TITLE: Director of Programme Development & Impact (PQI)

TEAM/ PROGRAMME : Programme Development & Quality

LOCATION : Cairo, Egypt with regular visits to Upper and Lower Egypt

GRADE : National executive or International contract

LENGTH OF CONTRACT : 2 years renewable

CHILD SAFEGUARDING :
Level 3: the post 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 country programs; or are visiting country programs; or because they are responsible for implementing the police checking/vetting process staff.

ROLE PURPOSE:
As a member of the Senior Management Team (SMT), the Program Development and Quality (PQI) Director is responsible for driving cross-functional engagement in the development and delivery of Country Strategy Plans (CSPs), developing annual plans and reporting on results. S/he is responsible for ensuring development and delivery of high quality, evidence-based, innovative programs for children, in all contexts, that contribute to Save the Children’s global Breakthroughs: Learn, Survive, Be Protected. The PQI Director ensures that a robust monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) system is in place, that the country office engages in the collection and use of evidence and that this is shared across the global organization, and that reliable data is used for decision-making. One key aspect of the role is ensuring capability building, mentoring and coaching of technical advisors in order to support program quality in line with global standards and key performance indicators. As a senior leader in the country office s/he plays a representational role with the government, donors, partners, peer agencies, SC Members and others. The PQI Director supports strategic positioning with donors and partners and leads on project design to ensure that the Country Office (CO) strategy can be delivered in line with child rights programming principles.In the event of a humanitarian emergency, the role holder will be expected to work outside the normal role profile and be able to vary working hours accordingly.

SCOPE OF ROLE :
Reports to: Country Director
Staff Reporting to this Post: 9
Direct : Gender Equality Specialist, Health and Nutrition Advisor, Child Protection Advisor, Education Senior Advisor, MEAL Manager, Head of New Business Development Manager, Youth and Livelihood Advisor, Cash and Voucher (CVA) CVA Advisor (to be hired), Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Advisor, Climate Resilience Advisor (50%).
Budget Responsibilities : Impact Fund and other flexible funding
Role Dimensions :
Save the Children’s Egypt Country Office has over 400 staff and volunteers and a current annual expenditure of around US $20 million. The CO has Field/Programme offices in Asuit, Minya, Beni Suef, Aswan and Alexandria. In Greater Cairo there are 5 Hubs that deliver services for migrant and refugee populations.
As part of the senior staff team in the Country Office, the Director of Program Development and Quality (PQI) must demonstrate the qualities of agile leadership. S/he plays a key role in defining and pursuing the strategic direction for Save the Children’s programs in Egypt, ensuring the relevance, coherence, safety and impact of our programs for children in all contexts. This is a challenging role requiring an individual who can work with complexity and multiple tasks at one time.
It is essential that the Director of Program Development and Quality builds and maintains strong relationships across functions within the Country Office, including with team members from Operations, Award Management, Humanitarian, Advocacy and Finance, and s/he should lead by example in demonstrating this cross- functional collaboration. This role demands dedication to demonstrating outcomes for children, experience in integrated child rights programming and a highly motivated leader. S/he has specific oversight for ensuring that programs demonstrate thematic excellence in contributing to Save the Children’s three Breakthroughs for children, especially for the most deprived and marginalized: no child dies from preventable causes before their fifth birthday; all children learn from a quality basic education; and violence against children is no longer tolerated.

KEY AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY :
As a member of the Senior Management Team :

• Support the development of an organisational culture that reflects our dual mandate values, promotes accountability and high performance, encourages a team culture of learning, creativity and innovation, and frees up our people to deliver outstanding results for children and excellent customer service for our members and donors

• Help design and implement a coherent organizational structure that is consistent with agency practices and appropriate to programme needs

• Help establish, maintain, and improve active and regular working relationships with: host government authorities, partner agencies including humanitarian and development donors, and local and international NGOs

• Lead on the roll-out of SCI global initiatives, such as TE Transformation, and support Country Office roll out operational initiatives such as PPM-PRIME.

