Mozambique: PROJECT DIRECTOR – GIRLS’ EDUCATION REF MPT VG 005/18

TEAM/PROGRAMME: Education Project, Save the Children in Mozambique

LOCATION: Maputo - Mozambique Country Office - with up to 50% travel to provinces

GRADE: 1

CONTRACT LENGTH:

Child Safeguarding:

Level 3 - The role holder will have contact with children and/or young people either frequently (e.g. once a week or more) or intensively (e.g. four days in one month or more or overnight) because they work in country programs; or are visiting country programs; or because they are responsible for implementing the police checking/vetting process staff.

ROLE PURPOSE:

Save the Children is recruiting for an experienced Project Director to lead a flagship girls’ education program in Mozambique. The four-year $10m program started in April 2017 and works across 3 provinces, rolling out at scale a variety of interventions Save the Children has piloted both in Mozambique and around the world. Project implementation is accompanied by a strong impact assessment component which aims to demonstrate how these interventions specifically help the most marginalised girls to access education, stay in school and achieve improved learning outcomes.

The Project Director will be responsible for the planning, management, financial oversight, monitoring and evaluation, coordination and successful implementation of this project across the three provinces, which includes a mix of direct implementation and sub-granting to local partners. Strong project sub-granting, management and budget monitoring skills, PBR expertise, as well as technical skills in education, research and monitoring and evaluation, will be a particular focus of this role, since project implementation and payment by the donor is contingent on reaching output and outcome related milestones.

SCOPE OF ROLE:

Reports to: Director Operations

Staff directly reporting to this post: National programme coordinator, teaching and learning coordinator MEAL manager (international post) and operations manager.

Direct:

Indirect :

Budget Responsibilities: No budget ownership, but Coordinator will be required to work with Sponsorship Manager on Education & Retention portion of budget to ensure resources needed to sufficiently fund quality data and communications are accurately reflected in budget planning

Role Dimensions: Save the Children works on five programmatic sectors in three regions in Mozambique with a current staff complement of approximately 550, and communicates internally and externally with different stakeholdres and donors.

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY

• Provide overall management and implementation of a multi-million pound education project.
• Provide strategic leadership, ensuring technically sound decision-making processes.
• Maintain close oversight of program activities, through strong communications with field teams and through field visits.
• Facilitate and enable strong external partnerships, particularly at national and sub-national levels with the Ministry of Education and Human Development and the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare.
• Ensure that the program is appropriately staffed across Save the Children and partners, including the appropriate combination of expertise across technical and operational areas
• Developing and maintaining efficient and effective operating systems to identify and mitigate risks and increase quality.
• Ensure compliance with all Save the Children Minimum Operating Standards, including Child Safeguarding, Child Protection, safety and security management
• Ensure that the project is compliant with donor standards and contractual requirements.
• Attend regular donor meetings and calls and facilitate regular donor monitoring visits to the project.
• Ensure that an effective monitoring and performance management system is in place and reviewed regularly for achieving prior agreed targets in relation to program activities, budget allocations and financial expenditures, ensuring that value for money can be effectively demonstrated to the donor.
• Carry out regular field travel and monitoring visits (up to 50%)
• Produce and review reports (monthly, quarterly, annual) as well as donor reports for implementation activities.
• Be responsible for the timeliness and quality of all reports sent to SCUK and the donor.
• Document lessons learned and challenges, highlighting areas for project improvement and innovation.
• Ensure research and MEAL related components are delivered to the highest standards.
• Manage the external evaluator contracting process, and support the selected evaluator with the evaluation implementation and reporting as necessary.
• Contribute to organisational, national and donor learning on the sustainable impact of girls’ education programming
• Review the project finances (including forecasts) regularly to ensure accurate accounting, compliance and reporting.
• Nurture strong relationships with Save the Children’s partners in country, national and regional level government and donors, as well as other key stakeholders in Mozambique

This section describes the breadth and depth of contact the person will have with major identified stakeholders.

Internal: SCUK support team in London, Regional Technical Desks and country based technical (MEAL and thematic specialists), operational, awards and financial teams.

