Capacity Development Director

Pact seeks a Capacity Development (CD) Director for the USAID-funded Strengthening Youth and Women’s Civic Participation Activity which aims to increase collaboration, sustainability, and resilience of civil society and independent media to advance the inclusion, participation and leadership of youth and women in Sudan. The activity will apply locally led, problem-driven, adaptive approaches.

This program is in year two of an anticipated five-year activity, with a dramatic shift in the operating context in response to the onset of violent conflict in Sudan. This position will support Sudan programming from a program office in Nairobi, Kenya or Kampala, Uganda with regular travel in the East Africa region.

The Capacity Development Director is accountable for leading the Activity’s strategy for strengthening the capacity of local partners and leading the development and realization of local organizations’ resource mobilization and sustainability strategies. The director will lead a team that drives and monitors implementation of CD activities by mentoring technical teams, ensuring adherence to targets, timelines, budget management and achievement of objectives. In addition to leading the technical and contextual adaptation of Pact and partner’s CD tools and approaches to support achievement of Activity objectives and targets, the Director will be responsible for CD related resource sharing, knowledge management, best practices, cross learning, and innovations that yield sustainable CD results.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead strategy development, implementation, and monitoring of all project activities concerning capacity development.
• Provide input to the development of annual implementation plans, project reports, and other key project deliverables that contribute to the development of the project’s analytical products including research policy briefs, presentations, project updates, environment scans, or newsletter articles, etc.
• Facilitate network analysis and strengthening activities to identify barriers and opportunities for advancing shared civil society strengthening programming and to improve coordination and integration of activities.
• Complete capacity and performance assessments of partners/subgrantees and support the development of Institutional Strengthening Plans for each partner/subgrantee.
• Identify partner/subgrantee training needs, identify trainers, and support the development of curriculum for all trainings.
• Identify opportunities for partner/subawardee mentoring needs and provide mentoring on a range of organizational development topics.
• Regularly review subgrantee capacity needs and contribute to the development of resources/ documents for specific technical areas identified for capacity development of subgrantees, including training, mentoring, and coaching, etc.
• Support collaboration with donors, multilateral organizations, host country governments, and implementing partners to apply civil society strengthening approaches and best practices for the purpose of capacity building, especially though training, mentoring, and learning activities.
• Lead capacity building on quality assurance/continuous quality improvement of project tools, methodologies, and approaches. Document CD-related best practices. Regularly collect, analyze, and report on CD data.
• Provide written inputs and/ contribute to the development of tools required to monitor the implementation and monitoring of project capacity CD activities.
• Coordinate on/off-line training sessions, workshops, mentoring of subawards to ensure the efficient and timely implementation of project activities.
• Conduct CD learning sessions/ coordinate peer exchange sessions for subawards on various technical areas. Conduct regular field visits to provide technical support, capacity development, mentorship, or coaching to subawards.
• Orient Pact program team on a range of CD tools like ITOCA, OPI, CAP, CSP. Orient and coach new team members on CD tools and approaches.
• Provide written inputs and/ contribute to the development of tools required to monitor the implementation and monitoring of project capacity development activities.
• Perform other duties as assigned by the Deputy Chief of Party.

Basic Requirements

• Master’s degree and 9+ years relevant experience or equivalent combination of education and experience, including 5 years of management experience. Bachelor’s and 11 years of experience.
• At least seven to ten (7-10) years of experience in designing and implementing technical and organizational capacity building programs and application of CD tools (ITOCA, OPI, CAP, CSP).
• Knowledge of, and experience with, USAID’s collaborating, adapting, and learning (CLA) approaches.
• Knowledge of the political, social, and economic context of Sudan.
• Demonstrated ability to partner successfully with team, partner/subgrantee organizations, and other stakeholders.
• Professional fluency in written and spoken English and Arabic.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office.

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of, and experience with, key democracy, human rights and governance programming in Sudan is a strong advantage, as is experience building the capacity of civil society organizations.
• Sudanese nationals strongly encouraged to apply.
• Experience overseeing and coordinating with international field offices preferred.

Pact is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in its selection and employment practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, citizenship status, genetic information, matriculation, family responsibilities, personal appearance, credit information, tobacco use (except in the workplace), membership in an employee organization, or other protected classifications or non-merit factors.
At Pact, we recognize your impact, offer you opportunities and support your total well-being. Our comprehensive benefit offerings may include healthcare, retirement (8.8% to 13% based on service tenure) and savings plans, paid time off, disability and life insurance programs, learning and development opportunities, wellness programs as well as other optional benefit elections .
With the continuing impacts of COVID-19 around the world, we are taking action to protect the health and well-being of our colleagues and maintain the safety of the communities where we operate. Pact seeks an environment free from COVID-19 and prefers all employees to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19. Attestation of vaccination status will be required for employment with Pact. Unvaccinated employees may be subject to additional health and safety requirements to include any federal, state and/or client restrictions.