Program Manager II - MEAL & Program Quality, Sudan at Catholic Relief

Job Summary: 

You will manage and provide technical oversight of the development and implementation of the Country Program (CP) Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) and Program Quality (PQ) activities, ensuring effective systems and processes are in place that support high-quality programming advancing Catholic Relief Services’ (CRS) work in serving the poor and vulnerable. Your management skills and knowledge will ensure that the CP delivers high-quality programming and continuously works towards improving the impact of its programming.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Roles and Key Responsibilities:

• Provide management, guidance, and technical oversight to MEAL and PQ activities for the country program throughout relevant project cycles - project design, start-up, implementation and close-out - to ensure efficient and effective implementation in line with CRS program quality principles and standards, donor requirements, and good practices. Support project teams and partner staff to use the appropriate systems and tools.
• Effectively manage talent and supervise. Manage team dynamics and staff well-being. Provide coaching, strategically tailor individual development plans, contribute to the recruitment process of project staff, and complete performance management for direct reports.
• Lead the development of program learning - identify opportunities for learning, research and publications in the area of MEAL and Program Quality. Facilitate the dissemination of promising practices and lessons learned to contribute to the agency knowledge management agenda. Ensure integration of innovations and best practices. Lead project-specific MEAL activities as required, such as project evaluations.
• Champion learning with project staff and partner teams. Identify opportunities for learning, promote application of learning, facilitate cross-team learning and integration of best practices and innovations, and communicate learning to relevant regional and global fora.
• Contribute to the proactive pursuit of opportunities for new funding to ensure growth of the Country Program (CP) portfolio in line with agency, regional, and CP strategic priorities. Serve as the MEAL technical lead to ensure quality proposals in per agency and donor standards. Contribute to budgeting and staffing plans and activities for proposals.
• Oversee technical assistance and capacity strengthening activities in MEAL and PQ for staff and partner organizations to enhance program quality and impact.
• Coordinate the development of the communication and learning products (with support from RCO and PMs), such as project fact sheets, case studies, success stories.
• Oversee setup and maintenance of systems to document and aggregate project information (e.g., FCRM data, KPIs) at CP level for knowledge management, learning and reporting.
• Oversee the identification, assessment and strengthening of partnerships relevant to MEAL and PQ and the appropriate application of partnership concepts, tools and approaches.
• Supervise the Gender SPO and ensure programs are gender-sensitive and responsive.
• Ensure timely and appropriate project expenditures in line with financial plans and efficient use and stewardship of project material sources.

QUALIFICATIONS

Basic Qualifications

• Master's Degree in International Development, International Relations or in the field of MEAL required. Additional experience may substitute for some education.
• Minimum of 5 years experience in relevant field-based project management experience required, with preferably at least 4-5 years working in the area of MEAL. 
• Experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), standard Statistical data analysis packages of SPSS, Stata or R, Web Conferencing Applications, information management systems.
• Experience in managing the MEAL components of moderately complex projects preferably with an international NGO.

Required Languages - English language is required and Arabic language is a plus

Travel - Must be willing and able to travel up to 50%

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities 

• Strong critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills with ability to make sound judgment.
• Strong relationship management skills (including remote management skills) and the ability to work effectively with culturally diverse groups. 
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with ability to write reports
• Proactive, results-oriented, and service-oriented
• Competency in MEAL components as well as MEAL in design, Management in MEAL, and ICT for MEAL 

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience engaging with partner organizations.
• Experience contributing to the development of technical proposals.
• Experience with Commcare, Kobo, ArcGIS and PowerBI is a plus.