Programme Officer

Reporting to: Senior Programme Manager

Location: Bissau, Guinea-Bissau

Application closing: 21 January 2024

Contract: 1 year fixed-term contract, renewable depending on funds and performance

Background

Interpeace is an international organization for peacebuilding that supports locally led peacebuilding initiatives around the world. Interpeace tailors its approach to each society and ensures that the work is locally driven. Together with local partners and local teams, Interpeace jointly develops peacebuilding programmes and helps establish processes of change that connect local communities, civil society, government and the international community. As a strategic partner of the United Nations, Interpeace is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland and has offices around the world. For more information about Interpeace, please visit www.interpeace.org

Position within the Organization

The Programme Officer is a member of the Programme Management Unit which manages and implements all of Interpeace’s active and ongoing programmes around the world. The Programme Management Unit is led from Interpeace’s Headquarters in Geneva, although team members are based in various locations including in East and Central Africa, West Africa, Europe and the MENA region.

The Programme Officer reports to the Senior Programme Manager and supervises the Project Support Officer as well as Interns, where applicable.

Purpose and General Overview

The Programme Officer (PO) is responsible for supporting the effective and timely delivery of the Guinea-Bissau programme under the leadership of the Senior Programme Manager and ensures the day-to-day implementation of programmes to enable Interpeace to implement its mandate, in collaboration with the Programme Manager and the partner organization.

Duties and responsibilities

Strategic Engagement

• Support the Senior Programme Manager with the organization of advocacy and dissemination activities and related products.
• Contribute to the production of context analysis and related products to be shared within Interpeace and with external stakeholders.

Programme Implementation and Development

• Ensures the day-to-day activities are implemented according to the workplan and programmatic activities and in collaboration with the implementing partners.
• Support the local partners and contribute significantly to the development and implementation of data analysis activities and products.
• Under the guidance of the Senior Programme Manager, identifies and develops opportunities to expand the programme within the country, in collaboration with the country programme team and implementing partners, and the Programme Development Unit;
• Co-drafts and co-develops concept notes and project proposals, under the guidance of the Senior Programme Manager, taking the lead on the development of the DMEL aspects (including the logical framework and indicators, monitoring and evaluation plan, theory of change, etc.);
• Produces timely narrative progress reports to donors and partners under the guidance of the Senior Programme Manager, providing adequate monitoring data and relevant data analysis, ensuring quality control to communicate effectively on progress, lessons and achievements of implemented activities, in line with Interpeace and donor requirements;
• Under the guidance of the Senior Programme Manager and in cooperation with Finance, reviews and revises as needed the budgets and reporting for all programme operations;
• Contributes to the implementation and efficient use of Design, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning systems and tools at the programme level, in collaboration with the local partner;
• Coordinate efforts to build the capacity of the local partner, specifically in terms of DMEL tools and methodologies and responds to request of information from implementing partners.

Management – institutional coherence

• Ensures that programmatic work is effectively implemented at activity level;
• Co-leads the programmatic learning process, facilitating workshops and ensuring good management of the information and data generated by projects and their DMEL systems, and supporting the continuous improvement and adaptation of programming through workshops and brainstorming sessions;
• Contributes to the development of policy and learning documents from the country programme and context, in collaboration with the Policy and Learning Unit, and shares good practices, lessons-learned, contributing to innovation within Interpeace.

Representation

• Under the guidance of the Senior Programme Manager, can focus on Tracks Two and Three as directed or required by the immediate supervisor, and occasionally in the context of supporting Track-1 efforts;
• Supports the efforts to develop and strengthen relationships with implementing organizations and networks and identifies opportunities to establish national strategic relations and alliances with partners and civil society working in common cause with Interpeace objectives.

Management of Personnel and Resources

• Supervises Programme Support Officers and /or interns, where applicable.

The PO may be required to carry out other tasks that fall broadly within the scope of the above functions. The division of labour between the programme team may vary according to programme needs.

Qualifications:

Candidates with relevant qualifications, experience, a tertiary degree, and fluent in Portuguese, are invited to apply. Relevant experience and qualifications may include:

Education

• Tertiary degree in peace-related studies, social or political science, international relations, or other relevant fields; Relevant Master’s degree preferred.

Experience

• Three to five (3-5) years of professional experience in peacebuilding, political and/or developmental work, with increasing responsibility.
• Strong demonstrated experience with short and long-term planning; financial management, and program implementation, preferably in peacebuilding and/or development organizations.
• Demonstrated experience with monitoring and evaluation, data analysis and statistics.
• Work experience in Guinea-Bissau or similar contexts is required.

General competencies

• Well established and practiced organizational and planning skills.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently, as part of a team, and to coordinate work with colleagues both horizontally and vertically.
• Proven ability to work in a multicultural team, showing respect and ability to listen.
• Demonstrated ability to be flexible and adapt to different contexts and working environments.
• Proven ability to communicate and collaborate with external organizations to achieve a common programmatic objective.

Technical skills:

• Knowledge of current thinking on peacebuilding issues and methods; and demonstrable ability to anticipate emerging needs and integrate them swiftly into priority programme setting.
• Excellent knowledge and strong experience of project cycle management including using project planning and management tools.
• Knowledge and experience of M&E practices and tools including experience in data collection, elaboration of questionnaire, and quantitative and qualitative data analysis.
• Familiarity with the MS Office suite (particularly Excel) is required.
• Familiarity with data collection (KoBo Toolbox) and analysis tools (SPSS, STATA, etc.) and visualization tools (Power BI, Looker Studio, Kumu, etc.) is considered an asset.
• Excellent writing and communications skills in Portuguese and English are required. Fluency in French is highly appreciated. Knowledge of Guinea-Bissau Creole is considered a strong asset.

Interpeace Competencies

• Collaboration and Weaving
• Communication
• Drive for results
• Adaptability and Continuous Learning
• Respect for Diversity