Programme Manager – Livelihoods Building Resilient Communities in West Kordofan (BRICK – II) At Concern Worldwide

Position Summary: Concern Worldwide (Concern) is a non-governmental, international, humanitarian organization dedicated to the reduction of suffering and working towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries.

Concern is preparing to implement a four-year, EU-funded, livelihoods project titled Building Resilient Communities in West Kordofan, phase 2 (BRICK- II). This position is subject to funding.

The overall objective of the proposed project is to decrease the levels of poverty through sustainable and resilient livelihoods and food security among the communities affected by climate change and conflict in Abyei-Muglad, Keilak and Meriam localities, in West Kordofan State, Sudan. The project focuses on agricultural value chain development for selected value chain products extensively employing market systems development approaches

This is a 48-month, new role with unaccompanied terms based in El Fula and Muglad (50% each location) in West Kordofan State, Sudan. You will have a salary grade of 3 €39,911 to €44,346 per annum subject to qualifications and relevant experience.

You will report to the Area Coordinator for South and West Kordofan State, and will work closely with the Programme’s Director, Grants Manager, and other programme staff. You will line manage BRICK Programme Staff including Project Coordinator, field team, and support team in the field.

You will liaise with the Concern Sudan Country Director, the Livelihoods Advisor, the MEAL Advisor, and the Programme Implementation Director, Programme Quality Director other key staff from local and INGOs in Sudan whenever appropriate

We would like you to start in July 2023.

Role purpose:

The primary purpose of this role is to manage and coordinate the implementation of the BRICK – II project in West Kordofan state, Sudan to achieve the project objectives. The role holder will lead the project team based in West Kordofan state and close partnership with local NGO partners working in the state. The Programme Manager is a key position in the project and will be responsible for the overall leadership, and implementation of the project as per the project design documents indicate. The position holder will coordinate with external stakeholders and liaise with Concern’s national partner NGOs.

The Programme:

The Building Resilient Communities in West Kordofan (BRICK) II project is a continuation of a three year Concern Worldwide and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF)-designed livelihoods programme. BRICK II is funded by the European Union and will run for four years. The overall objective of the proposed project is to strengthen communities’ resilience to shocks and stresses, especially the most vulnerable households, within Abyei-Muglad, Keilak and Meriam localities.

You will be responsible for the following key deliverables:

Programme management:

• Lead the programme planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation processes in collaboration and coordination with the relevant departments.
• Consolidate and regularly update the overall project’s Detailed Implementation Plan (DIP) in collaboration with the sector advisors/coordinators and systems team.
• Provide management direction and leadership support to the LTD implementation team throughout the project cycle;
• Ensure effective implementation of project activities according to the required standards and technical guidelines of both Concern and Irish Aid to contribute to the attainment of project outcomes;
• Develop tools for planning and tracking of progress with regular updates, and ensure regular communication with the supervisors, officers, and coordinators, as per the organogram of the project.
• Enhance linkages among the producer groups (target groups) , service providers and other entities or market actors , which may have positive contribution to the project success
• Ensure the project management process is conflict sensitive, adaptive to the local situation and employs the do-no-harm principles and practices during the course of the project lifetime
• Ensure cross cutting issues such as gender equality and protection are addressed throughout programme impementation
• Lead and coordinate the market analysis and facilitate private sector engagement in the programme based on proper assessment of market actors in the project areas.
• Ensure the approaches and project models that the project promotes to enhance agricultural value chain development and relevant market actors (private sectors) engagement facilitates sustainable and scalable intervention
• Provide guidance to field staff and manage the performance of the NGO partners, ensure the project implementation is in line with project objectives, budget, and provide necessary support when needed in accordance with donor commitment and agency guidelines and policies.
• Prepare and process project Technical Agreements (TAs) with counterparts and stakeholders with the support of concerned entities, and ensure timely approval accomplished.
• Organize and facilitate meetings, focused groups, reviews and other forums with partners, government counterparts, CBOs and other stakeholders to improve implementation, coordination and sharing of information and skills.
• Coach, train and provide technical support to staff and partners in fields of expertise
• Conduct monthly meetings with the programme team to assess the accomplishment status, utilisation status of project budget, the challenges and to suggest corrective action as required. Likewise, organize quarterly review meeting with staff, stakeholders and other partners to review the progress, challenges, lessons learned, etc.
• Prepare and submit regular reports both for internal use and to the donor according to donor and Concern’s reporting requirement, templates, standards and deadlines
• Follow-up with local partners to ensure the activities are implemented as per the DIP, technical guidelines & financial requirements and both financial and narrative reports are submitted in time

Monitoring, accountability, and learning:

