Director of Programme Development & Quality

The Opportunity: Director of Programme Development & Quality

Post location:  oPt CO - Ramallah with frequent travel to Gaza Strip 

Contract Duration and Level of Effort: 1 year, 100% LoE.

ROLE PURPOSE: 

The Director of Programme Development, Quality (DPDQ) shares in the overall responsibility for setting the direction and coordination of the country programme. The post holder champions a team culture of learning, quality and continuous improvement and is responsible for overseeing development of programme strategies and initiatives to deliver immediate and lasting change for children. They manage a team focused on design, monitoring, evaluation and learning.

As a member of the Senior Management Team (SMT) in the oPt, the Director of Programme Development, Quality (PDQ) is responsible for driving cross-functional engagement in the development and delivery of Country Strategy Plans (CSPs), developing annual plans, and reporting on results. The DPDQ is responsible for ensuring development and delivery of high quality, evidence-based, innovative programmes for children, in all contexts, that contribute to Save the Children’s (SCI) global Breakthroughs: Learn, Survive, Be Protected. Given the protracted humanitarian context of oPt, the PDQ is equally responsible for setting the humanitarian strategy and ensuring quality and impact in the design and delivery of our humanitarian programs.

The Director of PDQ ensures that a robust monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) 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. One key aspect of the role is ensuring capability building, mentoring and coaching of technical specialists in order to support programme quality in line with global standards and key performance indicators, and ensuring effective Technical Experts (TE) support to field operations. As a senior leader in the country office they play a representational role with the government, donors, partners, peer agencies, SCI Members, and others. The Director of PDQ supports strategic positioning with donors and partners and leads on project design to ensure that the Country Office (CO) strategy can be delivered in line with child rights programming principles.

In the event of a major 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 and Senior Management: 

• Provide leadership, strategic vision, and direction to the oPt country programme as a member of the SMT.
• Support the SMT to develop, update, and drive forward the Country Strategy Plan (CSP) that is 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.
• Facilitate the development and pursuit of thematic and cross-cutting strategic priorities in line with the CSP, including gender equality, disability, and inclusion to guide current and future SCI 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.
• Ensure strong linkages between Advocacy, Campaigns, Communications, and Media function and others on the SMT so that advocacy is well resourced, evidence based, and programme driven and that programmes are enhanced through advocacy.
• Support change processes and roll-out new ways of working to improve achievement of the CSP. 
• Support the development of an organisational culture that reflects our dual mandate values, promotes accountability and high performance, encourages a team culture of learning, creativity, and innovation, and frees up our people to deliver outstanding results for children and excellent customer service for our members and donors.
• Support the design and implementation of a coherent organizational structure that is consistent with agency practices and appropriate to programme needs.
• Support the establishment, maintenance, and improvement of active and regular working relationships with: host government authorities, partner agencies including humanitarian and development donors, and local and international NGOs.
• In collaboration with the Director of Programme Operations, Head of Awards Management Unit, the Risk and Compliance Manager, and CD, ensure the Palestine Country Office complies with all Save the Children programme Essential Standards and Procedures in the Quality Framework.
• Lead oPt’s Advocacy, Campaigns, Communications and Media team with a clear vision and integrated strategy, work plan and objectives, including setting SMART goals for the team and securing buy-in from key internal stakeholders.
• Contribute to identifying nurturing and strengthening strategic partnerships with local and international civil society organizations, NGOs, governments, and clusters etc., in advancing the country and global strategy to inspire our three breakthroughs for the most deprived and marginalised children.

Programme and Proposal Design and Development:

• Based on tracking provided by the Business Development Manager, review and position for opportunities that will drive the CSP, including regular donor engagement.
• In consultation with the Country Director, Head of Business Development and Members, ensure technical engagement with donors to pre-position and prepare for opportunities, and engage in strategic positioning work directly as appropriate.
  • Monitoring programme Key Performance Indicators and, in partnership with other functions, take steps to improve the quality programming platform to meet agreed upon standards.
  • Working closely with the Director of Operations to ensure Quality Framework standards are met and procedures are followed throughout the project cycle and across the portfolio. 
  • Provide effective cross functional support to ensure a child rights programming approach, gender equality, disability inclusion, age appropriate and resilience considerations are reflected in programme design and in implementation.
• 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, learning from past programmes and child safeguarding principles;
  • Ensuring partners are identified and appropriately engaged in programme design, linking with Operations and Awards teams as need be for assessments, especially to strengthen gender sensitivity 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 learning questions.
  • Working with the finance and operations teams to ensure the project budget will enable the project to be delivered as designed.
  • Incorporating child and community participation into design, as relevant.

