions to manage supplies and beneficiary information within nutrition clinics.

Triona Pender, one of Ireland’s Rapid Response Roster experts, deployed this year to Mozambique to support the World Food Programme (WFP).

Triona conducted consultations with community groups across Mozambique, including groups of persons with disabilities. She assessed how well WFP was sharing information and communicating with its project participants. As a result of Triona's work, a plan is now in place to make WFP programmes more inclusive, and persons with disabilities are taking on more leadership positions. Triona is leading the training of all WFP staff in Mozambique to better understand disability and disability inclusion.