Job Summary
CARE Nigeria is seeking a Director of Program and Strategic Partnership who will provide strategic leadership, oversight, and management of CARE’s program portfolio within the country/region. The role ensures high-quality, impactful, and sustainable programming aligned with CARE’s global priorities, donor requirements, and local needs. The Director leads program design, implementation, monitoring & evaluation, partnerships, and resource mobilization. The Director is expected to provide strategic leadership in the areas of Resource Mobilization, program strategy development and implementation (including emergency response), MEAL (Monitoring Evaluation Accountability and Learning), program quality assurance and evidence-based advocacy. The Director will lead a team of humanitarian and development practitioners committed to delivering impactful programs aiming at improving the lives of women and girls, with a focus on addressing gender inequality and Gender Based Violence across the continuum of aid. He/she will ensure CARE Nigeria significantly contributes to CARE's Global Strategy, building on CARE's history, body of knowledge and evidence-based models of programming. The Director ensures CARE Nigeria has a coherent program strategy that is used as the framework and foundation for humanitarian and long-term development teams to work as one team that draws from each other’s skills and expertise. He/she is responsible for creating a culture of learning and reflection so that organizational knowledge is used to innovate and continuously improve program strategy, evidence-based models, program quality and impact. S/he is responsible for, along with the Country Director (CD), maintaining good working relationships with relevant line Ministries, donors and key strategic partners with special attention to strategic civil society partners and women led organizations. The Director of Program and Strategic Partnership is a member of the Country Office Senior Leadership Team and may also be requested to act as Country Director during the latter's absence.
RESPONSIBILITIES AND TASKS:
JOB RESPONSIBILITY #1: PROGRAM STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT AND RESOURCE MOBILIZATION
The Director is expected to be strategy driven but donor conscious to maintain a healthy funding pipeline that will allow CARE Nigeria to deliver on its program strategy. Specifically, the PD will:
- Lead the program strategy development and regular reviews, based on sound contextual analysis, CARE International (CI) global program strategy, CARE's program approach that aims to address underlying causes of poverty and social injustice.
- Ensure the CO program strategy articulates CARE's role and value proposition for Nigeria while coherently linking CARE's dual long-term development and humanitarian mandate along the continuum of aid through applying durable solutions to the humanitarian space.
- Ensure that all initiatives designed and implemented by the CO are in line with the CO program strategy, CI programming framework and performance standards and contribute to achieving the objectives of the CI global program strategy.
- Conduct regular donor scoping exercises of traditional institutional donors and stays current with donors' strategies and funding forecasts to identify strategic funding opportunities in a timely manner.
- Ensure CARE Nigeria is positioned among key donors by regularly engaging with them through meetings, attending events they organize, inputting into their strategies, etc.
- Pro-actively drives the identification of new donors, e.g. in the private sector, foundations, innovative partnerships around funding.
- With support from CD and relevant CMPs, lead partnership conversations around teaming agreements for proposal development purposes.
- To maximize CO's effectiveness at resource mobilization, regularly update CO capacity statement based on results from our work for key sectors of interventions and ensure CO has ready concept notes based on the core models and approaches at the heart of our program strategy.
- Develop / regularly update annual reports and a brochure on our program strategy for external communication purposes on CARE's work in Nigeria.
- Lead CO proposal development efforts, in line with CO strategy, and is fully responsible for the quality of developed proposals, and for coherence between the narrative and financial proposals (budgets);
- Ensure the pipeline of the CO is stable and if possible, continues to grow
JOB RESPONSIBILITY #2: PROGRAM MANAGEMENT AND OVERSIGHT OF QUALITY IMPLEMENTATION
Ensure that CARE programs and projects, both humanitarian and development, are managed in a manner which achieves the program/project goals, reflects CARE's roles and is in line and compliant with CARE and donor policies and procedures. By:
- Collaborating with P&C department, to ensure that qualified staff with the required competencies, skills and commitment, well aligned with the program strategy are in place for effective project/program implementation.
- Working with program support heads of departments, ensure appropriate policies, procedures and systems are in place to ensure timely and quality management and implementation of CARE's programs/projects and initiatives.
- Monitoring all CO programs and projects to ensure that they are implemented in a professional manner in line with the project proposals through project visits, review meetings with teams, review and approval of reports, review and approval of activity plans on a regular basis.
- With support from the program support team, ensure proper management of financial and other material resources entrusted to CARE's program and projects, including the review and approval of program/project budgets and the monitoring of budget and donor reports.
- Ensure donor and government reporting is done according to agreed upon standards, contractual and / or statutory obligations and in a timely manner.
- Work closely with units in Program Support (finance, administration, HR, etc.) to ensure proper coordination exists for efficient program implementation and compliance with CARE, government and donors' regulations.
- Regularly review and ensure that the most efficient CO program management structure is established and functional in order to ensure program quality, program coherence across the CO and the cost efficient achievement of program objectives.
JOB RESPONSIBILITY #3: IMPACT MEASUREMENT, KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT, AND MONITORING, EVALUATION, ACCOUNTABILITY AND LEARNING
Ensure that the CO program remains dynamic, with opportunities for innovation and personal growth by promoting a culture of, and mechanisms for, reflective practice and learning at all levels.
- Ensure a user friendly and gender sensitive Impact Measurement & MEAL system that allows us to track and report on the aggregated CO impact at country level (and over and above individual projects and initiatives) is in place, with a common set of impact level indicators, aligned with the global CI systems.
- Ensure alignment of program initiatives’ M&E frameworks to CO /CI impact indicators so that all CO program initiatives contribute to at least some of the CO level Impact Measurement indicators.
- Ensure the CO uses a gender and age-specific Management Information System (MIS) that meets CO IM and accountability needs and CI’s PIIRS requirements, including rigorous tracking of direct and indirect participants, without duplication or underreporting.
