Regional Specialist, Programs at Search For Common Ground’s International

Team Summary

• The Regional Program Management team has oversight on the management of restricted grants to drive impact and ensure compliance.
• The Programs team supports in-country Directors and Managers to effectively follow Search and donor policies and procedures regarding grant implementation.
• This function commences with the signing of a grant and completes with the final close-out.
• This involves monitoring, reporting, and where appropriate, engagement with donors. It involves oversight on both program quality and compliance, working in close collaboration with other departments, including Finance, the Institutional Learning Team, Strategy Alignment, Program Quality, Communications, and Human Resources.
• The Regional Program Management team aims to build and strengthen the capacity of program implementation at Search and with partner staff in-country.

Responsibilities

• Coordinates grants start up, grants close out and documents lessons learned in the course of implementation.
• Manages the reporting process across the region in close coordination with country teams and the Regional Program Managers.
• Manages or supports donor communication.
• Monitors and enforces donor compliance.
• Facilitates program implementation review, spending review, and forecasting.

Contributions

• Reviews all internal and external reporting, ensuring high-quality, well-written, and timely reports meet donor and Search requirements, with support from the country reporting teams (Program Associates/Project Managers/Country Directors/Program Managers). Ensures that draft reports disseminated for review and feedback by senior management team, relevant technical advisers, and HQ staff are of high quality and in compliance prior to submitting the final report to the donor.
• Liaises with donors and implementing partners regarding program implementation and compliance. The Regional Program Specialist will always coordinate closely with the country management teams who have the primary responsibility in donor and partner engagement.
• Ensures that the PMTs are regularly updated and utilized. Proactively supports needs for no-cost extensions, budget realignments, or other budgetary changes.
• Provides technical backstopping and deploys to country offices from time to time based on existing priorities.
• Orients relevant staff of all departments to donor requirements and works closely with all Search departments and country offices to comply with donor requirements. Will provide coaching, capacity building, and training opportunities based on identified needs and the request of country teams.
• Analyzes the potential risks related to Search’s current program implementation practices and articulates recommendations for mitigation of risks.
• Monitors the compliance of a strategic portfolio of grants, working in collaboration with the regional and country teams responsible for implementing these grants.
• Monitors the program implementation and budget variance analysis of key strategic grants to ensure objectives are met. Will be responsible for supervising the Program Management dashboard for the full region.
• Participates in reflection sessions and discussions on adaptation. Facilitates support for technical assistance where appropriate. Ensures lessons learnt are well documented and disseminated for better program implementation in future, in line with best practice in reflective practice and adaptive management.
• Supports review of proposals, budgets, and budget narrative to ensure completeness and compliance with stipulated donor rules and regulations.
• Maintains and updates a donor reporting tracker to track all upcoming reports and track timeliness of report submission.
• Facilitates or supports grants start up, reviews, and closure meetings and follows up on action points.
• Other duties that are broadly in line with the above key contributions as assigned.

Type and Nature of Contacts

• Routinely coordinates with colleagues and consultants on-site and in the field and resolves problem situations with tact.
• Represents, as assigned, selected programs or projects and other organizations, including donors, vendors, and international and local partners.
• Interacts with country office and regional staff.

Education and Experience

• Typically BS/BA with minimum 9 years’ experience.

English/French required - must be fluent/native in one of the two languages and have at least an intermediate to advanced level of comprehension of the other.