Project Manager at Saferworld

Job purpose:

• The Project Manager will be responsible for the successful delivery of the “Strengthening integrated Peace, Resilience and Disaster Risk Reduction for cross-border communities in the Karamoja Cluster”. The Manager will hold overall responsibility for the implementation of the project, oversee grant management, provide technical expertise, and lead on coordination of the overall programme.
• The Manager will work closely with partners to ensure delivery of agreed project deliverables. The position holder will be responsible for establishing and maintaining good working relations with civil society organisations and networks; linking with other teams and related projects across Saferworld and partners, and among the donor community (in particular the EU borderlands Consortium) to share best practices and lessons learnt.
• The Project Manager will ensure quality programme implementation, including providing strategic guidance to implementing partners and being responsible for budget management, M&E, partnership management, and relationships with external actors (including government authorities, relevant working groups, and project partners).

Roles and responsibilities:

Programme management, quality, and impact

• Provide leadership for the effective and efficient management of the project, in accordance with Saferworld organisational and donor requirements.
• Oversee implementation and achievement of project objectives by the project team and partners.
• Ensure that planning, budgeting, and reporting are conducted promptly and to quality.
• Identify areas where additional inputs are needed to ensure high quality programming, ensuring that relevant technical expertise and capacity strengthening support is available to staff and partners.
• Ensure an overall monitoring and evaluation plan is in place for the programme and implemented.
• Explore and build opportunities for programme growth and follow-on funding in the course of implementing the project through quality programme delivery processes.
• Be responsible for nurturing and maintaining a robust, honest, and transparent relationship with project partners, ensuring the project’s partnerships are managed in line with Saferworld’s partnership approach.
• Lead in the identification of project risks and proactively work with partners to mitigate risk factors against partnership and project delivery plans.

Financial management and financial and narrative reporting

• Have overall responsibility for financial management of the project. This includes working with implementing partners and ensure that all activities and expenditures are conducted within budget allocations.
• Facilitate monthly level grant management meetings to monitor programme expenditure, prepare budget revisions and forecasts, review monthly financial data and ensure timely financial reporting to the donor, in coordination with the grant managers.
• Lead on narrative reporting to donors, including coordinating reporting by partners and consolidating overall reports.
• Together with the Country Manager, monitor and mitigate project risks to Saferworld and partner project staff safety and security and contribute to the development and implementation of safety and security policies and procedures.

People Management

• Line manage respective project team members; manage external consultants, as needed.
• Ensure the effective implementation of performance management and learning and development plans for line-managed staff.
• Ensure compliance with organisational HR policies and national requirements.

Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning

• Play a lead role in the Saferworld’s new Knowledge and Learning strategy, particularly in relation to the node focused on climate, conflict, and environmental degradation. This includes setting up adequate MEL systems to gather programmatic evidence and learning, designed to maximise Saferworld’s and partners understanding of this set of challenges, and how to respond to them.
• Work with MEL Advisors and partners on the analysis of data, reporting, learning and sharing.
• Review relevant reports, including evaluation reports, partner narrative reports, and other internal and external resources as necessary to inform project delivery.
• Support bi-annual outcome harvesting workshops, and ensure critical MEL and research-grounded project reflection and reviews take place on regular bases to inform decision making, and that learning informs wider Saferworld community of practice, including within and between Saferworld’s country teams, and the global programme support, policy and advocacy teams
• Support Saferworld’s organisational objectives on gender equality, climate change, partnerships and solidarity and contribute to learning and development around these.

Networking and Representation

• Represent Saferworld in external meetings and provide feedback on issues that need further attention.
• Develop and maintain collaborative and strategic relationships with civil society partners and other stakeholders.
• Represent Saferworld in donor meetings.

Key Working Relationships

• Regional colleagues and relevant Global-based staff – contributing to the development of a learning strategy which captures the outcomes of Saferworld’s work, along with the learning it generates in order to enable our programming to respond to changes as they arise;
• Colleagues in the finance team both in country and at the Global level – working collaboratively on budgeting, compliance and financial reporting
• Colleagues in the funding team – working collaboratively on project proposals and programme development
• Partners and other external stakeholders including donors – networking, sharing information, collaborative working as appropriate

Scope and accountability

Decision making and limits of authority

• The project manager is responsible for leading and motivating the project team. Will take lead on project design, implementation and MEL and ensure continuing relevance to partner’s strategic priorities.

Financial resources

• Fully accountable for a programme budget.

Other resources

• Responsible for cross-regional and organisational information sharing and lesson learning resources on climate change, peace and security and partnerships.

People management

• Line management of Project officer

Legal, regulatory and compliance responsibility

• Ensure compliance with Saferworld’s and donor financial processes and procedures.

Person specification

Knowledge, qualifications and experience

• Master’s Degree in gender, peace and conflict studies, natural resources management, development studies or other relevant field, or training from recognised institutions.
• Have over five years of professional work experience in different capacities with local and international NGOs
• Experience in managing EU funded projects
• Proven experience of programming in Climate change/environment and conflict, and/or women’s rights programming at a community, national and international levels – preferably in contexts of conflict prevention, security and justice and/or peacebuilding.
• Good knowledge and understanding of the local context and sensitivities
• Sound experience in progressive management and project management, community security, humanitarian, peace building and/or justice sector.
• Experience in providing mentoring and support to a range of actors,
• Demonstrable experience in managing complex projects.
• Understanding of financial management procedures, budget monitoring, and donor reporting.
• Sound knowledge of civil society dynamics and their role in addressing peace, gender and climate change challenges peace.
• Demonstrable experience in working with partners in sustainable ways that reflect power-sharing, accompaniment, mutual respect, and so forth.
• Familiarity with or experience in working on the nexus between conflicts and climate change and/or natural resource management.

Skills and abilities

• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Excellent report writing, presentation, and facilitation skills in English.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills in complex project settings.
• Ability to link programme work to policy and advocacy processes at various levels.
• Ability to think critically, strategically, and innovatively to improve project delivery.
• Ability to drive for solutions and to suggest ways to achieve better results.
• Ability to take intelligent risks to drive thought leadership, individual and/or organizational performance.
• Commitment to adaptive programming and working in partnership based on mutual values and respect.

Personal qualities

• Commitment to respect and value equality and diversity, and understanding of how this applies to own area of work
• Ability to develop and maintain positive relationships with a wide range of stakeholders, including civil society organisations, government bodies and officials, and international donors.
• Commitment to and compliance with Saferworld’s safeguarding principles.
• Commitment to respect and value equality and diversity, and understanding of how this applies to own area of work.
• Commitment to own continuing personal and professional development.
• Commitment to the vision, mission, and values of Saferworld.

Other requirements

• The position will be field based in Turkana with frequent travels to project sites.

Application process

To apply: Send your CV and a covering letter addressing the person specification and why you feel your experience matches the requirements of the role tojobs@saferworld.org.uk Ref: (PM_EU Borderlands).