- Ensure alignment of the different program initiatives’ learning systems and learning frameworks to the CO learning agenda, also ensuring contribution to CARE global initiatives.
- Establish mechanisms for knowledge sharing and learning between initiatives within the CO program and with stakeholders beyond the CO.
- Ensure the CO actively participates in organization wide and regional learning initiatives (both virtual through the various email groups as well as physical events) related to CARE's priority program themes and approaches.
- Ensure that lessons learned are consolidated and used to inform ongoing and future practices.
- Ensure that monitoring and evaluation systems and periodic reports enhance accountability of CO vis-a-vis our impact groups, as well as other stakeholders (civil society, donors and government counterparts).
JOB RESPONSIBILITY #4: EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS
Develop and enhance relationships between the CO and other parts of CARE and external organizations so that CARE can maximize its impact on poverty and social justice.
- Identify, develop and nurture strategic partnerships necessary to implement the CO program strategy and lead CO's efforts to work differently with strategic partners and develop relationships based on common vision and complementarity.
- Establish and maintain good relationships with relevant – counterparts/departments of the government, CI members, the locally-represented multi/bi-lateral donors, foundations, international and national NGOs, CBOs and other civil society organizations.
- Identify issues to be addressed to heighten donor and government accountability and maintain a positive image and good visibility for CARE amongst these groups.
- Support and work effectively in coalitions, networks and social movements.
- Ensure timely reporting and communications with CI members, donors, government and other key actors.
- Ensure cordial media relations and act as CARE spokesperson on program related issues when requested by CD
JOB RESPONSIBILITY #5: PRIVATE SECTOR ENGAGEMENT AND PARTNERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Identifies and cultivates relationships with private sector, corporate foundations, and impact investors whose interests align with the organisation's programme areas. Develops partnership models that go beyond traditional sponsorship, such as cause marketing, employee engagement and skills-based volunteering, supply chain or market-systems partnerships, technology and data partnerships, and blended finance or co-investment structures.
- Build partnership with private actors to make markets work better for poor and excluded populations, for example supporting smallholder farmers' access to formal markets, or working with employers to create inclusive jobs and value chains, rather than only delivering aid directly.
- Works with the fundraising/business development team to build a private sector pipeline, develop costed partnership proposals, and set realistic income targets from this stream, recognising that private sector income usually starts small and grows over several years.
- Acts as the translator between technical program teams and corporate partners, ensuring partnership commitments are programmatically sound and that programme teams understand what private partners need (visibility, data, employee engagement opportunities, ESG/CSR reporting) in return.
- Leads due diligence on prospective corporate partners against the organisation's ethical fundraising and partnership policies (sectors to avoid, conflict of interest, reputational risk, safeguarding implications of partner visits or branding).
- Keeps abreast of and pilots newer models, such as outcomes-based financing, social impact bonds, corporate venture philanthropy, and matched-giving platforms.
JOB RESPONSIBILITY #6: STAFF MANAGEMENT
Provide supervision, management and coaching for all direct reports and lead the establishment and functioning of a strong, effective, interdependent and gender committed and competent Program team able to work across the CO.
- Ensure the implementation of CARE's performance management system for direct reports and their teams, including development of job descriptions, Annual Performance Plans and performance appraisal processes, regular feedback, mid-term reviews and annual performance reviews.
- Proactively address performance issues through regular, constructive and honest feedback and coaching.
- Identify necessary staff development, career development and succession planning strategies for direct reports.
- Ensure that space and incentives are available to allow staff to develop and innovate.
- Oversee the recruitment and orientation of new senior program staff in both humanitarian and development programming and contribute to orientation of senior staff in program support functions.
- Throughout all aspects of CARE's Human Resource Management, the Program Director is expected to put Gender Equity and Diversity (GED) at the center in collaboration with HR in order to attract and retain more women in program leadership positions, more gender committed and capable male and female staff and ultimately to have more gender activists CARE Nigeria.
RESOURCE MOBILIZATION:
- Contribute to CARE’s resource mobilization efforts
OTHER RSPONSIBILITIES:
- Perform any other duties as assigned.
QUALIFICATION/EXPERIENCE/TECHNICAL SKILLS:
Required
- Master's Degree in Humanitarian and / or Development studies or related field, preferably in
- Minimum of 12 years progressive experience in program design and implementation within a large international NGO, with at least 7 years in a senior management program position in the development and humanitarian sector with management experience of a large and diverse portfolio of restricted institutional donor grants;
- Demonstrated capability and experience in successfully developing and managing institutional partnerships with a range of actors (e.g. government, civil society, private sector, academia, donors, etc);
- Strategic thinker capable of facilitating the creation of a vision of change for women and girls that will inform CARE's programs as well as CARE's organizational culture and values;
- Capacity to write strategy documents, while translating strategy into concrete action and program initiatives;
- Excellent proposal writing skills (including for institutional donors like US Governement, EU, etc) with a high success rate.
- Proven experience with all aspects of managing programs and grants (design, implementation, Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, Learning, results-based M&E and Impact Measurement, financial management, procurement and administration, reporting, donor compliance, Human Resource management, etc);
- Proven experience supporting organizational learning for quality insurance and innovation;
- Demonstrated experience in leading and managing organizational change;
- Demonstrated leadership and interpersonal skills and proven experience in managing individuals and teams for success;
- Experience in Institutional Development and Organizational Strengthening of CSO
- Strong communication, representation and negotiation skills.
Competencies:
- Building Effective Teams
- Building Partnerships
- Leading through Vision & Values
- Strategic Agility
- Timely Decision Making
- Problem Solving
- Creativity
- Action Oriented
- Negotiations Skills
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