Project Manager

Project Manager- Adolescents’ Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

Functional Area: Program – Lead and Decide; Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights(SRHR)
Reports to: Regional Manager, Regional Office West,
Location: Regional Office West, Surkhet
Travel required: At least 50% of time
Grade: D2
Type: Open to female applicants only; Fixed term employment until December 2026) based in Regional office West, Surkhet

ABOUT PLAN INTERNATIONAL

Plan International is a development and humanitarian organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. We strive for a just world, working together with children, young people, our supporters and partners in over 75 countries. Our programs are underpinned by a core of defined values, including transparency and accountability, team collaboration, inclusion and integration, as well as the overall ambition to empower girls and young women as legacy.

Plan International has been working in Nepal since 1978 and developed a strong reputation as a respected development and humanitarian actor helping marginalised children, their families and communities to access their rights to health, education, economic security and protection. Through the support of local partners, Plan International works in 24 districts in Nepal.

Plan International Nepal has a vision for 2030 as “an inclusive, just and safe society where all girls and young women enjoy their rights and live in freedom”. This is coupled with the ambition of taking action so that 100 million girls learn, lead, decide and thrive as “Girls and young women in all of their diversity reach their full potential as equal and active citizens” by 2023. The country strategy is put into action through the implementation of three interrelated program areas defined as follows:

LEARN: the “Education and Skills and Opportunities for Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship (SOYEE)” program aims to assist vulnerable and excluded girls and young women in adapting and thriving in a changing climate;

LEAD AND DECIDE: the “Youth as Active Drivers of Change and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR)” program aims to empower girls and young women in leading change, having control over their bodies and making informed decisions; and

THRIVE: the “Early Childhood Development (ECD), Child Protection and Child Poverty” program enhances vulnerable and excluded children, especially girls, to be valued and cared for without discrimination, fear and any forms of violence.

Plan international Nepal seeks candidates who practice feminist leadership, promote diversity, actively seek innovative solutions for problems, courageously and respectfully share their opinions and ideas, break down barriers and engender cross-department collaboration, practice active listening, maintain confidentiality, build trust and are passionate about children’s rights and equality for girls.

ROLE PURPOSE

[A concise statement, capturing the primary reasons that this role exists and a clear articulation of the context of the role. How will this role contribute to creating lasting change for children?]

The Project Manager (PM) (herein referred as PM) will lead one of Plan International Nepal’s project named Adolescents’ Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights project. The is position is primarily responsible for providing managerial support for the effective and efficient implementation of the project. As such, it is also anticipated that the PM will be able to demonstrate technical support to the team. As the PM, he/she must have an in-depth understanding of project management for smooth facilitation including people management, effective organisational and programme communication, adherence to quality programming and compliance (Government of Nepal and Donor).

In adherence to Plan International Nepal’s Country Strategy 2023-28, the PM will play a significant role in achieving its objective through this project demonstrated through high sense of accountability, mutual respect and team work tunability. The PM will work closely with KOICA Nepal office and other NGOs who implement KOICA project in accordance with project agreement. Further, the PM with relevant departments of Plan International Nepal will support to deliver high quality of project results.

The PM works closely and provides strategic support to the Programme Partnership and Impact (PPI) team, Programme Quality and Innovation Unit (PQI) including Monitoring, Evaluation Research and Learning (MERL) team, Business Development Influencing, Campaigns and Communications (ICC) team with regards to quality program, program effectiveness and efficiency.

Description

DIMENSIONS OF THE ROLE

[This section provides a summary of the size and authority of the post. It covers the size of the budget held, the numbers of direct reports, other key stakeholders who may depend on it, the type of communication required, the external representation involved and the reach of the role.]

The Project Manager’s main responsibility is to ensure smooth, timely and quality implementation of the project. The project will be implemented in Bardia district with some influencing/advocacy related components at local and Province and federal government for policy frame work formulation and civil society strengthening. S/he will be responsible for:

• General: Provide strategic, and managerial leadership for the KOICA/KNO funded “ASRHR Project,”
• Partner Management: ensure effective project implementation, provide strategic and managerial support, and act as liaison between partner organization and Plan International Nepal on a regular basis. Where necessary provide capacity building directly or by involving the appropriate department (either technical or support), carry out partners’ assessment as required by the projects and organization, make necessary capacity building plan and ensure its implementation.
• Budget Management: ensure budgets are phased and include appropriate WBS and program codes, follow up with transaction reports on bi-weekly/monthly basis to ensure adequate burn rate aligning with the time spend.
• Staff Management / Coordination: Coordinate and hold regular review meetings across sectors to avoid duplication of effort and to keep all key staff up to date. Ensure staffing is appropriate to reach project goals and their Level of Effort (LOE) is coded appropriately per the budget.
• Representation: Work with local, Province and Federal levels government and other agencies, as relevant, to ensure Plan is compliant with all requirements. Ensure Plan International Nepal’s voice is heard at relevant forums
• MER: Ensure proper Project Implementation Guideline, M&E plan, data base and Quality Benchmarks are in place, understood and being used.
• Reporting: Ensure donor/NO/ Plan reports meet time and quality standards
• Coordination and Networking: Liaise and coordinate with stakeholders, implementing partners and the government to maximize the results intended through this project.