• Provide support to the MEAL team to develop the MEAL tools, aligned to the project objectives, and deliverables, and ensure agreed MEAL systems of the project are fully implemented.
• Tracking progress of the programme results using the ITT tool, according to the MEAL framework and provide explanations for the under/over accomplishments, success factors and the challenges.
• Provide technical and managerial support for the baseline/endline survey design, and execution
• Provide technical and managerial support for the year-end evaluation/review processes
• Ensure the field monitoring plan addresses technical components of the project adequately as required, and conduct field visits with staff, stakeholders and provide technical support, identify and resolve problems at field level
• Work with the MEAL team to ensure the Complaints Response Mechanism (CRM) is in place, ensure it remains functional, give feedback to the MEAL team for any further action in areas of concern.
• Promote collaboration and cross learning with local authorities, NGOs/relevant stakeholders and selector related clusters.
• Capture best practices, lessons learned, challenges & recommendation and share as needed. Similarly, support project team to document and share the same.
• Coordinate with the MEAL manager in country on the agreed MEAL plan and action, and technical deliverables.
• Contribute to proposal writing for new projects as may be requested by the Programme Quality Director
• Contribute to learning exercise and provide inputs for developing Learning Documents, and ensure they are adapted/applied for the project overall success.

Capacity Building:

• Conduct capacity-building assessments for project staff, and NNGO partner, develop the capacity building plan, facilitate trainings, workshops, learning sessions and other events as planned.
• Provide technical guidance to staff and ensure they are well conversant and technically sound to the key project interventions, project models and approaches, plans and logical linkages of project objectives.
• Support the partner NNGOs’ capacity building by undertaking need assessment, development of capacity building plan and executions of the plan as required.
• Support national NNGO partner in compliance with the Concern’s and donor requirements, monitoring field operation of the partner, and provide support in improving performance under the action.

Budget Management and Control

• Orient project staff about grant budget, and develop a budget management plan for each team member responsible for activity delivery
• Monitor implementation of grant budgets and organize systematic monthly meetings to review budget versa actual (management account), and take immediate action if required for adjusting budget in line with compliance and finance team involvement
• Prepare budget requests and follow up the cash transfer from Khartoum to field office monthly and ensure that the project has adequate fund available for programme delivery.
• Assess the market price inflation and closely work with finance to take some mitigation measure

HR Management

• In collaboration with the HR team, ensure staffing structure and reporting lines are clearly outlined and communicated to the project staff and carry out a thorough assessment of roles are adequately filled with the right qualification and experience.
• Lead the induction process and Performance Development and Review process for programme staff to ensure adequate information and plan in place for staff to deliver their role.
• Ensures security protocols are integrated to movement plans and followed by staff accordingly.

Logistics and Procurement Management:

• Prepare an annual procurement plan for inputs and services required for the project implementation and conduct a monthly update on the procurement process and ensure corrected actions provided in case needed in coordination with the Logistics Team in the field and Khartoum
• Participate and control procurement processes as per LoA of CWW and procurement policy in cooperation with the Logistics Team

Representation and Coordination:

• Represent Concern for external actors at the state and locality levels, including UN agencies, state and locality government officials, I/NGO, private actors, at state level
• Actively participate in NGO, INGO, and UN Cluster meetings in the designated area, as and when required. Ensure participation of sector technical staff in the sub-clusters and relevant platforms in promoting synergies and avoiding duplication.

Others:

• Actively participate in any emergency response if called upon to do so (within the existing programme area or in a new one).
• Undertake other related duties as may reasonably be assigned by the Area Coordinator/Programme Director-OPS

Skills and experience:

• Advanced Degree or Master’s Degree in International Development, Economics, Agricultural Economics; Agricultural sciences or related fields;
• Demonstrated experience in managing Value Chain Systems, Food Security, Rural Livelihoods and economic development interventions
• At least three years of proven experience in managing agricultural value chain & marketing projects or programmes in a rural setting preferably fragile context.
• At least five years’ experience working within international development with INGOs, including experience in fragile and development countries.
• Experience in managing grants and projects throughout the project cycle, including project design, proposal development, budget preparation, expenditure tracking, monitoring, and evaluations and reporting.
• Strategic thinking and able to influence project team and other actors by demonstrating how rural livelihoods linked to the local and regional markets and generate evidence.
• Experience in market systems development (MSD) approach for livelihoods intervention or any rural economic development initiatives.
• Demonstrated capacity to produce high quality documents for internal and external use.
• Experience in donor contract management, especially familiarity with the requirements of EU funded contracts.
• Financial management experience, including budgeting, financial management (tracking, reporting and accounting), and procurement
• Strong skills managing a diverse team, including hiring, supervising, and training host-country local personnel
• Demonstrated experience in working with and strengthening the capacity of partners.
• Experience in cluster coordination and ability to coordinate activities with external agencies, build, maintain and strengthen working relationships.
• Ability to cope stress in a security risk environment, or to deal with challenging work situations
• Ability to develop and motivate cohesive project team to achieve project objectives.
• Creativity and problem solving skills.
• Advanced computer literacy.
• Have a strong sense of cultural sensitivity and diplomacy.

We would also like:

• Experience in developing MEAL systems especially using Digital Data Gathering tools;
• Knowledge of different humanitarian standards, e.g. Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS), and FSL sector strategies, MoA & Livestock strategy
• Experience in working in Sudan in particular and the east African region.

Concern Worldwide is an Irish-based non-governmental, international, humanitarian organisation dedicated to the reduction of suffering and working towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries.