Your role
Reporting to the Head of Programmes, the Senior Project Manager will provide overall leadership and management a large-scale and multi-faceted UNICEF-funded child protection project to be delivered directly by WCUK staff and by national partners in the West of Afghanistan. The project includes delivering psycho-support services through child friendly spaces at scale, delivering of case management services to at risk children, facilitating community-based networks focused on Child Protection at scale, implementation of positive parenting to identified adults, continued operationalisation of the child help line and a component on supporting street working children, including implementing a protection centre to provide services to at risk children.
The Senior Project Manager will be responsible for ensuring the project is delivered to time and to budget and upholds quality and safety standards. The post holder will be a highly experienced senior project manager, preferably with a background in child protection in emergencies and experience in managing UNICEF funds. The post holder will be expected to uphold child protection and safeguarding principles throughout their work. S/he will be based in Herat, with frequent travel to Badghis, Ghor, Farah and Ghor project sites.
Your responsibilities
- Establishes, maintains, and develops productive working relationship with relevant stakeholders, including local authorities, partner staff, and NGO/UN key contacts.
- Collect, review and share key project data with internal focal point for UN reporting systems within given timeframes.
- Lead on the project reporting for internal and donor purposes, including quarterly reports for the donor and internal management reports.
- Ensure follow up on partners capacity building plans to ensure it is actioned and coordinate with Child Protection Technical Advisor to identify and respond to technical child protection capacity gaps.
- Contribute to strategic discussions in country, including country annual planning and country strategic planning processes.
- Provide management, guidance, and technical oversight of the project throughout the project cycle to ensure project design, start-up, implementation and close-out are in line with WC and inter-agency safety and quality principles and standards and donor guidelines.
- Takes an anticipatory approach to project implementation – being proactive in identifying challenges and risks and actively takes part to lead resolution of them with creative and immediate solutions.
- Work closely with HR to recruit quality project staff on time and they receive adequate inductions, including on the project design and implementation.
- Effectively manage and supervise the project team, including managing and supporting inclusive team dynamics and staff well-being. Support direct reports to create professional development plans, including ensuring staff can access relevant capacity building.
- Work closely with MEAL colleagues to develop MEAL package for the project, ensuring the MEAL plan is implemented and lead project level learning – identifying challenges and best practice during project implementation and promoting safe innovative practices.
- Works closely with the Child Protection Technical Advisor to ensure services are delivered safely and to a high quality – upholding international minimum standards, learning from and contextualising best practice and ensuring effective technical assistance and capacity strengthening activities for staff and partner organizations.
- Facilitate monthly project review meetings for both WC and partner staff to track progress against budget, indicators and work plan and identify and trouble shoot challenges.
- Lead budget management, including approving project costs in line with Scheme of Delegation, reviewing monthly BvA, ensuring re-allocations and ensuring budget spends remain within budget line flexibility.
- Respond to donor and other key stakeholder’s ad hoc requests on the project.
- Supervise the activities implemented by the local partners and facilitate and review narrative and financial reports submitted by the local partners.
- Promotes and integrates gender analysis and mainstreaming into humanitarian programming.
- Continually adapts to the changing political realities by proposing and coordinating adaptions to the program activities and outcomes as needed.
- Contribute to creating a culture committed to the safeguarding of children and adults and compliant to WCUK’s Child Safeguarding and Adults at Risk Policies.
How to apply
To see the full JD and download a brief application form (2 questions) please go to our website: https://www.warchild.org.uk/who-we-are/work-for-us/latest-vacancies