Project Coordinator, Social Protection At Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition

About the Role

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) is seeking a Project Coordinator, Social Protection to support the day-today operations of social protection activities in Bangladesh. This role will be offered on a 3 years’ fixed-term contract basis, subject to availability of funding. You will be based in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Reporting to the Portfolio Lead, you will be responsible for the day-to-day operational delivery, implementation, identifying influencing agenda working with the policy team, budget tracking, and monitoring of social protection activities in Bangladesh, including routine tracking of activities’ progress and the status of project deliverables.

You will play a coordination role in GAIN’s cross-functional project teams and supporting the maintenance of relationships with partners and stakeholders. You are also responsible for managing and documenting engagements with key government and non-government social protection stakeholders in-country. This position will also represent Bangladesh in the broader multi-country GAIN social protection team and is the primary liaison for Bangladesh’s social protection activities to the global Social Protection programme.

As part of the social protection team, the Project Coordinator is expected to contribute to project deliverables, participate in donor reporting, and support timely and effective communication of findings to diverse and cross-cultural audiences.

Key Responsibilities include:

• Managing the project schedule, activity plan and planning milestones, supporting the tracking of progress and deliverables from project partners, and implementing countries
• Drafting necessary project documentation during the design, planning and end-to-end implementation of the project as per the GAIN Project Management Guidelines (PMG) i.e., results framework, work plans etc. Conducting assessments and taking part in project proposal development
• Identifying, escalating, tracking, and resolving project issues on an ongoing basis, and proactively reporting to the Project Manager issues which require wider attention and resolution
• Contributing to building strong partnerships with national government entities, INGOs, civil society organisations, private sector actors, and other stakeholders engaged in GAIN Bangladesh’s social protection work to support actions to reduce duplication of efforts and ensure GAIN’s work complements other interventions and demonstrate value addition
• Participating in and contribute to regular and ad hoc meetings of GAIN’s multi-country social protection teams, serving as the primary representative of GAIN’s Bangladesh social protection projects
• Ensuing quality presentation and reporting of GAIN Bangladesh’s Social Protection Work to stakeholders (internal and external to GAIN)
• Developing appropriate narrative reporting and financial accounting documentation for the Project Manager’s review in order to meet GAIN and donor’s requirements
• Facilitating accurate project budgeting and forecasting processes, ensuring that activities costs are kept within budgets
• Maintaining a central database of all project documents and materials, such as meeting summaries, status reports, action items, and deadlines
• Ensuring timely monthly project reporting on program progress achieved, program plans, changes in direction and challenges encountered

About You

The ideal candidate will have proven experience in project management, coordination and experience with project administration systems, including financial administration. You will have demonstrable experience engaging and managing relationships with multilateral stakeholders, particularly government officials.

The postholder will also have previous exposure in policy formulation, implementation, and/or communication and awareness of applicable policy influencing tools (e.g., stakeholder mapping, needs assessment, etc.) and familiarity with key development issues and policy environments relevant to social protection, nutrition and food security in Bangladesh.

You will have good interpersonal and communication skills and strong ability to work with diverse groups/individuals. You will be highly flexible and willing to travel both domestically and ideally internationally. In addition to this, you will possess fluent written and spoken English and Bengali.

Bachelor’s degree or above in project management, policy, applied economics, business management, international relations, sustainable development, food systems or related field. You will be IT literate with excellent MS Office skills and advance knowledge of spreadsheet and database packages and experience in handling of web-based management systems.

About our Offer

The starting salary on offer for this role is from BDT 1,617,696 – BDT 1,848,576 per annum (gross salary), depending on experience.

GAIN has a fair and competitive salary structure that allows for annual progression subject to good performance. In addition, GAIN offers a total of 37 days holiday per year (including annual leave, public holidays and additional office closure days), an attractive pension scheme and competitive insurance cover including health, travel and life assurance.

We are committed to the health of our staff, especially in these challenging times, and have developed a programme of wellbeing that includes flexible working, additional leave allowances, wellbeing days, mindfulness coaching and access to independent and confidential counselling.

GAIN also has a strong commitment to professional development. We will support you to grow in your career through both formal and informal training, and are committed to providing opportunities through internal recruitment, secondments and promotion. All of this is delivered in a supportive and collaborative environment.

About GAIN

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) is a Swiss-based foundation launched at the United Nations in 2002 to tackle the human suffering caused by malnutrition. Due to COVID19, conflict in Ukraine and climate change, malnutrition and hunger have worsened significantly since 2019, reversing a decade of progress. There is growing recognition that our food systems need to change if we are to reverse these trends.

GAIN’s Strategy aims to transform food systems to make healthier diets from sustainable food systems accessible to all people and especially those whose are most vulnerable to shocks. By 2027, we aim to improve the access of 1.5 billion people to nutritionally enhanced staple foods, improve the access of 25 million people to healthier diets, and support positive food system change in 10 countries. This is bold and complex, and the only way to achieve this is to work together with partners including governments, businesses, and civil society at the country and global level. These goals, and the ways of achieving them, build on our twenty-year legacy of transforming people’s lives with improved nutrition through concerted action and effective policy change.

Our Working Culture and Environment

We provide a flexible working environment that includes a combination of home and office working opportunities through our global hybrid working policy. This encourages our staff to have a healthy work-life balance and increases staff motivation, enriches employee wellbeing, and improves performance and productivity.

All of our positions are based in one or more of GAIN’s designated offices as stated on our job advertisements. Successful candidates will be based in one of GAIN’s country offices and must have the existing right to live and work within a reasonably commutable distance of the relevant city / cities in which the role is advertised. Please note, that GAIN does not sponsor working visas and relocations.

GAIN reserves the right to withdraw an offer of employment for candidates who are considered to ineligible under the above conditions during or after the recruitment process.

Applicants must be currently based and have the existing right to live and work in the Dhaka, Bangladesh region to be eligible to apply for this position.

This advert closes on 11th April 2024. Early applications are encouraged. GAIN reserves the right to close this advert early should we receive suitable candidates ahead of the closing date.

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition is committed to equality of opportunity and creating an inclusive environment where diversity is valued. We are keen to reflect the diversity of our society at every level within our organisation and therefore welcome applications from talented and committed people from all backgrounds, representing the diverse societies we operate in.