Program Manager

Location:

Position Location:

 

Description

Title: Program Manager – Darfur

Department: Programs

Location:  North Darfur (In-country deployment subject to security clearance and remotely based in Chad)

Reporting to: Deputy Country Director – Programs

Direct reports:  Not Applicable

Budget responsibility: Not Applicable

* This role is classified as requiring advanced pre-employment checks

 

ABOUT Relief International.

Relief International (RI) is a leading non-profit organization working in 15 countries globally to relieve poverty, ensure well-being and advance dignity. We specialize in fragile settings, responding to natural disasters, humanitarian crises, and chronic poverty.

RI combines humanitarian and development approaches to provide immediate services while laying the groundwork for long-term impact and resilience. We focus on health/nutrition, education, economic opportunity, and water, sanitation, hygiene (WASH) programming while integrating protection, environment/climate change, and conflict mitigation in partnership with the communities we serve.  We empower communities to find, design and implement the solutions that work best for them.

RI includes the three corporate members of the RI Alliance: RI-US, RI-UK, and MRCA/RI-France. Under our alliance agreement, we operate as a single, shared management structure.

 

About our Programs.

RI is active in 15 countries around the world, including some of the most fragile: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen.  Often, RI is the only organization providing assistance to highly vulnerable communities.

RI employs about 5,000 staff and auxiliary workers

97% of staff are local nationals and there are about 90 international (expat) staff.

 

2021 programs budget is about $125M

RI receives funding from a broad range of institutional donors – US, UK, Europe, and the UN, to delivery life-saving and resilience building programming with communities and local and international partners.  RI supports solutions that reinforce and improve upon existing in-country systems. Where such systems do not exist or are chronically underperforming, RI’s crisis response lays the foundation for long-term, sustainable change.

 

About our Country Program/ Regional Programs.

Africa/ Asia Region

RI operates in nine countries in the Africa/Asia region: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, South Sudan, and Sudan, with a focus on the four RI sector pillars: Health, WASH, Education and Economic Opportunity.

RI currently employs more than 3,000 staff (direct and indirect) in the Africa/Asia region and implements a range of emergency response and development programs valued at approximately $50 million USD on an annual basis.

 

Position Summary.

As part of the country Programs Team within RI Sudan, the Program Manager (PM) will support Program and Portfolio Management for North Darfur. The PM works with the Deputy Country Director of Programs and Technical Coordinators to provide ongoing support to Darfur teams.

Key Responsibilities and Duties.

The PM will execute the following common set of duties and practices related to portfolio management, contributing excellent writing, analysis, and communication skills and exhibiting initiative, flexibility, creative thinking, and problem-solving skills:

Program Development Support

·      Write, and edit proposal narratives, concept notes, donor reports, and other business/program development documents when assigned as part of proposal teams.

·      Support assessments and program design workshops as needed ensuring strategic alignment with country and regional strategies

·      Ensure all submitted proposal packages are filed and accessible to country and regional teams in close collaboration with the PD Team.

·      Program Management Support

·      Provide comprehensive in-person and remote guidance and support with the implementation of sound project cycle management in accordance with RI’s Program Management Framework (PMF)

·      Support timely project mobilization for all projects in the country, as well as closeout for existing projects, involving relevant country program team and regional team and ensuring follow-up and appropriate documentation is in place

·      Ensure that all project staff are on board and providing services as expected

·      Ensure timely submission of procurement requests

·      Participate in project review meetings and provide regular project progress updates to the DCD Program and SMT.

·      Support and ensure that the program teams regularly update, share, and follow project management tools, such as detailed implementation plans, spending projections, procurement plans, and M&E plans as set out in RI’s Mobilization Tool

·      Work with the country MEAL Coordinator to support MEAL activities and ensure they are carried out regularly, including data collection & analysis, monitoring of project progress against established work plans, monitoring of established indicators, and utilization of results to inform program adaptation and adjust to program requirements

·      Travel to field offices and project sites to provide support, monitoring, and capacity building as per program needs, including gap-filling of key program positions and seconded health and nutrition staff in the health facilities

·      Lead the induction and onboarding of newly recruited Program staff

·      Provide program input for monthly updates to RI’s Leadership Team through monthly/weekly meetings, monthly management reports, and local authorities/line ministries quarterly reports

·      Ensure timely submission of weekly and monthly data from the health facilities and other project sites

·      Ensure timely submission of monthly BVAs/projections to the finance team.