Technical Assistance and Knowledge Management:

• Ensure the country programme delivers high quality, multi-sectoral programming in development, humanitarian, and nexus contexts. This includes: 
  • Monitoring and advancing technical and operational quality of programmes, including conducting regular field visits to provide feedback on quality benchmarks, soliciting inputs for design of new programmes, and collecting ideas for innovation.
• Ensuring technical experts proactively and regularly communicate planned requirements for programme design, learning, and implementation to relevant CO departments and functions.  
• Build and lead a team of programme technical experts needed to successfully deliver against the CSP. Ensure effective working relationships with SCI global, Member and regional technical advisors, procuring technical support as needed to support programme and advocacy efforts, including during emergencies, by:
  • Ensuring that programme 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.
• Oversee a monitoring system that provides timely and accurate project results by embedding MEAL across programme implementation. This requires ensuring effective collaboration across MEAL staff, Technical Specialists, member Technical Advisors and programme implementation teams to develop log frames, indicators, implementation plans, quality benchmarks, M&E frameworks and related tools.
• Ensuring that the different technical sectors of the Country Office are coordinated, integrated and support each other to optimize programmes and projects.
• Ensuring that child safeguarding and safe programming is embedded in programme design and considered throughout implementation to ensure that we do all we can to ensure children in our programmes are safe, in line with our child safeguarding policy.
• Champion the localisation and partnership agenda to grow Save the Children’s work through and with local actors, and ensure technical support and capability building to implementing and strategic partners. 

Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL):

• Foster and champion, a culture of evidence building and learning across the organisation.
• Ensure the delivery of internal and external programme/project evaluations as per the Evaluations Essential Standard and donor requirement, and execution of baseline, and periodic research in coordination with Director of Programme Operations.
• Ensure our work is accountable to children and other stakeholders through the establishment and management of effective accountability mechanisms and processes.
• In collaboration with the Director of Programme Operations, provide leadership to use data for programme decision making, of commitment to management action on the findings of monitoring, and of listening to feedback from beneficiaries to inform programme development.
• Identify, develop and oversee operational and analytical research, coordinate the publication and dissemination of results, and ensure that research informs advocacy.

Staff Management, Mentorship, and Development:

• Develop a culture and focus on quality in the PDQ and the Advocacy, Campaigns, Communications & Media (ACCM) teams and ensure appropriate staffing, recruitment, training, and promotion of staff as appropriate.
• Ensure alignment with and compliance of directions established by SCI’s TE Transformation initiatives, including embedding the TE competency framework in TE Job Descriptions (JDs) and performance management processes.
• Manage the Programme Development and Quality team through: effective use of the Performance Management System; regular evaluation of direct reports; provision of coaching, mentoring. and other developmental opportunities 
• Ensure that all staff understand and are able to perform their role in an emergency.
• Oversee that all technical sector staff proactively build and maintain technical skills and competencies required for leading and/or advising first class programmes – both development and emergency programmes.

As a member of the Senior Management Team:

• Provide leadership of the oPt Country Office.
• Develop an organisational culture that reflects our dual mandate values, promotes accountability and high performance, encourages a team culture of learning, creativity and innovation, and frees up our people to deliver outstanding results for children and excellent customer service for our members and donors.
• Establish, maintain, and improve active and regular working relationships with: host government authorities, partner agencies including humanitarian and development donors, and local and international NGOs.
• Ensure that the oPt Country Office complies with all Save the Children Management Operating Standards and Standard Operating Procedures.
• Ensure that all required support is provided promptly, at scale and in line with the rules and principles during emergencies, working closely with the Regional Office.

General

• Demonstrate leadership in relation to Save the Children policies and practice with respect to child safeguarding, bullying and harassment, code of conduct, equal opportunities and other relevant policies and procedures.

In order to be successful, you will bring/have: 

Essential:

• Minimum of 10 years’ experience in an NGO environment, including experience directing and implementing programmes for children in emergency and development contexts, ideally in Palestine or the Middle East region.
• Experience in more than two of the Save the Children priority sectors: education; child protection; child rights governance; health and nutrition; child poverty and livelihoods; climate adaptation and mitigation; youth engagement; emergencies. 
• Demonstrated leadership and management skills in a complex setting 
• Demonstrated experience leading strategic planning and in programme development and design and proposal development, in both humanitarian and development settings.
• Experience in successfully establishing and managing collaborative relationships and partnerships with donors and government counterparts.
• Strong representation and influencing skills.
• Experience of management of diverse workforce including effective performance management and utilisation of capacity building, coaching, and mentoring skills.
• Ability to effectively establish a learning culture within an organisation.
• Demonstrated use of positive coping strategies in stressful environments. 
• Commitment to and understanding of Save the Children’s aims, values and principles including rights-based approaches.
• Fluency in English, Arabic language skills a strong advantage.

Desirable

• Strong understanding of different methodologies of monitoring and evaluation and operational research and experience in developing integrated MEAL systems.

We offer a competitive package in the context of the sector.  This role is offered on the basis of national & International terms and conditions.

Save the Children promotes a diverse and inclusive work environment, women and people with different abilities are strongly encouraged to apply.

The Organisation

We employ approximately 25,000 people across the globe and work on the ground in over 100 countries to help children affected by crises, or those that need better healthcare, education and child protection. We also campaign and advocate at the highest levels to realise the right of children and to ensure their voices are heard. 

We are working towards three breakthroughs in how the world treats children by 2030:

• No child dies from preventable causes before their 5th birthday 
• All children learn from a quality basic education and that,
• Violence against children is no longer tolerated 

We know that great people make a great organization, and that our employees play a crucial role in helping us achieve our ambitions for children.  We value our people and offer a meaningful and rewarding career, along with a collaborative and inclusive environment where ambition, creativity, and integrity are highly valued. 

Application Information:

Please attach a copy of your CV and cover letter with your application and include details of your current remuneration and salary expectations.  A copy of the full role profile can be found at Search Jobs - SCI Career Site Careers (oraclecloud.com)

We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.

All employees are expected to carry out their duties in accordance with our global anti-harassment policy.