Programme Manager - NGO

We are looking to recruit a Programme Manager to help orient city services and the urban environment to children between 0-5 years of age and parents of children of this age, with the long term goal of transforming Udaipur into a child- and family-friendly city.

The focus of the second phase of would be on scaling up and sustainability at city-level for a period of 3 years.

Goal: To scale up child- and family-friendly features and components inclusive of elements that incorporate Covid19 realities in public spaces, transport, neighbourhood planning, early childhood services, and data management across Udaipur's city agencies. These improvements aim to improve the behaviours of babies and toddlers, their caregivers, pregnant women, and municipal staff providing services to these groups, in order to enhance the physical and psychological health of children aged 0-5 and their caregivers, inclusive of parents, grandparents, and/or elder siblings.

Objectives:

1. Prepare Udaipur to imbibe post-Covid-19 ITC-supportive interventions in city planning and project implementation with a focus on resilience to better support young children and families.

2. Include elements friendly to infants, toddlers, and caregivers (ITCs) in highly visible, urban infrastructure projects with a renewed focus on green (and blue) infrastructure, public spaces, early childhood urban services and informal settlements.

3. Improve caregiver, service provider behaviours related to young children in and around public spaces, mobility, neighbourhoods, urban early childhood services, and data management.

4. Institutionalize policies and guidelines, inclusive of ITC-friendly norms, elements, budgets, and procurement rules, in city functioning.

5. Build capacity of early childhood workforce, city managers, and city technical teams to support and respond better to the needs of young children and their families in Udaipur.

6. Serve as a lighthouse for other cities in the state and nationally keen on incorporating an Urban infant, toddler, caregiver friendly lens to city planning and policies.

Scaling-up Scope of Work:

Udaipur Phase-II would aim to scale up ITC elements in all realms of city functions and projects and enhancing the sustainability of the work done under Phase-I. BvLFs next phase investment would focus on the following key areas of support under UMC leadership:

1. Technical assistance via an urban planning and design team (PMU team based at the UMC) in implementing scaling up projects, and enhancing existing policies and guidelines, inclusive of elements that incorporate Covid19 realities.

2. Technical assistance via an early childhood-focused technical team to provide training and support for the citys early childhood workforce and caregivers, including during emergencies.

3. Technical assistance and capacity building to ensure that behavioural methods are incorporated into program activities under (1) and (2) above, to ensure maximum uptake of improved services and infrastructure by caregivers and sustainable adoption of improved early childhood behaviours by caregivers and service providers.

4. Support Udaipur in building a coalition of civil society and community-based organizations professional associations, educational institutions, and media to develop broad support for early childhood initiatives and services in the city.

5. Study tours and training opportunities, either in-person or online, to enhance the capacity of city leaders, urban professionals, and technical staff across city agencies and departments to learn from other cities/experts and apply the learning to their own context.

6. Support Udaipur in knowledge creation and dissemination of lessons learnt in becoming a lighthouse city and a mentor to other cities in Rajasthan or nationally.

The project aims to work very closely with the UMC and other city stakeholders to identify, design, develop scale up projects under the program and its implementation.

The  programme manager will report jointly to the nodal officer, UMC and BvLF and will work under the guidance of a project steering committee chaired by the Municipal Commissioner and composed of city representatives. S/he will oversee management, coordination, implementation and completion of all Urban Phase-II activities.

URBAN UDAIPUR PROGRAMME MANAGER

The programme manager will oversee management, coordination, implementation and achievement of all Urban Phase-II scaling up activities and identified scope of work, and provide necessary technical expertise, with strategic and operational leadership to the programme, to ensure programme objectives are met.

S/he will be based in Udaipur city, but with travel to areas as needed.

Scope of work includes (not an exhaustive list):

1. Leadership: Provide strategic and operational leadership for the overall programme and coordinate all quarterly, bi-annual work planning, technical and project reviews, evaluation, and implementation activities with PMU team members, city partners, and other stakeholders.

2. Relationship building:

a. Develop and maintain strong relationships between programme partners to ensure a high-quality, transparent, and evidence-based programme implementation and evaluation.

b. Manage external relationships and represent programme partners in relevant meetings and working groups with external stakeholders.

3. Project Management: Lead on developing and implementing the Urban Phase-II scale up that draws on learning from Urban Phase-I and city requirement. Responsible for ensuring all technical partners deliver on time and with quality and within agreed upon timelines, so that Udaipur Urban achieves its deliverables and milestones.

4. Monitoring: Oversee all relevant monitoring and evaluation efforts, ensuring high quality of reports and good knowledge management and dissemination of program learning, results.

5. Budget: Overall financial and budget oversight.

6. Risk management: Develop and lead a risk management strategy, in collaboration with programme partners.

Core responsibilities:

1. Systems development and programme management: Identify, design and implement effective and efficient systems to support the smooth implementation of all aspects of the Urban Phase-II scaling up programme (including operations, financial management, monitoring, and reporting) in order to:

a. Manage and coordinate project activities from substantive, administrative and financial points of view, applying strategic planning and systematic coordination of project activities.

b. Manage day-to-day project implementation and overall coordination of project outcomes.

c. Provide direction and leadership in advocating project objectives and in ensuring that all interested parties are well informed about the project activities and goals.

d. Identify any strategic support and advice required to technical teams (Urban PMU team, early childhood focused teams, monitoring and evaluation team and any other as needed) for the management, planning and control of the programme.

e. Ensure timely preparation of the project quarterly/ bi-annual work plans and progress/ final reports and financial reports and submission to UMC and BvLF.

f. Ensure timely preparation of monthly and quarterly reports for the key project activities, issues and required action points. Prepare the programmes semi-annual progress reports (progress against planned activities, update on risks and issues, expenditures), annual review report and submit them to UMC and BvLF.

g. Guide and orient efforts and contributions of PMU staff and UMC counterparts towards achievement of project objectives. Support in mobilisation to initiate identified activities, including drafting monthly meeting with nodal officers, quarterly steering committee meetings, project specifications, project approvals and executions.

h. Support PMU team in drafting, planning, organizing and participation in the transparent UMC Urban tender biddings or request for proposal processes under UrbanPhase-II for the selection of contractor for sub-project execution, and ensure the preparation of clear tender bidding evaluation reports.

i. Establish and maintain relationships and act as the key focal point with UMC and BvLF to ensure that all programming, financial and administrative matters related to the project are transparently, expediently and effectively managed.

