Democratic Republic of the Congo: Programme Manager – DRC

Trócaire works in partnership with local and church organisations, supporting communities in over 20 developing countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East to bring about lasting change. Trócaire envisages a just and peaceful world where: people’s dignity is ensured and rights are respected; basic needs are met and resources are shared equitably; people have control over their own lives; and those in power act for the common good.

The DRC Country Office in Bunia Eastern DRC, takes overall responsibility for the implementation of the DRC country programme, which currently focuses on an integrated programme incorporating resilience, women’s empowerment & humanitarian response. The programme works with a portfolio of 17 local partner organisations. The Programme Manager is responsible for the delivery of high quality impactful programming and is also a member of the Country Management Team.

The Country programme in Eastern DRC is an innovative integrated programme delivering humanitarian and development initiatives to the targeted population. The Programme incorporates women’s empowerment, livelihoods, protection and humanitarian response strategies in order to increase overall resilience in the communities of operation. It is an important programme for Trócaire and has benefitted from significant institutional supports from Global Technical advisers and has contributed to global research projects on localisation, women’s empowerment and polygamy.

For the candidate with the required experience and passion for the role, Trócaire offers a competitive package of salary and benefits.

Reporting to the Country Director, this is a Fixed Term Contract of three years and is based in Buniawith R&R. The candidate will manage the programme staff.

Safeguarding Programme Participants Policy:

Trócaire is committed to Safeguarding Programme Participants from Exploitation and Abuse and has specific policies on this commitment (including a Global Code of Conduct) which outlines the expected behaviour and the responsibility of all staff, consultants and other organisational representatives. Any candidate offered a job with Trócaire will be expected to sign Trócaire’s Safeguarding Policies and Global Code of Conduct as an appendix to their contract of employment and agree to conduct themselves in accordance with the provisions of these documents.

Key Duties & Responsibilities

Programme Development and Management:

· Manage and deepen the current portfolio of thematic programmes on resilience, women’s empowerment & humanitarian response ensuring that the work responds to the local context.

· Ensure that Trócaire in Bunia has a clearly identified niche and that our added value contributes to our partners’ work.

· Ensure that different thematic areas of work are mutually reinforcing and contribute collectively to the achievement of country-level outcomes in view of an integrated programming approach.

· Ensure that the development and humanitarian staff work together to deliver a resilience approach

· Ensure that the country programme promotes policy and advocacy work, research and innovation.

· Ensure that all programmes effectively mainstream gender throughout the programme cycle.

· Ensure there is constant and open communication between the country programme team and head office, in particular the Programmes, Humanitarian and Strategic & Impact teams.

· Identify learning priorities within each programme and facilitate the sharing of this learning with partners, across programmes, and externally as appropriate.

· Work with the Institutional Funding Officer in country and the Unit in HQ to grow in country IF, to guarantee all programmes meet the requirements of back donors and that relevant support is given to Programme Officers as needed to meet these requirements.

Specific to Programme Design:

· Provide technical support to programme staff to ensure that the programmes are designed, implemented, monitored and evaluated within the Trócaire Programme Management and Accountability Framework (PMAG).

· Ensure that targeting is specific and explicit in all programme design.

· Provide the necessary support to the country team to undertake analysis (contextual/poverty/ power etc.) that informs appropriate programme strategies, location and target population.

· Ensure that Programme Officers have access to technical support required to carry out programme baselines and evaluations. This includes supporting the process of identifying appropriate consultants and other technical support where necessary.

· Ensure that HQ-based Programme Teams are aware of and engaged in the programme design process in order to create synergies across country programmes and that advice from the Global Technical Teams is taken account of.

Specific to Programme Implementation and Monitoring:

· Ensure that all programmes are being implemented within a clear M&E framework that includes regular monitoring by the Programme Officer,

· Monitor the standardised reporting system for all programme partners in DRC, in line with organisational policy and any institutional funding requirements.

· Ensure that together with the FAM, quarterly reviews of partners and programmes are undertaken systematically and that any challenges are dealt with.

· Assist programme staff to deliver high quality programme reports and donor reports that provide clear evidence of progress (or lack of) on an annual basis and that can be used for programme management, ongoing learning and adaptation, as well as to highlight case studies for communication and advocacy.

· Support the CD in the Development of the annual Country Report

Specific to Programme Evaluation:

· Ensure that all programmes are evaluated according to Trócaire’s evaluation policy and that learning from evaluations is incorporated into new programme design.

· Promote evaluation methodologies that foster internalisation of learning, and where possible promote elements of peer review and evaluation including with Partners.

· Together with Programme staff, identify and encourage participation at relevant thematic working groups, networks and learning forums at national (and possibly international) level in order to improve programme and advocacy impact.

Human Resource Management

· Line manage team members, ensuring that all are clear on the change to which they are contributing and on their roles and responsibilities.

· Implement an effective performance management system in line with organisational policy.

· Support, mentor and coach the team members as part of their professional development and to help them to be highly effective in their work.

· Ensure close coordination of finance staff with the Finance and Administration Manager and Institutional Funding Officer on all aspects of partner financial management and grants management.

· Establish a team approach to programming, ensuring that programme staff work together to share learning and to exchange skills.

