Job Openings at CARE

Job Details

REF: WVLPM-09-2018

Women's Voices & Leadership Program Manager of CARE in Kenya is responsible for the comprehensive management of the WVL project, including all aspects of human resource management, activity coordination, results reporting, budget oversight and program quality.

The Program Manager/Advisor steers the project’s strategies for working on feminist organizational development in collaboration with WROs from multiple regions across Kenya. S/He will form and maintain strong collaborative and participatory relationships with women’s rights organizations, will oversee project activities that support women’s rights organizations in their internal organizational development and will ensure that appropriate technical linkages are created to strengthen WRO programming. The Program Manager/Advisor is responsible for positioning CARE as a convener, collaborator and relationship builder vis-à-vis women’s rights organizations, while supporting staff to link WROs to the technical skill they need to grow their organizations. The Program Manager/Advisor may also be called upon to provide some limited technical or program quality advice in areas such as: diversifying funding relationships, financial and human resource management, organizational strategies and governance, women’s rights awareness raising, forming feminist alliances, and related policy and advocacy campaigning.

At the same time, the Program Manager/Advisor is responsible for the daily management of the WVL project, including staff supervision, financial tracking and reporting, results tracking and reporting, and decision making regarding activity implementation. An especial focus will be required on tracking flow-through grants to WROs and on using innovative methods to report project impacts. The Program Manager/Advisor coordinates these activities with the Director of Women’s Empowerment and Transformational Change in Kenya as well as program managers at CARE Canada.

It is expected that the Program Manager/Advisor will be able to demonstrate a track record of managing complex, participatory partnerships and programs related to women’s rights, civil society capacity building and related issues.

Tasks and Responsibilities

R 1: Technical leadership Coordination for all successful project innovations, learning and generation of evidence for outcomes and impact (50%)

• Provide management oversight to the program, which includes and not limited to; supporting the steering committee, Technical working groups and advisory committee to develop an operational strategy and consolidate the design of the various interventions into the program.
• Effectively distribute work among staff by ensuring that the staffing plan takes on board considerations for effective duty allocations and that team work is maintained at all times.
• Lead in the preparation of the Project Monitoring Folder (PMF) (Approved proposal, approved work plan, signed contract, approved budget, staffing plan, procurement plan and update program and financial expense reports) detailed implementation plans, procurement plans, prepare budget tracking and expenditure tools and review them at least monthly and jointly quarterly in liaison with the partners
• Organize in consultation with the project steering committee, partner inception and planning forums, to facilitate coordination, collaboration and effective delivery of all components of the program.
• Ensure communication flow is known by all partners and that timely communication for project concerns are shared with project steering team, supervisor and other levels of management while ensuring that all official processes for external communication are adhered to.
• Establish good working relationship and coordinate with Program stakeholders to facilitate smooth project implementation, nurture support for key program components and successful growth of this program.
• Supporting in the identification of partnerships with women’s rights movements to better collaborate towards shared goals and elevate the voice of marginalized people
• Oversee and facilitate the networking, liaising and collaboration activities necessary to provide technical support to WRO team and partners in feminist organizational capacity building. This includes managing the processes of mapping WRO presence, assessing WRO capacity, forming organizational development work plans, linking WROs with each other or with organizations that have requisite technical skills, and providing an enabling environment for feminist advocacy and feminist monitoring and evaluation.

R 2: Contract and Budget management and Compliance (20%)

Task

• Oversee the grants and partnership management implementation, enforcement and compliance to all contractual requirements of the program.
• Ensure full awareness of donor contractual clauses and develop checklist for clauses that are transferable and ensure these are implemented as conditions in the partners grant agreement.
• Ensure time bound conditions are reflected by date and a tracking list generated for tracking compliance to conditions and timelines, working with partners as appropriate to ensure conditions are met.
• Ensuring partners’ capacity assessments are done and where need be, improvement plans are inbuilt into partner contracts.
• Ensuring that partners are fully aware of the interpretations of the contract clauses as per the contracts signed with CARE to enhance compliance and minimization of risk.
• Ensuring timely identification of risks and communicate these in writing to CARE’s management through the designated supervisor
• Ensure partners are oriented on the operational and grants accounting manual, sub grants and partnership management and M&E plans to ensure effective compliance to terms and conditions as well as systems and processes.
• Prepare, revise and in a timely manner operationalize procurement plans for the program.
• Review all project financial reports submitted by finance on a monthly basis while providing timely feedback on all aspects to enhance proper and efficient utilization of program funds, explaining budget burn rates against planned activities/expenditure plans
• Prepare and manage project assets and inventory held by the CARE and partners as per donor requirements and CARE Kenya policies and regulations.
• Support and coordinate preparation of the audits of partners annually in consultation with finance department and Girls Empowerment project team and support SM in planning and responding to program audit queries.

