Programme manager/coordinator – Irish Aid

Job Title: Programme Manager/Coordinator – Irish Aid
Organisation: Self Help Africa
Location: Ireland, UK or any of the Self Help Africa or United Purpose countries of operation.
Contract: Two year fixed term contract, Full Time
Reports to: Global Programmes Coordinator and Policy Advisor

ABOUT SELF HELP AFRICA:

Help Africa (SHA) is an international NGO dedicated to the vision of an economically thriving and resilient rural Africa. Headquartered in Ireland, SHA creates scalable and sustainable solutions to eradicating long-term poverty through knowledge transfer, investment, and market linkages.

In 2021, Self Help Africa merged with United Purpose. This doubled our size and created an international NGO that is implementing projects to end extreme hunger and poverty across 17 countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. Collectively a part of the wider Gorta Group, which also includes social enterprise subsidiaries Partner Africa, TruTrade and Cumo Microfinance, the organisation will work with close to six million people this year.

JOB PURPOSE:

This key role in the Programme Operations and Support Team involves supporting Self Help Africa and United Purpose country and Head Office teams in the day-to-day effective implementation of the Irish Aid funded portfolio of projects in the country programme portfolio, ensuring the highest standards are achieved in implementation, reporting, information management and internal and external communications.

The postholder will also lead on the use of our Programme Cycle Management system, including developing and rolling out training across the country teams.

The postholder will be responsible for ensuring accurate and timely records are maintained on the web-based platforms and will prepare reports, analyse data, solve problems and take corrective action as part of an international team across different countries and cultures. The role requires flexibility and adaptability as the nature of support requirements can and will change.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Programme Management/coordination

• Lead on effective grant management/coordination of the portfolio of Irish Aid projects and annual Irish Aid report, liaising with country programmes and technical advisors; staying abreast of Irish Aid programme cycle management and compliance guidelines; develop programme documentation and relevant materials that appropriately communicate outcomes, impact and learnings; coordinate inputs from Technical Advisors.
• Lead on the performance management of Irish Aid funded programmes including quarterly grant review processes (assessing spend, progress, output and outcome monitoring); maintain records and update MIS database.

Capacity Building

• Facilitate blended learning sessions across different functional teams to understand and deliver on our Project Cycle Management system
• Develop detailed training modules linked to the 4 phases of the PMG (Design, Start Up, Implementation, M&E, Learning & Close out)
• Create an easily accessible suite of online learning and training tools for induction and on-going project management
• Provide Programme admin support to the Global Programmes Coordinator and oversight of projects, review of reports and case studies.

Communications

• Work with the Communications team to avail of opportunities to promote SHA’s work.
• Extract ‘evidence of impact’, stories of change and case studies from our programmes and extract stories from assigned countries to share with Communications, FR and Programme Funding.
• Prepare briefing papers as required on assigned country programmes, coordinating input from the Technical Advisory Team.
• Work with country teams to develop case studies based on examples of good practice from programmes.

Reporting & Learning

• Conduct review of programmes reports, particularly end of project reports, to identify recommendations for programme design and ensure learnings are gathered and shared across country teams.
• Monitor feedback from donors and other stakeholders on our grant reporting to assess the quality of our project design and delivery and work with others to enhance the learning processes within our grant management.
• Draft project summaries and project learnings documents in collaboration with the Country teams.
• Organise the senior managers’ community of practice monthly and quarterly meetings.

Information Management

• Support efforts to roll out MIS and PMG to country offices.

Programme Funding

• Support the design and review of funding proposals to institutional donors.
• Support country teams to incorporate a value for money approach by identifying unit costs for programme delivery to enhance our proposal business cases.

Other

• Support both ongoing and new special projects within the Programmes team as directed by the Programme Operations Lead/RDs and/or Programmes Director.
• Any ad hoc duties as assigned by the Programmes Director or other members of the Management Team.
• Willingness to travel

Key Relationships:

Internal

• Global Programmes Coordinator and Policy Advisor (Line Manager)
• Group CEO
• Colleagues in the Programme Operations Team
• Regional Director & Regional Programme Accountant
• Programmes – Technical Advisors, M&E and Funding Team
• Country programme teams & CMT members, and in particular the Head of Programmes
• HR
• Fundraising and Communications

External

• Programme Partners
• Donors

Knowledge, Experience & other Requirements

Essential

• Degree in development, agriculture or a similar related social discipline or degree combined with relevant experience.
• Previous experience in leading and delivering a multi-annual, multi-stakeholder project
• At least seven years’ experience of working in international development in a project/programme role.
• Experience in designing and delivering training programmes
• A proven understanding of project cycle management approaches and tools – including participatory approaches in design and implementation, project appraisal, assessments, monitoring and evaluation and partners’ capacity building.
• Good financial ability for budget reviews.
• Excellent interpersonal and organisational skills.
• Ability to work as part of an international team across countries and cultures and can manage remotely
• Experience of working in a developing country.
• Willingness to travel to country programmes

Desirable

• Ability to work in French and/or Portuguese.
• Experience of humanitarian / emergency work and /or work in fragile locations.
• Experience in programme design and using participatory approaches in design and implementation.
• Work with minimum supervision and take initiative
• Ability to analyse data, solve problems and take corrective action