In close coordination with Senior / Technical Advisors-Lead and Decide and Program Specialist/ Coordinators the incumbent will ensure timely, high quality and results oriented program plans including strong monitoring systems are developed and applied at all levels in order to ensure all deliverables are completed on time.

Holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Plan International Nepal’s 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.

KEY RELATIONSHIPS

[This section refers to people inside and/or outside of the organisation that the post-holder needs to have contact with, and why. This should include virtual presence.]

ACCOUNTABILITIES

[This section is critical for clarifying expectations of the role, providing the framework for its relationship with colleagues and providing areas of accountability against which performance can be managed.

This should include a series of brief statements that define the end results required. E.g. drive, contribute, identify, manage, responsible for, advise/coach, build, develop, provide, conduct, oversee, establish, participate etc.

Statements should ideally be worded so that they will lead to thoughts of measurement. For example, it is better to state something like “achieve maintenance standards” than “undertake maintenance”. The former leads to a measure against the maintenance standards.]

Planning & Budgeting

• Leads the planning processes and ensures partners have annual detailed implementation plan including realistic phased budget outlining major activities and timeline for the funds allocated in required planning templates provided by the Organization/KNO/Donor.
• Ensures appropriate fund allocation and expenditure on a monthly basis and take corrective measures by revisiting plans and communicating timely with Supervisor and project team.
• Reviews the project’s BvA and transaction reports and report on any glitches identified.
• Coordinate with district project teams including Senior/ Technical Advisors/Program Specialists to design a robust field visit plan, self-assessments and monitoring systems including follow up on recommendations with relevant department and impact areas.
• Leads the revision of budgets during budget forecast and on exchange rate fluctuations as per organizational procedures.
• Coordinates with Senior /Technical Advisor for technical assistance as required.

Programme Delivery & Management

• Ensures programmatic and financial accountability including tracking of program progress and budget expense in the use of funds and achievement of all related projects.
• Ensures inter-thematic integration in the project so that the program participants could get support from entire thematic interventions to achieve expected project results,

Partnership management

• Supports and is responsible for the partnership management in terms of compliance, zero tolerance policies, audits and management response, identification of capacity gaps and recommends for improvements.
• Understands partnership from both the perspectives- as an implementing partner and as a supporting partner to handle the partnership issues.
• Supports to develop capacity building initiative for the implementing partners based on the finding of annual partner’s assessment.

Documentation & Reporting

• S/he is responsible for timely and quality reports preparation, reviewed and submit to BD team as per the reporting schedule in prescribed template.
• Coordinates with Senior/Technical Advisors including MERL team, to ensure effective monitoring, evaluation and documentation of program activities, output, outcomes and best practices.
• Take initiatives in generating information that are required to add values in on-going programmes or for the programmes visualized for future.
• Ensure proper documentation of the project including and not limited to learning, lessons learned, best practices, case studies, in coordination with Communication department.
• Ensures that the DIP, Dash boards, Gantt charts, M & E plan, output tracker are updated and reported timely.

Representation and Networking

• Collaboration and coordination with government counterparts, external development partners and donors at various levels.
• Is part of relevant various level of networks and coalitions and ensures networks is well represented as necessary.
• Supports in program areas to build strong networks with other NGOs, CSOs, bi- lateral and multi-lateral agencies and Government line agencies working on SRHR issues to promote coordination and resource sharing at the Palikas/districts/province level.
• Represent Plan International Nepal in the meetings organized by NO which is specifically about “Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health” Project.
• Coordinate the visit of Korean donor to monitoring and evaluate KOICA project and other KNO project.
• Support KNO group visit and/or board member visit (if any)
• Build links with other NGOs especially who work for KOICA project and manage similar project in Nepal.

Programme Quality

• Supervises and provides guidance to the focal persons in different themes including cross cutting issues (WASH, Climate change and disaster risk management and GESI) in the planning, implementation and monitoring of programs and project plan as per the given guidelines.
• Ensures that the programs have quality benchmarks in place and is exclusively followed at all levels.
• Ensures the M&E plan of the project is well familiar and understood by staff and partner staff of related themes, is exclusively used and reported.
• Ensures that all action plans developed after project reviews, evaluations and assessments are followed up and completed by respective themes on time.
• Identifies strengths and improvement areas of staff members and partners for quality delivery of the projects and comes up with plans to improve such gaps
• Ensures that data is well optimized for all themes at all levels – by partners, project team in in Field and regular update is done
• Ensures incorporation of the cross-cutting issues in our interventions.
• Ensures that the project quality monitoring is carried out periodically against quality bench marks and recommendations are implemented well on timely manners,

Innovation and Scale

• Identifies new ideas, best practices, problems and issues around program implementation and works toward finding solutions for improvements, documenting, disseminating and in consultation with relevant departments and themes.

