REGIONAL PROGRAM QUALITY AND IMPACT LEAD

JOB SUMMARY:

**This role is open to Nationals of our Southern African Countries and will be on a Local Contract.**

Reporting to the Regional Director the Program Quality and Impact lead will take shared responsibility for effective management of the SA region, ensuring programs are effectively delivering sustainable impact at scale in both humanitarian and development contexts. As a key member of the Regional Leadership team, the Regional Program Quality & Impact lead supports the Regional Director in driving change while also providing oversight to program quality, ensuring timely and effective technical support to CARE’s programs in Southern Africa. The post holder will support five (5) country operations (with an additional country to be added in July 2024). The role provides occasional cover for the Regional Director when absent.

The post holder works closely with Country Leadership and with the matrix leads in from the CARE Programs and Impact teams, ILKA, Award Management Solutions, CARE Humanitarian Affairs and relevant CMPs and CI Impact area strategy leads. They will actively contribute to strengthening the linkages between Program and Program operations at Country and regional level. They will represent the region internally and externally and facilitate effective engagement with relevant stakeholders. The post holder will contribute to Country Office (CO) strategy development ensuring CO alignment with global strategy and the SA Regional Road map. They will provide support to country Offices to the roll out of global and regional initiatives.

The PQ&I Lead oversees program quality across the country offices (COs) within the region, including (i) Supporting and coordinating the development and implementation of country office strategies (ii) supporting fundraising to ensure that COs have strong pipelines in place across all focus areas of their strategies (iii) overseeing the implementation of MEAL processes (monitoring, evaluation, feedback and accountability mechanisms, learning and impact) across the region (iv) knowledge management as it relates to critical business aspects which fall under this role (v) supporting and driving innovation across the programme portfolio of the region.

The postholder will be expected to support country offices by brokering technical expertise in program design and implementation to ensure quality and adherence to program standards and identifying and supporting training needs in line with CO and regional priorities. S/he will strengthen the work of CO teams in design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of programs and projects (including emergency programs) in line with CARE’s Programming Principles and CARE 2030 program strategy.

In addition, the PQ&I Lead will support CO resource mobilization efforts, by working with CO RM focal points to track opportunities and position the CO for relevant opportunities, brokering appropriate support from relevant CMPs, supporting CO to identify consortia and position the CO with relevant primes. The PQ&I lead will support CO innovation, connecting CO teams to the relevant technical teams in CMPs. In addition, the role will support COs to scale impact of interventions using the CARE impact pathways and ensuring CO are designing for scale. The PQ & I lead will be responsible for ensuring knowledge sharing and learning across the region. S/he will liaise closely with CARE USA and CMPs and keep informed of programmatic developments in other parts of the organization.

The post holder plays a critical role in supporting CO in advancing CARE’s agenda to be locally led, globally scaled and gender equal.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Strategy and Planning

• Lead Development and Coordination of regional Roadmap, in alignment with global strategies and initiatives.
• Support Country Office (CO) strategy and business plan development ensuring CO alignment with global strategy and the SA Regional Road map and engagement with relevant stakeholders across CARE.

Program Quality & Impact Measurement

• Ensure COs have appropriate systems in place to measure impact and support COs to develop and implement effective impact measurement system and feedback and accountability mechanisms.
• Assist COs in reviewing their programs to ensure they are in line with CARE policies, programming principles and quality standards and that they are properly measuring, evaluating and reporting impact.

Technical Assistance and Knowledge Sharing & Learning

• Broker technical assistance to CO in an efficient and effective manner ensuring CO are receiving high quality technical support in a timely manner.
• Act as the focal point in the region for global programs teams, playing the role of broker/conduit between country offices to ensure high quality and timely support.

Resource Mobilization

• Support development of funding opportunities around regional initiatives and work with COs and CMPs in identifying opportunities for innovation and scale up.
• Support CO resource mobilisation efforts, by working with CO RM focal points to track opportunities and position the CO for relevant opportunities.

QUALIFICATIONS:

1. Evidence of extensive experience at a leadership level

2. Evidence of having played a coordinating role cross regional programs and teams

3. Masters degree or equivalent experience or relevant professional development in related discipline

4. 7-10 years experience in strategic and operational management – including innovation and leading in Program strategy, design and implementation

5. Skilled in coordinating networks and building synergies across teams

6. Advanced communication, facilitation and consensus building skills – Demonstrated experience and success in fundraising and donor relations

7. Fluency in written and spoken English

8. Strong facilitation skills, including the design and management of effective trainings, workshops and meetings with diverse participants.

9. Strong report writing skills