Grants Management Support

·      Ensure high-quality content and compliance with guidelines and requirements for donor reports. Provide final copy edit and/or support in writing assigned sections, upon request. When needed, deploy to country programs to assist in writing reports.

·      Ensure that donor reports are prepared and submitted to the grants manager on time

Budget Management

·      Support in the development of financial management tools and the monitoring of budgets

·      Cross-check detailed transactions and review budget versus actual (BVA) spending reports to determine status of program burn rate.

·      Liaise with financial managers and technical managers to ensure both parties are aware of spending rates

·      Work with the Country Director, Area Managers, Technical managers and Country Finance Manager to ensure spend-down plans and cash projections are developed and monitored.

·      Assist in staff salary allocations and financial planning.

·      Support the development of procurement plans and operational analyses.

Communications and Representation Support

·      Collaborate with Project Managers/Leads, Technical Coordinators, DCDs, and Grants team to gather information for bi-weekly Sitreps. Utilize standard templates and produce high-quality reports for internal and external dissemination.

·      Create impactful and compelling content that highlights RI Sudan’s work, impact stories and testimonials – this involves writing success stories and short articles to engage the audience and raise awareness about RI Sudan’s work.

·      Coordinate and participate in regular management meetings with field, RSO and GSO colleagues, including the documentation and sharing of the minutes and action items, encourage overall program cohesion through coordination and information sharing with and between program teams, RSO and GSO

Safeguarding

·      Uphold and promote RI’s commitment to ensuring the safeguarding and safety of the vulnerable communities we serve.

·      Consistent with RI’s safeguarding and protection policies, ensure all people who come into contact with Relief International are as safe as possible.

 

Role Requirements.

This position demands a highly dynamic, proactive, autonomous and flexible individual with solid and effective, quality project cycle and grant management skills who is ready to provide substantive contributions and explore advancing their leadership capacity for achieving results in a demanding and fast paced environment.

·      An excellent communicator and team player with fluency in English and who is at ease working in a highly diverse team, capable adapting communication styles to different audiences.

·      Master’s degree in Public/Global Health. However, a bachelor’s degree in a medical-related field (nursing/midwifery/medicine/public health) with a non-medical/health master’s degree in International Development, Humanitarian Studies, Management Studies, or related field in alignment with the relief and development sectors is welcomed.

·      Demonstrated progressive professional experience managing humanitarian/development programming or supporting the management of programs

·      Exceptional and demonstrated skills in program cycle management, covering the entire program cycle

·      Five (5) years’ experience managing multi-donor programs

·      Familiarity with US Government grants, as well as ECHO/EC and or/ UN grants

·      Excellent independent and collaborative report writing and data analysis skills

·      Demonstrated ability to coordinate complex activities, meet deadlines, and exercise sound judgment and discipline

·      Logical and critical thinking skills, and a comfort working with complex budgets and spreadsheets

·      Strong independent task management skills and techniques, ability to prioritize and organize own workload

·      Willingness to think outside the box, approach challenges with creative solutions

·      Comfortable absorbing workload under stress periods

·      Superior oral and written communication skills in English, including consensus building and triangulation of information from multiple stakeholders

·      Demonstrated ability to work effectively as part of a team with a high degree of drive, initiative and autonomy

·      Willingness to accept and absorb direct critique and participate in two-way dialogue with peers and managers to improve work quality and results

·      Proven high level of computer literacy and advanced Microsoft Office Suite skills (with emphasis on Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

·      Ability to travel internationally to support country programs

RI Values:

We uphold the Humanitarian Principles: humanity, neutrality, impartiality and operational independence. We affirmatively engage the most vulnerable communities.

We value:

·      Inclusiveness

·      Transparency and Accountability

·      Agility and Innovation

·      Collaboration

·      Sustainability