· Ensure regular team meetings for information exchange and strategic discussions as well as to facilitate rolling out of organisational programme processes and policies within the country team.

· Ensure that all programme staff complete an induction process that equips them to confidently and effectively deliver on their role.

Financial and Admin Management

· As a member of the country senior management team, support the CD and FAM to develop annual country budgets and participate in regular budget reviews.

· Organise and maintain quarterly team meetings together with the finance and programme officers to have oversight of programme budgets and to review and monitor expenditure of all programme partners in close coordination with the Finance/Admin Manager and the Institutional Funding Officer.

· Ensure regular visits by finance or programme staff to all programme partners to review systems and financial management and to provide support to partners in line with Trócaire’s Partner Governance and Finance Policy.

· Ensure that all programme financial reports are produced in a timely manner and to a high standard.

· Provide the necessary support to the finance/programme officers to take appropriate actions if problems with financial management or organisational governance are identified.

· Jointly with the Institutional Funding Officer (IFO) ensure that finance/programme officers are familiar with internal, and where relevant external (e.g. back donor), financial management guidelines and policies, including fraud policies, and that these are adhered to.

· Support the CD and IFO to develop, implement and review an Institutional Funding Strategy for Trócaire.

· Support the CD and IFO in identifying possible funding opportunities in-country.

Partner Relationships and Support

· Ensure a proactive and strategic approach to the management of the DRC Partner Portfolio

· Ensure that the Partnership Policy guides Trócaire’s engagement with partners in DRC and that all Programme staff are familiar with and implement the policy.

· Support Programme Officers to develop Partner Capacity building for Partners. This should be developed using the Trócaire Partner Capacity Building Framework and should have a corresponding monitoring and review element for each partner.

· Together with the FAM ensure that programme and Finance staff adopt a joint approach to partner support.

· In close coordination with the CD liaise with other Caritas/CIDSE/other like-minded agencies, in order to avoid any duplication, reduce transaction costs for partners and collaborate on capacity building, programming or advocacy initiatives.

Policy, Advocacy and Communications

· Support the CD and the POs to pro-actively drive an evidence-based agenda around advocacy at country level (and internationally where appropriate), informed by a contextually relevant political and power analysis, as well as a thorough risk analysis regarding sensitive messaging.

· Support programme staff to embed advocacy within programme strategies, and oversee country level advocacy initiatives led by Trócaire which complements desired outcomes of programme strategies.

· Support the development team to ensure Trócaire communications channels (online, offline) are being used to promote/highlight Trócaire DRC work, as well as to support advocacy initiatives.

· Support the CD and POs to respond to organisational needs for materials, or to host visits, related to organisational level policy, advocacy, campaigns, development education, fundraising and communications.

Risk management

· Take responsibility for Risk Management at a programme level, ensuring that POs have the capacity to analyse and respond to risk at project and programme levels and that programme level risks are captured and managed as part of a country risk management strategy.

Other Duties and Responsibilities

· Fulfil other reasonable duties and responsibilities, as requested by the Country Director, including deputising for the CD when necessary or appropriate.

Person Specification – The ideal person will have

(E) Qualification

· Third level qualification in Development, Humanitarian or related field of study.

· Post-graduate qualification in a relevant area, or significant experience beyond that outlined below.

(E) Experience

· At least three years of demonstrable experience in the management of development & humanitarian programmes of substantial scale; experience in Gender/protection programming

· At least two years’ experience of leading and managing teams as well as strong team-working skills and experience

· A minimum of 2 years experience of working in insecure environments & management of security

· In-depth understanding of programming in a partnership model, working in a partnership-based NGO;

· Sound and up to date knowledge of humanitarian and development concepts, methodologies and techniques, including Common Humanitarian Standards, Protection, results based management, rights based approach, resilience and participatory methodologies;

· Demonstrable experience of promoting gender equity through programming and within an international organisation;

· Demonstrable experience of working to attract institutional donor funding and of managing large and complex donor grants;

· Solid experience of managing teams in a multi-cultural environment and playing a leadership role in ensuring cohesiveness, inclusion and development of staff at all levels;

· Experience of working with management information systems.

(E) Skills

· Excellent leadership skills;

· Ability to motivate staff to align behind a shared vision and objectives;

· Demonstrated ability to think strategically and to develop and implement a clear country level strategy in the context of organisational strategy;

· Demonstrated ability to manage multi-cultural teams of national and international staff well, and to implement performance management effectively;

· Ability to coach and help others develop in their professional lives;

· Excellent interpersonal and relationship management skills and demonstrated ability in using these with internal stakeholders (Trócaire staff in different locations) and external stakeholders (partners, Church, donors, host government etc.);

· Demonstrated ability to manage budgets and financial systems on a significant scale, in development and humanitarian contexts;

· Highly organised, with excellent planning, prioritisation and problem-solving skills;

· Excellent verbal and written communications skills

· Competent in Microsoft packages (Word, Excel);

· Fluency (written and spoken) in French & English;

(E) Qualities

· Understanding of, an empathy with, the role of the Catholic Church in development

· A strong commitment to the work of justice and an empathy with the ethos and work of Trócaire.

(E) Other

· Ability and willingness to travel within country and internationally including travel to HQ in Ireland.

Please apply through

https://www.trocaire.org/about/work-with-trocaire