Save the Children International has an exciting opportunity for a Director of Program Development and Quality (PDQ) to join our DRC Country Office.
Team and Role Purpose
As one of the most senior staff in the Country Office, the Director of Program Development and Quality (PDQ) must demonstrate the qualities of agile leadership. S/he plays a key role in defining and pursuing the strategic direction for Save the Children’s programs in the DRC, ensuring the relevance, coherence, safety and impact of our programs for children in all contexts.
This is a challenging role requiring an individual who can work with complexity and multiple tasks at one time. It is essential that the Director of Program Development and Quality builds and maintains strong relationships across functions within the CO, including with team members from Operations, Award Management, Humanitarian, Advocacy and Finance, and s/he should lead by example in demonstrating this cross-functional collaboration.
This role demands dedication to demonstrating outcomes for children, experience in integrated child rights programming and a highly motivated leader. S/he has specific oversight for ensuring that programs demonstrate thematic excellence in contributing to Save the Children’s three Breakthroughs for children, especially for the most deprived and marginalized: no child dies from preventable causes before their fifth birthday; all children learn from a quality basic education; and violence against children is no longer tolerated. She/he is in charge of recruiting high calibre Technical Advisors to ensure effective quality programming.
- Job Title: Director of Program Development and Quality (PDQ)
- Reports To: Country Director
- Work Pattern: On-site
- Location: KINSHASA with regular travel to field sites in DRC
- Required Time Zone: UTC+1
- Contract Length: Fixed Term Contract (2 years)
- Right to Work: The successful candidate must have the right to work in the country where the role is based, for the duration of employment.
- Language Requirements: English and in French.
- People Management:
- Direct: Technical Specialists (Education, Health and Nutrition, CP/SGBV Technical Advisor, Co-lead Clusters; may also include cross-cutting areas such as Gender Equality technical Advisor, etc.) and Head of MEAL.
- Indirect : Members of the CO SMT and extended SMT, Head of NBD, Programme Quality & Impact and Business Development Teams at Regional, Centre and Member Offices.
- Remit: Country
Principal Accountabilities
Strategy, Planning and Reporting
- Lead the development/updating of the Child Rights Situation Analysis, including analysis of country context and taking into account child rights principles, ensuring participation and buy-in from all relevant staff, partners and other stakeholders as necessary
- Lead the SMT to develop/update and drive forward the Country Strategy Plan (CSP) that is in line with the global strategy, Ambition 2030, with child rights at the core of all programming and advocacy work.
- Provide leadership on development of the Country Annual Plan, monitoring of progress against the plan, and completion of accurate, on-time Country Annual Report of outcomes and impact for children, aligned with the Global Results Framework.
- Facilitate the development and pursuit of thematic and cross-cutting strategic priorities in line with the CSP, including gender equality, to guide current and future SC programming and Humanitarian Strategies.
- Support ownership and commitment to the Country Office strategy by all staff and departments through clear communication, regular feedback on progress and engagement of all functions in updates.
- Participate in global discussions and working groups to represent country office, and the voice of children, in strategy design and policy development.
- Support change processes and roll-out new ways of working to improve achievement of the CSP.
Programme Design & Development
- Based on tracking provided by the Awards Management team, review and position for opportunities that will drive the CSP.
- Being involved in the development of proposals, including:
- Ensure technical advisors are involved in the design of proposals to assure high quality, evidence-based designs that draw on needs assessments, learning from past programs and child safeguarding principles.
- Ensure partners are identified and appropriately engaged in program design, linking with Operations and Awards teams as need be for assessments, especially to strengthen gender sensitivity at design stage;
- Ensure proposal designs and their budgets include robust MEAL plans that are aligned with the Global Results Framework (and therefore advance towards our Breakthroughs), incorporate Common Approaches as relevant, and build in critical learning questions.
- Ensure that children and the community are involved in the design process, as appropriate
Programme Quality and Programme Technical Excellence
- Ensure the country program delivers high quality, multi-sectoral programming in both development and humanitarian contexts (as appropriate).
