Director – Programme, Development and Quality

THE ROLE:

Save the Children works to achieve three global Breakthroughs for children by 2030: Learn, Survive and Be Protected. In Sri Lanka, Save the children work in 9 districts, both development and humanitarian context, with approximately 180 staff and over 10 million USD portfolio. Director of Program Development and Quality plays the lead role in programme designing, technical oversight, advocacy and highest standard of quality in all programme implementation. The position holder will lead the strategic and innovative program development based on rights based principles and children’s needs in Sri Lanka.

ROLE OVERVIEW:

As member of the Senior Management Team (SMT) in Sri Lanka, the Director of Program Development and Quality (PDQ) is responsible for driving the country office program strategy. S/he is leading a team of technical experts and is responsible for ensuring development of high quality, evidence based, innovative and responsive projects, strategies and advocacy initiatives. S/he collaborates closely with the Program Operations team to ensure maintenance of quality standards throughout the program implementation cycle.

S/he ensures that a robust Research, Evidence, Accountability, Learning and Monitoring (REALM) 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, donor reporting, advocacy, campaigning and communications. S/he leads on donor interface and resource development to ensure that the country office strategy can be delivered, and collaborates closely with Advocacy, Campaigns, Communication and Media (ACCM) team for policy influencing.

S/he will work closely with the country director and Head of localization to advance the SC global/Sri Lanka agenda on localization and shifting power to local actors. especially, shift power to children and youth led organisations to play a critical role in civic space and policy advocacy.

S/he is expected to position Save the Children in Sri Lanka as a thought leader in child rights, and technical lead in the country. The Dir-PDQ will be required to represent SC in high level platforms to lead policy dialogues, negotiations, technical leadership and resource mobilizations.

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.

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY :

Strategy, Planning and Reporting

• Lead the development/update of the Situation Analysis, including analysis of country context 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) 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 development and pursuit of thematic and cross-cutting strategic priorities in line with the CSP, including gender equality, 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 voice of children, in strategy design and policy development.
• Support organizational/programmatic change processes and roll-out new ways of working to improve achievement of the CSP.

Program Design & Development

The Director PDQ will supervise the Head of Resource Mobilization;

• Based on tracking provided by the Awards Management team, review prospects and opportunities that will drive the CSP.
• In consultation with the Country Director and Member Countries, ensure technical engagement with donors to pre-position and prepare for opportunities, and engage in strategic positioning of SC.
• Play a leading role in designing proposals, including:
  • Engaging with technical experts as needed to ensure high quality, evidence-based designs that draw on needs assessments (in humanitarian, development and environmental sustainability context), learning from past programs and child safeguarding principles;
  • Ensuring partners are identified and appropriately engaged in program design, linking with Operations and Awards teams as need be for assessments, especially to strengthen child rights governance, gender sensitivity and environmental sustainability 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 research and learning questions.
  • Ensuring budgets will enable projects to be delivered as designed.
  • Incorporating child and community participation into design processes and implementation arrangements, as relevant.

Program Quality and Program Technical Excellence

• Ensure the country program delivers high quality, multi-sectoral programming in humanitarian, development and environmental sustainability contexts (as appropriate).
  • Monitor and advance technical and operational quality of programmes, including conducting regular field visits to provide feedback on quality benchmarks, soliciting inputs for design of new programs and collecting ideas for innovation.
  • Monitor Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and, in partnership with other functional leads, take steps to improve the quality programming platform to meet agreed upon standards.
  • Work closely with the Director of Operations to ensure Quality Framework standards are met and procedures are followed throughout the project life-cycle and across the portfolio.
  • Ensure technical experts proactively and regularly communicate planned requirements for program design, learning and implementation to relevant CO departments/functions.
  • Ensure the strategic direction, technical quality, and operationalization of the multi-member funded programs, by ensuring strong member, donor, and government communications and technical collaboration with field-based implementation teams.
• Build and lead a team of program technical experts needed to successfully deliver against the CSP. Ensure effective working relationships with SC global, Member and regional technical advisors, procuring technical support as needed to support program and advocacy efforts, including during Emergencies.
  • Ensure that program technical experts engage in larger communities of practice within and external to Save the Children, to link with the most relevant and evidence-based approaches and conduct timely and useful review of project reports to support quality reporting for Members and donors.
  • Ensure different technical sectors of the Country Office are coordinated, integrated and support each other to optimize programs and projects.
  • Ensure child safeguarding and safe programming is embedded in program design and considered throughout implementation to ensure that we do all we can to ensure children in our programs are safe, in line with our child safeguarding policy.