Strategy, Planning and Reporting (15%)

• Lead the development/updating of the Child Rights Situation Analysis, including analysis of country context and taking into account child rights principles, ensuring participation and buy-in from all relevant staff, partners and other stakeholders as necessary

• Lead the SMT to develop/update and drive forward the Country Strategy Plan (CSP) that is in line with the global strategy, Ambition 2030, with child rights at the core of all programming and advocacy work.

• Provide leadership on development of the Country Annual Plan, monitoring of progress against the plan, and completion of accurate, on-time Country Annual Report of outcomes and impact for children, aligned with the Global Results Framework.

• Facilitate the development and pursuit of thematic and cross-cutting strategic priorities in line with the CSP, including gender equality migration work, to guide current and future SC programming and Humanitarian Strategies.

• Support ownership and commitment to the Country Office strategy by all staff and departments through clear communication, regular feedback on progress and engagement of all functions in updates.

• Participate in global discussions and working groups to represent country office, and the voice of children, in strategy design and policy development.

• Support change processes and roll-out new ways of working to improve achievement of the CSP.

Program Design & Development (25%)

• Based on tracking provided by the Awards Management team and Head of New business, review and position for opportunities that will drive the CSP.

• In consultation with the Country Director and Members, ensure technical engagement with donors to pre-position and prepare for opportunities, and engage in strategic positioning work directly as appropriate.

• Ensure that needs assessments are well-designed and allow an in-depth analysis of the situation to be able to better answer beneficiaries’ needs, with a clear identification of key stakeholders.

• If necessary and when appropriate, anticipate the deployment of needs assessments for collecting data and identify key concept notes for potential funding opportunity.

• Play a leading role in designing proposals for both development programs and humanitarian responses, including:

o Engaging with technical experts as needed to ensure high quality, evidence-based designs that draw on needs assessments, learning from past programs, using the best experience of SC in country or in the region, developing innovative approaches, using SCI common approaches, ensuring all criteria regarding SCI quality standards are met in terms of accountability, sustainability, child participation, safe programming, gender and child safeguarding principles;
o Coordinate the team of technical advisors to provide timely and high-quality inputs into proposals and proactively and regularly communicate planned requirements for program design and implementation to relevant CO departments/functions
o Ensuring partners are identified and appropriately engaged in program design, linking with Operations and Awards teams as need be for assessments, especially to strengthen gender sensitivity at design stage;

• Ensuring proposal designs and their budgets include robust MEAL plans that are aligned with the Global Results Framework (and therefore advance towards our Breakthroughs), incorporate Common Approaches as relevant, and build in critical learning questions.

• Incorporating child and community participation into design, as relevant.

• Support New Business with coordination of overall funding process from both grants and SC members. This including: developing funding strategies, creating grant proposals, and identifying strategic leads and concepts. Identify local and international organizations to build competitive consortia able to deliver results for children and value for money.

• Play a leading role in identifying, nurturing and strengthening strategic partnerships with local and international civil society organizations, NGOs, governments etc., in advancing the country and global strategy to inspire our three breakthroughs for the most deprived and marginalized children.

• Explore and test potential private sector partnerships

• Accountable for PQI representation of the Country Office among external donors, partners, Government and Members

Program Quality and Impact (25%)

• Lead the development of technical and cross cutting frameworks, identification and development of evidence based approaches and models contextualised to led to program and project results

• Advance programmatic thinking across programs to strengthen program sustainability, gender equity outcomes and quality partnership practice

• Ensure the provision of high quality technical assistance and capacity building to all country office programs, projects and staff by managing internal and external technical assistance

• Seek the involvement of appropriate SCI, Centre and Regional Office, and Member technical expertise, and ensure excellent coordination and cooperation with Country Office technical advisors

• Ensure that PQI technical advisors are engaged in and contributing to relevant regional, global and national forums, and sharing knowledge and resources gained with SMT and ESMT.

Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, Learning (MEAL) and Knowledge management (20%)

• Oversee a monitoring system that provides timely and accurate project results by embedding MEAL across program implementation. This requires ensuring effective collaboration across MEAL staff, Technical Specialists, Technical Advisors and program implementation teams to develop logframes, indicators, implementation plans, quality benchmarks, monitoring and evaluation frameworks and related tools.

