Awards and Partnership Director (FOR MYANMAR NATIONAL ONLY)

ROLE PURPOSE: As a member of the Senior Management Team(SMT) of Myanmar Country Office,; the Director of Awards and Partnership is responsible for overseeing the awards and partnership functions providing strategic and operational guidance in accordance with Save the Children and donor policies in the Myanmar Country Office; She/he will be accountable for ensuring the effective delivery of Award and Partnership services in the Myanmar Country Office; and, representing Awards and Donor perspectives in SMT meetings.

SCOPE OF ROLE:

Reports to: MMR Deputy Country Director – Program Operations

Staff Direct Reports: Award and Partnership Senior Manager, Award Operations Officer, Partnership CSO Advisor and Partnership Manager

External Representation: Donors in Myanmar

Travel: Minimum (up to 5 days per month)

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY :

Myanmar Country Office

Award Management:

• Collaborate with Head of Business Development Team to ensure Go/No Go process for new funding opportunities,
• Ensure that proposal development is undertaken in a systematic manner, with the objective of producing a high quality proposal in a timely manner in coordination with the Head of Business Development.
• Support the Finance Director in development of the master budget, cost allocation, monitoring of award budgets, phasing and forecasting, in particular ensuring alignment between the master budget and funding tracker.
• Ensure that necessary risks are taken knowingly with appropriate mitigating actions.
• Ensure that the Award Management System (AMS) is effectively maintained, up to date and accurately records the detail and process for all awards and sub-awards.
• Recruit, train and manage award management staff and consistently look for ways to improve effectiveness.
• Strong leadership and effective management to the Myanmar Awards Management Team.
• Build and maintain relationships with relevant networks and award management staff of similar organisations in the country.

Donor and SCI Compliance

• Ensure that key program staff have a clear understanding of donor requirements and expectations at the proposal, agreement, kick off, implementation, amendment, reporting, close out and audit stage of awards.
• Ensure that proposals, reports, M&E and quality assurance systems are compliant with donor requirements.
• Provide advice to the finance team on cost allocation with a view to minimise compliance requirements where possible (timesheets, co-financing etc.)
• Ensure that potential issues and amendment requests are flagged promptly to donors via the relevant Save the Children member. This may include developing business cases where donor waiver/derogation requests need to be more thoroughly articulated or negotiated with donors.
• Ensure that new staff in key roles receive an orientation to Save the Children award management processes, systems, tools, and donor compliance requirements.
• Ensure that Global Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Right First Time Indicators (RFT) which fall within the responsibility of Awards management are Green.
• Work with internal and external auditors as necessary.

Partnerships

• Ensures that the partnerships component of the Theory of Change informs the Myanmar country strategy and delivery approaches.
• Keeps abreast of Save the Children Global Partnership strategic developments and develop Save the Children Myanmar’s partnership strategy, frameworks and guidelines to operationalize Country Office (CO) partnership development and management.
• Ensures CO Partnership Strategy & Guideline and all relevant planning, capacity strengthening and monitoring tools pertaining hereto are up to date and contribute to the effective execution and utilization.
• Ensures capacity development of staff on Save the Children’s partnership approach and Partnership Strategy & Guideline and relevant partnership tools.
• Provide leadership of processes related to the scoping/identification, assessment and selection of partners, as per Safer Partnership approached of SCI
• Ensure that all implementing partners undergo legal vetting and a capacity assessment prior to commencing work with Save the Children, are engaged with appropriate agreements and effective monitoring systems are in place so that partner delivery meets donor expectations and requirements.
• Ensure capacity strengthening of partners as required and identified in initial assessment and along the partnership. Tools must be in place and used, updated and known across departments and areas.
• Ensure project designs include capacity strengthening actions and resources, as well as the necessary management structure for partner management and support.
• Ensure relevant donor requirements are effectively communicated and understood by implementing partners.
• On occasion, participate in meetings with a donor or group of donors to help resolve specific issues related to implementation of an existing award, or to seek to influence donor policy or approach on types of awards issued or duration, size, or other characteristics of awards.
• Work closely with the Partnership CSO Advisor ensure staff and partners understand the implications of our localisation ambition and create organisational readiness to deliver it.

Coordination with internal and external stakeholders

• Participate in selected partnership review meetings, consortiums, networks, coalitions with particular attention given to the relational aspects of the partnership collaboration and the identification of viable solutions to any challenges that may have occurred herein.
• Provide guidance on partnership issues to relevant stakeholders in the country.
• Ensure participation of the representatives of the civil society partners in the country strategic and annual plans development and review process as well as in the process of proposal development.

Contribute to SCI Global and National level Engagements and Adoption of Innovations

• Keep abreast with developments in SCI’s global Partnership Working Group and take appropriate action in response to issuance of new/updated SCI policies and guidelines with a bearing on partnership collaboration and management at country level.
• Monitor trends in the larger development community with regard to research on, and innovative approaches towards, partnership collaboration between INGOs and their national counterparts. Explore and pursue new and innovative partnership opportunities for SCI Myanmar.

Child safeguarding

• Responsibility to create and maintain a managerial and operational environment where the Child Safeguarding Policy is effectively implemented.
• Develop and pilot practical day-to-day approaches to increase awareness, commitment and interest in child safeguarding amongst Awards and Partnership staff.

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

Essential

• Extensive experience with NGOs with increasing responsibilities including a proven experience of establishing and running the award management function of large portfolio
• Knowledge of the requirements of major institutional donors including budgeting, eligibility issues, compliance management, and reporting.
• At least ten (10) years’ experience working with major institutional donors including donor engagement, proposal development and budgeting, compliance management, and reporting.
• Excellent planning, management and coordination skills, with the ability to organise a demanding workload comprised of diverse and challenging tasks and responsibilities.
• Proven track record of a positive, active, strategic and collaborative contribution to a senior management team.
• Demonstrated experience in staff supervision and leading a team, including proven strong coaching and capacity building skills in a diverse and cross-cultural environment.
• Ability to lead and support staff through changes to policies, procedures and systems.
• Attention to detail, problem solving, and trends analysis.
• Patient, positive, adaptable, flexible, and able to improvise and remain responsive and communicate clearly and effectively under pressure.

Desirable

• Experience with Save the Children award management procedures and systems and Save the Children’s award management system (AMS)
• Experience of Project Management, MEAL or program funding coordination.