Programme Manager for the Great Lakes

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 Manager for the Great Lakes programme is a senior member of the Programme Management Unit, which manages and implements Interpeace’s active and ongoing programmes around the world. The Programme Manager reports to the Great Lakes Regional Representative and liaises on a tactical level with colleagues from global operations, programme development and innovation, strategic partnerships and communication, and policy, IPAT and learning.

The Programme Manager is responsible for the implementation of Interpeace’s Great Lakes programme. This includes managing and developing the portfolio of the Great Lakes programme and playing a critical role in fundraising in collaboration with programme management and programme development colleagues, working closely with finance colleagues to provide programmatic financial forecast and maintain oversight over expenditure within the project life cycle, providing strategic and managerial oversight to the programme team, working with colleagues from our policy and learning unit, as well as strategic partnership and communication unit to effectively capture and communicate our programmatic achievements, and contributing and maintaining Interpeace’s institutional relationships, including with government institutions, donors, CSOs and community leaders and members.

Purpose and General Overview

The Programme Manager is responsible for the overall management and delivery of results by Interpeace programme and project teams in the Great Lakes, including liaison with local partners and authorities at the operational level as required in order to enable Interpeace to implement its mandate. The Programme Manager reports to the Great Lakes Regional representative, and also works in close collaboration with the Senior Regional Representative for East and Central Africa.

The Programme Manager is responsible for nurturing good collaboration with local authorities, international and local organisations, networks and media in the field. Within delegated authority, the Programme Manager represents Interpeace at senior leadership levels with national and local authorities and partners as required, and is expected to make strategic decisions and to work both independently when necessary but also promote strong collaboration and motivation of programme team and partners, as well as ensure strong synergy between the various units that are operational in each country of the programme operation.

S/he is responsible for managing and supporting the programmatic activities implemented at the regional and national levels within pre-agreed programme budgets or funding allocations.

S/he will supervise the programme staff, promoting their professional effectiveness and growth as well as their welfare.

Duties and responsibilities

Strategic Engagement:

• Take the lead in designing, developing, implementing, monitoring and adapting the programme strategy as needed, in line with Interpeace overall strategy and the organisational change framework. This includes innovating existing projects, developing and designing new ideas, building new strategic partnerships, as well as exploring work in new thematic and geographical areas.
• Closely monitor political, security, economic and social dynamics likely to have an impact on peace and programming activities at the national and regional levels, and share them through regular exchanges and monthly notes with the Great Lakes Regional Representative.
• Build, maintain and strengthen relationships with partners, including CSO directors, senior staff of relevant governmental and regional institutions and local government actors and ensuring that strong collaboration leads to sustainable results.
• Lead semi-annual programmatic reviews to capture programmatic outcomes and impact and use this to adapt and strengthen our programming and to build strong support for our programming amongst partners, government department and donors.
• Work closely with the Great Lakes Regional Representative and heads of partner organisations in Burundi, Uganda, DRC and Rwanda to design, develop, implement, and monitor political engagement and communication strategies that maximize visibility.
• Maintain working relations with national programmes in the region and collaborate with country representatives and other regional representatives to ensure synergies between the national and regional programmes.

Programme Management and Development

• Responsible for the day-to-day management of the Great Lakes programme. This includes the management of multiple projects, ensuring that programme staff have the support they need to implement their projects, but also ensuring that there is high levels of synergy between projects.
• Responsible for maintaining relations with donors to ensure that they are kept up to date on programmatic developments and that they support programmatic adaptations when necessary.
• Responsible for oversight over programme activities and outputs and ensuring that they are completed and submitted on schedule and to the standards required.
• Maintain oversight over the production of quarterly, semi-annual and annual donor reports, both narrative and financial, ensuring that they are of high quality and meeting the required donor standards.
• Coordinates the regional programme annual planning and budgeting process as per organizational guidelines and local contexts.
• Ensure that partners’ requests for fund transfers and activity implementation receive Interpeace’s feedback and timely follow-up.
• Responsible for the financial health of the full country portfolio, including cashflow.
• Collaborate with leadership of partners, both government and CSOs, to ensure that annual and quarterly budget projections are shared timely and in line with programme objectives, planned activities and available resources.
• Contribute to the identification and development of opportunities to expand the programme, in collaboration with the regional programme team and implementing partners as well as the Programme Development Unit.

Management and institutional coherence

• Accountable for effective implementation and compliance of programme activities in country in accordance with Interpeace Finance, Procurement, HR and other policies and procedures as required by grant or contract agreements.
• Collaborate with finance officers to ensure close monitoring of budget expenditure rates and support the timely development and submission of budget revisions when necessary.
• Ensure that partners follow Interpeace policies and procedures and donor regulations. This includes clearly communicating these and coordinating training, mentoring and capacity support when necessary.

Representation

• Support the Great Lakes Regional Representative in managing the political space and engaging national authorities. Depute for the Great Lakes Regional Representative when required, particularly in interacting personally with senior leaders of regional, national, and local authorities, including presidents, prime ministers, ministers of relevant line-ministries, general directors and heads of departments, political parties and civil society and business leaders.
• Represent Interpeace in donor meetings, roundtables and in forums and coordination platforms with humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding organisations.
• Represent Interpeace at international conferences and during visits to donor capitals to ensure that Interpeace’s work in country is shared and promoted outside the country context.
• Manage and contribute to media engagement when required and in line with Interpeace communication

Management of personnel and resources

• Supervise the day-to-day operational aspects of the Great Lakes programme team.
• Create an enabling work environment that fosters learning and innovation, where programme staff can achieve their potential, demonstrating gender-responsive and non-discriminatory behaviour and attitudes.
• Ensure effective coordination and convergence across the overall regional programme, in close collaboration with the Great Lakes Regional Representative and senior management of the respective partner organisations. This includes building a strong team spirit and collaboration and ensuring synergy to maximize the achievement of results.
• Provide strong support to programme staff to ensure that they have the necessary knowledge, skills and direction to implement our programmes.
• Coach, monitor, evaluate and document the individual performance of direct reports through a staff development lens.
• Promote professional development opportunities for junior programme staff, which includes on-the-job learning, mentoring but also supporting staff to participate in workshops and trainings that strengthen their capacity.
• Ensure that the security, safety and general welfare of the programme staff under his/her supervision and partners are protected and promoted, and professional development is advanced where possible.

Qualifications:

Candidates with relevant qualifications, experience, a tertiary degree, and fluent in English and French, are invited to apply.

Relevant experience and qualifications may include:

Education

• Advanced degree in international relations, political science, development, management, or relevant field
• PhD in a relevant field can be of added value.

Experience

• Ten years years of relevant experience in peacebuilding, political and/or developmental work with increasing management responsibility.
• Hands-on experience in the Great Lakes region is required.
• Demonstrated effectiveness and substantial experience with short and long-term planning; financial, personnel and program management in cross-cultural, international organizations
• Demonstrated experience in conflict resolution/peacebuilding, advocacy, partnership management, proposal writing and programme management

Competencies

• Demonstrated effectiveness and strong experience with short and long-term planning; financial, personnel and programme management.
• Advanced knowledge and experience of project cycle management including using project planning and management tools.
• Knowledge of current thinking on peacebuilding issues and methods; and demonstrable ability to anticipate emerging needs and integrate them swiftly into priority programme setting.
• Developed ability of raising the profile of an organization, strategically networking with government agencies, donors and other international agencies, and using the media to generate profile.
• Proven ability to communicate, negotiate and work with high level executives and government officials.
• Ability to work in a multicultural environment successfully and to demonstrate gender responsive and non-discriminatory behavior and attitudes.
• Excellent ability to interact with people respectfully and with tact.
• Strong writing and communications skills in French; and working knowledge of English are required. Knowledge of Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi and/or Luganda would be an advantage.

Interpeace Competencies

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

Success factors

• Identifies with and is committed to Interpeace’s core values and working principles
• Commitment to inclusiveness
• An innovative, critical thinker with extensive problem-solving skills
• A strategic manager who is accountable, leads by example, mentors and empowers a team, and works to create work-life balance