R3: Program Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting (20%)

Task

• Facilitate the collaborative development of a comprehensive M&E Plan, Detailed Program Implementation Plan and Operational Plan together with the project steering committee, the program team and partner WROs.
• Support in organizing M&E strengthening workshop for implementers and using the results of the workshop, finalize the Capacity building plans on M&E.
• Support in the development of action plan for operationalizing the M&E plan for Project.
• Support in mentorship of the partner M&E staff to support the development of the M&E system
• Review M&E reports from partners and in accordance to contracts and develop a system for validation of information provided by partners.
• Organize and oversee field visits and monitoring plans for ongoing monitoring and review of ongoing project activities; with a view to ascertain that activities are ongoing and that results and outputs shared with CARE are genuine and within approved priorities funded, which will be used to make decisions concerning revisions/adjustments to sub recipient contracts.
• Develop management program progress update reports.
• Support in the organization of partner review meetings taking into consideration performance review by various actors, in order to inform challenges and progress in program implementation.
• Support in the organization of partner review and sharing sessions for CARE and partners to present program progress, lessons learnt and best practices to enhance performance Program grant

R4: Staff management (10%)

Tasks

• Supervise staff, while ensuring that they fully understand their responsibilities, work as a team and deliver on their tasks in a timely manner.
• Ensure staffs have detailed implementation plans and these are reviewed and updated regularly with feedbacks provided on areas requiring improvements.
• Guide, supervise, coach, manage, mentor, provide leadership and support to the project staff on a day to day basis to meet program tasks and responsibilities, to deliver within contractual obligations.
• Support hiring of competent staff and orient them in a timely manner to implement in line with contractual obligations and CAREs policies and procedures.
• Support staff to develop Individual Operating Plans for purposes of strengthening their performance and the performance of the program.
• Undertake annual staff appraisal in line with JD and IOP requirements on a timely manner.
• In a timely manner notify and consult the supervisor and human resource department and CAREs management on any staff concerns related to their conduct, performance, confirmation and disciplinary issues while ensuring that policies and procedures are adhered to.

AUTHORITY:

• Spending Authority:
• Decision Making: Decision making on core JD areas of Program Coordination, Contract Management, Compliance and Budget management, Program monitoring, evaluation and Reporting. Staff management, Technical Assistance, Lessons Learnt and Knowledge sharing in consultation with the Health Program Director.

CONTACTS/KEY RELATIONSHIPS (internal & external):

Internal: Works closely with the program team, CO program quality unit,, M&E Coordinator and Grants and Partnership Manager, and Country Office M&E Specialist, Country Office Grants and Partnership Manager and other Program Support Units: Internal Audit, Finance, IT, Administration/ procurement, and Human Resources.

External: Liaison with key Project Stakeholders in the country including: project partners (sub-recipients) and key strategic partners. The position also interacts with other external parties e.g. auditors, consultants. Etc.

WORKING CONDITIONS:

Normal working conditions in a city setup. However the employee may have to contend with traffic congestion during peak hours. The employee will also undertake frequent field visits to project locations including remote areas and therefore has exposure to road and air travel risks and security risks.

QUALIFICATIONS:

Education: Degree in Social Sciences, Gender and development studies or other relevant discipline coupled

Experience:

• Minimum of 5 years experience in results-based program management, preferrably using funding from bilateral donors such as USAID, GAC, DFAT or the EU.
• Demonstrated track record managing programming related to a combination of women’s rights, civil society capacity building, women’s empowerment, civil society coalition building, rights advocacy and civil society strengthening. Experience in feminist movement building or feminist organizational development is an asset.
• Demonstrable experience in initiating and managing effective partnerships with government, WROs, CSOs, private sector and other stakeholders.
• Proven track record managing budgets, flow through funds, grants, and sub-contracts. Proven track record using results-based management to record and report on project impact.
• Strong skills coaching teams to facilitate, collaborate, network and train trainers. Demonstrated abilty to create an enabling environment in which groups are able to identify and work towards their own strategic goals.
• Demonstrated ability to strengthen the operations and strategic direction of civil society organizations. Ability to coach staff and partners to develop and implement monitoring and evaluation plans

Competencies:

• Strong staff and program management skills
• Demonstrated ability to foster transparent, accountable relationships with donors and partners.
• Ability to foster and strengthen egalitairan partnerships amongst civil society actors
• Demonstrated ability to come to “win-win” resolutions when faced with program quality and operations issues. Ability to troubleshoot and to negotiate positive outcomes from competing interests. .
• Capacity to troubleshoot and successfully resolve issues related to budget and grant management, staff management and competing partnership agendas.
• Excellent inter-personal, facilitation skills and communication skills
• Ability to build and maintain trust amongst teams and amongst diverse partners.
• Person of professional integrity Strong value for gender equality and women’s rights.