- Monitor and advance technical and operational quality of programmes, including conducting regular field visits to provide feedback on quality benchmarks, soliciting inputs for design of new programs and collecting ideas for innovation.
- Monitor program Key Performance Indicators and, in partnership with other functions, take steps to improve the quality programming platform to meet agreed upon standards.
- Work closely with the Director of Operations to ensure Quality Framework standards are met and procedures are followed throughout the project cycle and across the portfolio.
- Ensure technical experts proactively and regularly communicate planned requirements for program design, learning and implementation to relevant CO departments/functions.
- Build and lead a team of program technical experts needed to successfully deliver against the CSP. Ensure effective working relationships with SC global, Member and regional technical advisors, procuring technical support as needed to support program and advocacy efforts, including during Emergencies.
- Ensure that program technical experts engage in larger communities of practice within and external to Save the Children, to link with the most relevant and evidence-based approaches and conduct timely and useful review of project reports to support quality reporting for Members and donors
- Ensure that the different technical sectors of the Country Office are coordinated, integrated and support each other to optimize programs and projects.
- Ensure that child safeguarding and safe programming is embedded in program design and considered throughout implementation to ensure that we do all we can to ensure children in our programs are safe, in line with our child safeguarding policy.
Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, Learning (MEAL) and Knowledge management
- Oversee a monitoring system that provides timely and accurate project results by embedding MEAL across program implementation. This requires ensuring effective collaboration across MEAL staff, Technical Specialists, Technical Advisors and program implementation teams to develop logframes, indicators, implementation plans, quality benchmarks, monitoring and evaluation frameworks and related tools.
- Lead programme quality improvements by monitoring and improving Programme KPI performance, including resourcing and conducting high-quality evaluations to demonstrate outcomes and impact and ensuring that accountability mechanisms are in place for all projects so that identified actions are resolved, with critical issues escalated to senior management.
- Ensure the research, evaluation and policy work of the Country Office contributes to generation of evidence for development and improvement of Common Approaches, sound decision making and policy influencing internally and externally.
- Establish effective program learning and knowledge management systems to support adaptive programming and innovation that improves outcomes for children.
Advocacy, Campaigns, Communications and Media (ACCM)
- Contribute to ACCM on the development of an advocacy strategy and annual plans linked to the Country Strategic Plan, with clear Campaign deliverables, for the Country Office.
- Represent Save the Children as delegated by the Country Director as part of advocacy and networking with government authorities, donors, partners, civil society actors, children and other stakeholders to build relationships to facilitate achievement of CSP strategic goals and success of our projects for children.
- Contribute inputs into the development and implementation of communications and media strategies to support Save the Children’s visibility and achievement of the CSP and Campaign objectives.
Partnership
- Contribute to identifying, nurturing and strengthening strategic partnerships with local and international civil society organizations, NGOs, governments etc., in advancing the country and global strategy to inspire our three breakthroughs for the most deprived and marginalised children.
- As appropriate to the country context, provide technical support and capability building to implementing and strategic partners.
Staff Management, Mentorship, and Development
- Ensure appropriate staffing of Program Development and Quality team, and engagement of additional technical support when needed to deliver quality project design and delivery.
- Ensure that all PDQ staff understand and are able to perform their role in delivering first-class, quality programs for children in both development and emergency contexts through effective on-boarding and clear work plans.
- Manage individual and team performance using principles of leadership agility, and Save the Children’s performance management system.
- Ensure that staff proactively build and maintain technical, managerial and leadership skills, including competencies in child rights programming, child safeguarding and Common Approaches, providing coaching opportunities when needed.
Safeguarding
- Report all safeguarding allegations in accordance with local procedures.
- Alert any suspected safeguarding cases in accordance with the local reporting procedure.
- Report cases involving partners and other stakeholders in the implementation of SCI–DRC programs to the Safeguarding focal points.
- Contribute to the identification and analysis of Safeguarding risks (initial and emerging) within the areas of Program Development & Quality.
- Integrate Safeguarding into all proposed new programs (projects).
- Ensure that Safeguarding is addressed in the relevant sections of the Country Strategic Plan.