• Lead programme quality improvements by monitoring and improving Programme KPI performance, including resourcing and conducting high-quality evaluations to demonstrate outcomes and impact and ensuring that accountability mechanisms are in place for all projects so that identified actions are resolved, with critical issues escalated to senior management.

• Ensure the research, evaluation and policy work of the Country Office contributes to generation of evidence for development and improvement of Common Approaches, sound decision making and policy influencing internally and externally.

• Establish effective program learning and knowledge management systems to support adaptive programming and innovation that improves outcomes for children.

• Oversee Save the Children Egypt’s operational research programs, with the MEAL TA to ensure children are supported through the evidence based programmes and new techniques.

• Disseminate information relating to the outcome of research projects widely and – in particular to the Government and to other humanitarian and development actors, and through publications or One Net.

Staff Management, Mentorship, and Development (15%)

• Ensure high-caliber staffing within Program Development and Quality, and engagement of additional technical support when needed to deliver quality project design and delivery.

• Ensure that all PQI staff understand and are able to perform their role in delivering first-class, quality programs for children in both development and emergency contexts through effective onboarding and clear workplans.

• Ensure that staff proactively build and maintain technical, managerial and leadership skills, including competencies in child rights programming, child safeguarding and Common Approaches, providing coaching opportunities when needed.

• Ensure the recruitment, training, and promotion of staff as appropriate and ensure availability of appropriate professional development opportunities for staff.

• Manage individual and PQI team performance using principles of leadership agility, and Save the Children’s performance management system through:

o Effective use of the Develop to Perform System including the establishment of clear, measurable objectives, ongoing feedback, periodic reviews and fair and unbiased evaluations;
o Coaching, mentoring and other developmental opportunities;
o Recognition and rewards for outstanding performance;
o Documentation of performance that is less than satisfactory, with appropriate performance improvements/ workplans
Responsibilities of Child Safeguarding (CSG)

• Report all cases internal and external

• Know CSG policy and code of conduct, raise awareness on the policy (Children, partners, community)

• Contribute in lessons learned and documentation of good practices under the focal point leadership focal point

• To be a model in his/her work and private life, and respect the code of conduct and the policy of CSG

• Know and respect local procedures

• Make sure of the well-being of children

• Ensure work place is a safe place for Children
  

BEHAVIOURS (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 their team to do the same

• widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others

• future orientated, thinks strategically and on a global scale.

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 and willing to take disciplined risks.

Integrity:

• honest, encourages openness and transparency; demonstrates highest levels of integrity
  

QUALIFICATIONS

• A minimum of 10 years management experience in an NGO environment, including significant field operations experience of full spectrum implementation: running both development and emergency programs and program design

• Master’s level qualification in one or more of appropriate technical area (social protection, food security, education, health& nutrition, MEAL)
  

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS
Essential :

• Strong background in resilience and or education programming for children

• Strong background in working with Migrants and refugees including Mix migration programmig

• Significant knowledge of international humanitarian systems, institutions and donors, and of procedures, accountability frameworks and best practices in emergency management

• Experience and strong understanding of in humanitarian / emergency response, development and nexus programming

• Experience in leading reasearched and evaluation of humanitarian / emergency response, and development programming

• Track record in engaging with donors and to raise funds for projects delivering quality results for children. Significant experience in securing and managing grants from major institutional donors

• Ability to analyze information, evaluate options and to think and plan strategically – ability to think laterally

• An in-depth understanding of national and international development issues in particular in relation to children and child rights

• Previous experience of managing and developing a team and the ability to lead, motivate and develop others

Language

• Fluency in English with Arabic as a strong advantage

Desireable:

• Ability and willingness to change work practices and hours, and work with incoming teams in the event of major emergencies.

• Solid project management skills related to organizational development projects and international, cross-functional teams with a proven history of delivering results
  

ADDITIONAL JOB RESPONSIBILITES:
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:
We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.

SAFEGUARDING STAFF
The post holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI anti-harassment policy

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