Research, Evidence, Accountability, Learning and Monitoring (REALM)

The Director PDQ will supervise the Head of REALM,

• Oversee a monitoring system that provides timely and accurate project results by embedding REALM across program implementation. This requires ensuring effective collaboration across REALM staff, Technical Specialists, Technical Advisors and program implementation teams to develop log frames, 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.

Advocacy, Campaigns, Communications and Media

The Director PDQ will supervise, Head of Advocacy, Campaign, Media and Communication.

• Ensure development of an advocacy strategy and annual plans linked to the CSP, with clear Campaign deliverables, for the Country Office.
• Ensure maintain the momentum through localization, driving for collective action for human rights obligations and economic policy making.
• Represent Save the Children as part of advocacy and networking with government authorities, donors, partners, civil society actors, children and other stakeholders to build relationships to facilitate achievement of CSP strategic goals and success of our projects for children.
• As part of the campaign committee, oversee the development of communications and media strategies to support Save the Children’s visibility and achievement of the CSP and Campaign objectives.
• Lead political economy analysis, determining our impact and added value, developing change objectives, power mapping,
• Develop a strategic approach or influencing techniques to our Advocacy and Policy engagement and measuring our progress.
• Capacity building and raising Advocacy & Campaigns funding
• Ensure Advocacy and Campaigns is integrated into programme development and implementation.

Staff Management, Mentorship, and Development

• Ensure appropriate staffing of Program Development and Quality team, and engagement of additional technical support when needed to deliver quality project design and delivery.
• Ensure that all PDQ 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.
• Manage individual and team performance using principles of leadership agility, and Save the Children’s performance management system.
• 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.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE:

• Masters Degree in international development or relevant field and experience in relevant social science (especially in Child Development or Community Development), human rights, development studies, NGO management or equivalent fields.
• Demonstrated senior leadership and management skills, including contributing to Senior Management team and cross-functional leadership for an organization.
• A minimum of 7-10 years of progressive senior management and/ or development experience, including experience designing and implementing programs for children.
• Demonstrated senior leadership and management skills, including contributing to Senior Management team and cross-functional leadership for an organization.
• In-depth understanding of the context, challenges and opportunities in the country or experience working in a similar country context.
• Experience in one or more of Save the Children’s thematic sectors: education, child protection, child rights governance, health and nutrition, child poverty, emergencies.
• Understanding of advocacy, policy, and government systems in the host country, and particular experience with child rights programming, including UNCRC.
• Strong skills and proven experience in leading strategic planning, change management and program management processes; also, from the knowledge and learning perspective.
• Strong skills and proven experience in new program development, project design and proposal writing with corporate, foundations and/or institutional donors.
• Credibility to lobby, influence and represent Save the Children at all levels.
• Experience in developing and managing monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning systems.
• Excellent listening, inter-personal, communication and networking skills; proven experience and effectiveness working across functional teams and in a matrixed structure; and an ability to work with diverse populations.
• Skills in training, capability building, coaching, mentorship, problem solving, and project cycle management.
• High level of self-awareness and willingness to take feedback for growth and self-development.
• Proven experience as a team player and leader in an international organisation.

Attitude: The incumbent will comply with the Save the Children International policies and practices to: work in a team and in partnership; protect children in connection to work; and be non-discriminatory and gender sensitive.