- Engage the affected community and populations impacted by each program in its design.
- Provide technical support for conducting Safeguarding risk assessments within the framework of all programs and projects.
- Ensure that safeguarding elements, particularly the identification and mitigation of safeguarding risks, are incorporated into the Terms of Reference for Technical Advisors’ missions and into the work of sectoral workshops (Education, Health/Nutrition, Child Protection, WASH)?
Experience and Skills
Essential
- A minimum of seven years of progressive senior management and/ or development experience, including experience designing and implementing programs for children.
- Experience in one or more of Save the Children”s thematic sectors: education, child protection, child rights governance, health and nutrition, child poverty, emergencies.
- Understanding of advocacy, policy, and government systems in the host country, and particular experience with child rights programming, including UNCRC.
- Strong skills and proven experience in leading strategic planning, change management and program management processes; also from the knowledge and learning perspective.
- Strong skills and proven experience in new program development, project design and proposal writing with corporate, foundations and/or institutional donors.
- Credibility to lobby, influence and represent Save the Children at all levels.
- Experience in developing and managing monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning systems.
- Excellent listening, inter-personal, communication and networking skills; proven experience and effectiveness working across functional teams and in a matrixed structure; and an ability to work with diverse populations.
- Skills in training, capability building, coaching, mentorship, problem solving, and project cycle management.
- High level of self-awareness and willingness to take feedback for growth and self-development.
- Proven experience as a team player and leader in an international organisation.
- Written and verbal fluency in English and in French.
Education and Qualifications
Essential
- Masters’ Degree or Bachelor’s Degree, and experience in relevant social science (especially in Child Development or Community Development), human rights, development studies, NGO management or equivalent fields.
Working at Save the Children International
Save the Children is the world”s leading organisation for children, employing ~25,000 staff. We save children”s lives. We fight for their rights. We help them fulfil their potential. Through our work in 116 countries, we put the most deprived and marginalised children first.
We know that great people make a great organisation, and that our employees play a crucial role in helping us achieve our ambitions for children. We value our people and offer a meaningful and rewarding career, along with a collaborative and inclusive environment where ambition, creativity, and integrity are highly valued.
The work here is challenging but is also immensely rewarding. At Save the Children, you will be in good company, working with talented, like-minded individuals who are determined to ensure that all children survive, learn, and are protected. Your contribution will help ensure children”s voices are heard at the highest levels, and that we achieve our global strategy, Ambition for Children 2030, and reach every last child.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Equal Opportunities
DEI is core to our vision, values and global strategy. Save the Children is committed to creating a truly diverse, equitable and inclusive organisation, and one which will support us in our vision to ensure every child attains the right to survival, protection, development, and participation.
We are committed to equal employment opportunities, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, colour, ethnic origin, nationality, disability, marital or civil partnership status, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, caring or parental responsibilities, age, or beliefs and religion. We are committed to diversifying our staff to better represent the communities we serve and actively welcome underrepresented groups to apply.
Reasonable adjustments will be made should any candidate invited to interview require this.
Application Information
Please attach a copy of your CV and cover letter with your application. A full copy of the role profile can be found at SCI Careers. It is recommended that you save a copy of the role profile as it will no longer be available after the advert closes.
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis and the job advert may be closed earlier than advertised subject to the volume of suitable applicants. Please submit your application at your earliest convenience to avoid disappointment.
Due to the high volume of applications we receive, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Candidates who are successfully shortlisted should expect to hear from us within 2 weeks of the advert deadline.
Our Recruitment Process
- Application review by our recruiting team based on your CV and cover letter
- Two-stage competency-based interviews with the hiring team
- Some recruitment may include an additional assessment or case study stage, or a third stage interview
- If successful, you will receive a conditional offer of employment, followed by your contract subject to passing background checks
We need to keep children and adults safe so our selection process includes rigorous background checks and reflects our commitment to the protection of children and adults from abuse. All employees are expected to carry out their duties in accordance with our Code of Conduct and all policies and procedures relating to Anti-Harassment, Health and Safety, Safeguarding, and DEI and Equal Opportunities.
Save the Children does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process.