External: National, provincial and district government including Ministry of Education and Human Development,, Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare, academic institutions, consultants, donor representatives in-country, partner agencies, networks and for a.

In case of emergency

• Promote children rights, contributing for children wellness and protection during emergencies, guided by the humanitarian principles and the Save the Children code of conduct
• Be prepared to support Save the Children interventions in response to emergencies and able to be allocated in any province in the country;
• Develop any activity requested by line managers

Child Safeguarding

· Ensure that program staff is providing all beneficiaries with ongoing, age-appropriate verbal or written information in relevant languages about Save the Children’s Child Safeguarding Policy and Code of Conduct.

· Ensure that children’s activities are safe for children and that all steps are taken to ensure their meaningful and safe participation

SKILLS AND BEHAVIOURS (our Values in Practice)

Accountability:

· Holds self accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values

· Holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities - giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved

Ambition:

· Sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves (and their team), takes responsibility for their own personal development and encourages others to do the same

· Widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others

· Future orientated, thinks strategically

Collaboration:

· Builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, members and external partners and supporters

· Values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength

· Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to

Creativity:

· Develops and encourages new and innovative solutions

· Willing to take disciplined risks

Integrity:

· Honest, encourages openness and transparency

QUALIFICATIONS

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

Essential

· Master’s degree or equivalent in education, gender or development studies or a related subject

· Expertise in education and gender issues relating to girls’ education specifically

· Prior experience of delivering results based education programming (preferably in a socio-cultural and political context similar to Mozambique)

· Good knowledge of children's rights and specifically girls related issues in education

· Experience of project and financial management of multi partner or agency consortia

· Proven experience in research, learning focused monitoring and evaluation and knowledge management

· Demonstrated experience of developing and managing relationships with donors (DFiD and others)

· Demonstrated experience in handling budgets in excess of £5m and working with PBR

· Skills in navigating complex donor requirements and ensuring donor compliance – understanding of Value for Money (VAF) and Payment by results (PbR)

· Demonstrated experience of working with national and/or provincial level government structures on policy design, implementation and capacity building

· Full fluency in English (essential)

· Fluency in Portuguese language skills (but also other romance language speakers considered).

· Experience of building, leading and developing a team of senior staff with different backgrounds and expertise

· Strong communication, and interpersonal skills with substantial experience in managing multicultural teams

· Proven experience of working in changing / volatile contexts

· Strong in working under pressure, with tight time schedules

· Willingness to spend 50% of their time in the implementation provinces

Desireable

· Good risk management analysis, monitoring and control to keeps track of the identified risks and to ensures the execution of risk response plans, and evaluates their effectiveness

· Sub granting and partnership capacity strengthening skills

· Problem solving of complex issues through analysis, definition of a clear way forward and ensuring buy-in

· Ability to provide support and performance management remotely and work within a matrix management structure

· Dynamic, innovative and creative

· Commitment to and understanding of Save the Children’s aims, values and principles including rights-based approaches

·

Additional job responsibilities

The duties and responsibilities as set out above are not exhaustive and the role holder may be required to carry out additional duties within reasonableness of their level of skills and experience.

Equal Opportunities

The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI Equal Opportunities and Diversity policies and procedures.

Child Safeguarding:

Behave towards children in a way which reflects the Code of Conduct and Safeguarding Policy.

Health and Safety

The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with SCI Health and Safety policies and procedures.

The applicants concerned should request the more detailed reference terms at the following address. Save the Children International, Rua de Tchamba No. 398, Maputo or via Email: Recrutamento.moz@savethechildren.org. Applications may be submitted with the letter of motivation (in Portuguese and English) to the email address or left at the address mentioned above until June 20^th ,2018.

"We are an equal opportunity employer, we encourage women's candidacy." Save the children commits to ensuring that all your workers and programs are absolutely safe for children.

We apply strict procedures to ensure that only suitable candidates for working with children are permitted to join our organization and all candidates will therefore be subjected to this scrutiny. "

NB: Only selected candidates will be contacted.