About US:

The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), was established by His Highness the Aga Khan in 1967. AKF is a private, not-for-profit international development agency that seeks to provide long-term solutions to society’s problems. AKF brings together human, financial, and technical resources to address challenges faced by the poorest and most marginalised communities in the world. AKF has a special focus on investing in human potential, expanding opportunity, and improving the overall quality of life, especially for women and girls. AKF’s primary areas of focus are; Education; Early Childhood Development (ECD); Health and Nutrition; Civil Society; Agriculture and Food Security; and Economic Inclusion.

Job Summary:

The Program Manager will provide overall leadership of AKF’s growing portfolio in the West Nile region of Uganda. Immediate responsibilities will focus on the successful inception, start-up, and on-going management of two new Global Affairs Canada (GAC) supported education programmes both delivered in partnership with other organisations including Aga Khan Development Network sister agencies and World University Service of Canada (WUSC). These programmes focus on dismantling the barriers to education and learning for all children with an explicit focus on enhancing the ability of vulnerable primary aged and adolescent girls living in refugee and host communities to have the abilities and opportunities to learn and actively participate in and contribute to a pluralistic society. Moving forward, the Programme Manager will be responsible for ensuring all projects are delivered in a coordinated manner, on time, on budget, with quality, and in compliance with internal and external donor compliance.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Project Management

• Steer the inception and start-up two multi-year GAC funded education projects, including the Project Implementation Planning (PIP) processes
• Lead the project management cycle for all AKF projects in West Nile ensuring all workplans, implementation, and reports comply with donor requirements
• Ensure all project funds are fully accounted for and financial reports and documentation are accurate and in-line with project delivery.
• Support the Deputy Project Managers, Program Coordinators and teams to write all evidence based narrative reports and review these to ensure quality and accuracy. Ensure all narrative and financial reports are submitted through AKF’s reporting structure on time and with quality
• Effectively manage a cross-organisational team to deliver a coordinated and impactful projects that meet the project aims and needs of the girls, boys, and communities the project serves
• Line manage project staff both from within and outside of AKF’s organisational structure to ensure project accountability
• Ensure all project management processes comply with AKF’s gender and social inclusion and child and community safeguarding policies, support the development and ensure implementation of AGENCI’s Gender Equality Strategy and actively participate in the project’s Gender Equality Task Force

Programme Quality

• Ensure the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) team have established and operationalised the project M&E frameworks and tools to ensure high quality M&E compliant with donor minimum requirements. Ensure all frameworks are gender responsive and data collection tools are integrated in project activities, not parallel to them
• Ensure M&E team effectively establish a high-quality cross programme M&E data management system integrating ICT where appropriate. Ensure all data management systems adhere to AKF’s safeguarding and data protection policies
• Ensure data management system has feedback loops to enable all project staff to access and understand project progress and challenges and promote participatory project planning and reviews
• Ensure M&E team input accurate M&E data into all donor and AKF reports (quarterly, semi-annual, and annual). This will include the timely data input into AKF’s internal programme management systems
• Collaborate with AKF East Africa (EA) senior leadership and technical advisors to establish and manage a gender responsive programme quality system to assess programme quality and project decisions, interventions, and proposed changes are informed by data and evidence
• Conduct project site visits to validate project quality
• Ensure the undertaking of a Strategic Environmental Assessment and adherence to Environmental Sustainability Strategy

Learning and Communications

• In collaboration with M&E team, lead on ensuring project learning is effectively communicated internally to the project team, AKF EA senior leadership, and relevant technical advisors. Ensure this learning is responding to and promoting gender and social equity in AKFs programming and the broader education ecosystem
• Lead on communicating project learning to external stakeholders including local and national government, development partners (including UNHCR), local civil society, and the communities and schools in which AKF is operating
• Ensure programme learning and evidence is being effectively communicated at the local, national, and international levels to inform policy, practice, and broader education discourse, particularly with respect to gender politics
• Represent AKF and AKF’s programmes at local, national, and international fora to share and effectively communicate progress and learnings based on evidence

Partnerships

• Manage operational partnership with AKDN sister agencies, project partners, and other implementing partners to ensure the smooth delivery of all projects
• Actively seek out and identify partnership opportunities able to increase AKF’s impact in West Nile Uganda. Contribute to developing these opportunities into new programmes
• Establish and develop positive and collaborative partnerships with government and non-government organisations operating in the education space in West Nile. This will include representing AKF at local and West Nile regional events
• In collaboration with AKF Country Manager, Uganda, AKF EA senior leadership, and the Regional Education and ECD Advisor to establish and develop collaborative partnerships with government, non-government, and development partners at the national and international level
• Represent projects at project leadership meetings, attended by donors and local government representatives
• At times, the Programme Manager will be required to fulfill additional functions related to AKF Uganda’s programming as directed by AKF Country Manager, Uganda.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

• The applicant must hold a graduate degree in social development or other relevant field post-graduate highly desirable
• Proven experience in managing high impact social programming in challenging contexts. Minimum of five-years at senior project management level
• Proven experience in managing large projects and high-impact consortium partnerships, including managing project teams
• Proven experience of managing diverse budgets and financial management capacity. Previous GAC experience preferable
• Proven experience of operating in refugee and crisis contexts
• Excellent knowledge and understanding of gender and social inclusion issues and proven experience of delivering programmes that explicitly address these inequalities
• Excellent knowledge and understanding of child and community safe-guarding issues and proven experience of operationalising relevant policies and procedures
• Evidence of drawing on learning and evidence to inform and improve internal project delivery
• Evidence of developing strong partnerships with government, development partners, and no-government partners to increase impact and influence in practice and policy
• Strong inter-personal skills and working collaboratively with internal teams and project and non-project partners
• Strong communication skills, written and oral, and fluency in English
• Strong leadership skills with diverse competencies in organisation, multi-tasking, critical thinking, and M&E
• Strong ICT skills and experience operating with Microsoft and emerging new software

N.B. Must be comfortable being based in Arua with regular travel to project sites in West Nile and occasional travel to Kampala, across East Africa, and globally.

All candidates interested in this unique career opportunity with AKF should submit a two-page cover letter and maximum three-page CV including the names and contact information of three professional referee. E-mail these documents to [email protected] with ‘Programme Manager, West Nile’ in the subject line. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Deadline: 17^th April 2020 by 12:00 Noon