Other

• Carry out other related tasks assigned by the supervisor.

Ensure Plan International’s CPP and GEI policies

Ensures that Plan International’s global policies for Child Protection (CPP) and Gender Equality and Inclusion (GEI) are fully embedded in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy including relevant Implementation Standards and Guidelines as applicable to their area of responsibility. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring staff and associates are aware of and understand their responsibilities under these policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), their relevance to their area of work, and that concerns are reported and managed in accordance with the appropriate procedures.

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE, SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE

[This section details the skills, knowledge and expertise the postholder will be required to demonstrate in doing the job well. This should include clear levels of technical expertise and skills that support our work at national, international, and global level.]

Essential Knowledge and Experience

• A master’s degree in Public health, humanitarian studies, International development, International relations, social studies or similar field with at least five years in managing public health related and other program funded by Korean and other Donors include KOICA.
• Advanced understanding of the Korean government’s ODA strategy includes KOICA.
  Advanced understanding policy of KOICA reporting (include narrative and financial)
• Proven experience in managing complex teams, including staff management and development.
• Ability to communicate effectively and authoritatively on area of expertise, and influence others to reach common goals.
• Experience working on all elements of MEAL including designing, rolling out and managing system
• Proven experiences and ability to coordinate and collaborate with different organizations including the government and demonstrable working experience in development program.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English. Expertise in Korean language is desirable.
• Developing contingency plans, strengthens local capability and implements responsible exit strategies that reduce future aid dependency
• Providing clear direction and support to team members in the event of the project

Skills (leadership/managerial if applicable)

• Good written and verbal English and Nepali skills.
• Ability to establish and maintain effective relationships with colleagues, a variety of team members and external contacts, through good written and spoken communication skills
• Good interpersonal skills for team working in multi-lingual and multi-cultural environment.
• Demonstrably strong verbal and written communication, presentation and persuasion skills.
• Ability to plan work and meet deadlines when working under pressure on a number of projects.
• Sound strategic thinking and planning skills, including ability to think creatively and be innovative, set priorities, manage work plans and evaluate progress.
• Strategic, analytical, negotiation skill and decision-making skills.
• Able to create linkages, networking, lobbying and advocating with relevant stakeholders.
• Good awareness and analysis of sensitivities attached with the government functionaries.
• Ability to articulate the vision of Plan’s programme to different audiences.

Behaviours

• Demonstrable professional maturity and able to work independently.
• Ability to apply good judgment and professionalism in the resolution of work-related problems
• Honest, encourages openness and transparency
• Efficient in meeting commitments and deadlines in achieving results.
• Ability to plan and organize work by identifying priority activities and adjusting priorities as required.
• Demonstrated approach to work that is characterized by commitment, motivation, energy and flexibility.
• Ability to relate to government authorities, UN agencies, and other development/humanitarian actors and to build a rapport effectively.
• Continually assessing the external policy and advocacy landscape and adjusting strategy and activities as needed.
• Commitment to Plan’s values including the rights and needs of children.

PLAN INTERNATIONAL’S VALUES IN PRACTICE

We are open and accountable

• Promotes a culture of openness and transparency, including with sponsors and donors.
• Holds self and others accountable to achieve the highest standards of integrity.
• Consistent and fair in the treatment of people.
• Open about mistakes and keen to learn from them.
• Accountable for ensuring we are a safe organisation for all children, girls & young people

We strive for lasting impact

• Articulates a clear purpose for staff and sets high expectations.
• Creates a climate of continuous improvement, open to challenge and new ideas.
• Focuses resources to drive change and maximise long-term impact, responsive to changed priorities or crises.
• Evidence-based and evaluates effectiveness.

We work well together

• Seeks constructive outcomes, listens to others, willing to compromise when appropriate.
• Builds constructive relationships across Plan International to support our shared goals.
• Develops trusting and ‘win-win’ relationships with funders, partners and communities.
• Engages and works well with others outside the organization to build a better world for girls and all children.

We are inclusive and empowering

• We empower our staff to give their best and develop their potential
• We respect all people, appreciate differences and challenge equality in our programs and our workplace
• We support children, girls and young people to increase their confidence and to change their own lives.

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

[In this section, state “typical office environment”, or conditions such as “must work outside in an extremely hot and humid climate”. Also note if any protective equipment is required.]

• The position is based at Regional Office West, Surkhet and travel as per need

LEVEL OF CONTACT WITH CHILDREN

[Please delete as applicable]

• Low contact: No contact or very low frequency of interaction
• Mid contact: Occasional interaction with children
• High level: Frequent interaction with children

Application Deadline: Sunday, 21st January 2024

Source: Kantipur Dainik, 9 January 2024