2. Quality oversight: Ensure the quality of outputs and results with optimal monitoring mechanisms; establish effective coordination, monitoring, information sharing and reporting systems.

3. Knowledge management: Manage the extensive monitoring, research and evaluation components of the program, including development of a programme learning agenda. Oversee development thorough monthly reports and deliverables; produce and disseminate records of meetings with all stakeholders.

4. Urban team management and development: Responsible for enhancing Urban team capacity; identifying team development requirements, locating appropriate training/development opportunities and managing these accordingly within the approved programme budget.

5. Coordination and facilitation: Organise and facilitate regular coordination with PMU team, early childhood team, behavioural team, other partners and stakeholders to coordinate work plan development, capacity building training and workshops, implementation activities and evaluations and studies; ensure proper professional relationships and effective coordination with community leaders, local NGOs and other Community Based Organizations (as RWA associations, parents associations, etc.) to enhance early childhood initiatives and services in the city.

6. Financial monitoring: Oversee the monitoring of approved Urban expenditure, budgeting, variance and address any problems in good time; ensure the preparation of accurate and timely financial reports; monitor Urban UMC projects financial resources to ensure accuracy and reliability of reporting.

7. Urban technical reporting and documentation: Ensure high-quality and timely submission of all Urban Phase-II reports and deliverables from technical partners and disseminate to relevant stakeholders; manage the proper sharing of project deliverables, documents, files, equipment and materials as per the standards procedures.

8. Review and approval of deliverables under Urban Phase-II: Strategic support in organising the Project Steering Committee at regular intervals under Urban Udaipur Phase-II for review and approval of deliverables by UMC.

9. Stakeholder engagement: Ensure comprehensive stakeholder engagement through widespread stakeholder discussions/ workshops/ training modules and document learning.

10. Strategic communications: Oversee the development of Urban Phase-II studies and communications materials for external audiences, articulating achievements, impacts and lessons learned;

11. External relations: Develop constructive working relationships with relevant stakeholders including UMC, BvLF, UIT and city departments; represent programme partners in external meetings and working groups with other key stakeholders; develop opportunities for synergies with external organizations;

12. The Udaipur Urban Phase-II Programme Manager would also be required to take on additional duties and tasks, if needed.

Overall, the Programme Manager is expected carry out responsibilities of the role in a way which reflect the UMC and BvLF commitment to transform Udaipur into a child- and family-friendly city.

KEY COMPETENTICES, TECHNICAL BACKGROUND, AND EXPERIENCE

1. Masters degree in at least one of the following disciplines: Project management, civil engineering, construction management, architecture, urban design, urban planning, development economics, or related urban policy, sustainable urbanization.

2. At least 15 years of experience working in project formulation, management and implementation with government, ULBs, and/or a development agency, preferably in urban infrastructure, with at least 10 years of experience at city-level project management, implementation, M&E, and/or managing of urban programmes.

3. Experience in the areas of basic service delivery (i.e. public health, education, sanitation, and service delivery) and/or child- and family-friendly cities a plus.

4. Current knowledge of urban policy, advocacy, and development issues as well as excellent knowledge of urban inequities.

5. Basic knowledge of Early Childhood Development (ECD) or ability to acquire basic level of knowledge quickly.

6. Experience working within a results-oriented non-profit, foundation, and/or municipality required. Experience with municipalities to develop programs with clear results a plus.

7. Proven experience and technical ability to manage a large project

8. Ability to manage large urban projects to improve responses to the needs of the target population according to a municipal work plan, such as adapting the public space, early childhood frameworks, making parents aware of the knowledge and more.

9. Effective interpersonal, management and negotiation skills proven through successful working relationships and building complex collaborations with various entities, such as municipal departments, other government agencies, citizen organizations, non-profit organizations, the business sector, external suppliers, and more.

10. Establish and maintain excellent working relations with concerned departments at the UMC.

11. Experience in building and managing a budget. Track budgets monthly and guide partner for effective fund utilization.

12. Demonstrated ability in team management and collaboration.

13. Experience in documenting project progress and preparing periodic reports. Monitoring of project progress on project deliverables. Periodic review and verification of MIS data. Preparation of monthly updates and brief reports.

14. High level of computer literacy, including Internet research, MS Office, Word, Excel, databases, Publisher, PowerPoint and Outlook.

OTHER SPECIFICATIONS

- Self-starter, able to work independently yet effectively as part of a team/ multiple teams.

- Proactive and motivated individual capable of engaging well with various stakeholders.

- Strong organizational and time management skills, attention to detail.

- Strategic, conceptual, and analytical skills.

- Comfortable working in high-pressure environments with a ability to meet deadlines.

- Demonstrates resourcefulness, with ability to find multiple paths to solutions.

Applications must include:

1. Cover letter

2. Curriculum vitae (CV)

3. Writing sample (2+ pages) any report of latest work

4. 3 references