Location: Kampala, Uganda

Position Category: Local hire, paid in country

Posting Date: 12/20/2024

Deadline Date: 01/08/2025

Starting Date: 01/20/2025

Salary: Commensurate with experience and location.

Description

World Education, a division of JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc. (JSI/WE) is dedicated to improving people’s lives around the world through greater health, education and socioeconomic equity for individuals and communities, and to providing an environment where people of passion can pursue this cause.

JSI/WE is seeking a Regional Program Manager for a five-year USAID funded Targeting the Learning Crisis (TLC) Activity in Uganda, which aims to create sustained, measurable improvements in development outcomes in Basic Education through Targeted Instruction for foundational skills, a learner-centric pedagogy that reorganizes math and literacy instruction based on children’s actual learning levels, rather than on the prescribed grade-level syllabus. The Activity seeks to implement cost-effective, sustainable, and impactful programming, centered in P1-5, and evidence-based early childhood education for pre-primary years, in order to significantly improve math and reading learning outcomes for Ugandan primary students.

The Regional Program Manager is a full-time position based in Lira. S/he will be responsible for the successful implementation of the TLC activities in the region in line with the approved project design, budget and timeframe, and in compliance with USAID requirements. S/he will have overall responsibility for planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation and reporting of all TLC activities in the region. S/he will report to the Chief of Party and will supervise all staff in the Lira office.

Responsibilities

Program Management

• Provide overall technical and program management support to project staff in project planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of TLC activities and ensure implementation is in compliance with USAID guidelines and procedures.
• Monitor programmatic and technical performance of TLC to ensure progress towards meeting set project goals, objectives, and technical deliverables on time and with a high standard of quality.
• Build and manage comprehensive networks and a collaborative relationship with all stakeholders in the region to advance TLC goals and objectives.
• Supervise and mentor regional staff.
• Participate in pre-award assessments, development, and management of sub-agreements to ensure that issues are identified and addressed through appropriate follow-up action and support.
• Provide guidance and support to the sub- partners in programmatic and contractual areas while ensuring compliance to programmatic, financial, and reporting quality and timelines.
• Ensure a clear understanding of child safeguarding principles and guidelines by providing capacity building and awareness to regional teams, monitoring CSG Compliance in TLC implementation by staff and sub grantee partners.

Administrative Responsibilities

• Responsible for the overall supervision of all regional administrative activities in line with service quality in safety and security, regional inventory management, and other services from time to time.
• Provide oversight supervision of all regional procurement transactions, including reviews of the procurement committee sitting recommendations before forwarding to Kampala for technical review and approval.
• Ensure regional activity and procurement planning initiatives, including vendor identification and onboarding are conducted in line with TLC operational guidelines and the cardinal principles of transparency, accountability, and value for money.
• Responsible for supervision of finance transactions to ensure compliance at the regional level, this includes reviewing payment packages before forwarding to Kampala and undertaking petty cash count/spot checks.
• Provide an oversight HR Support and supervision of regional staff in line with performance management, compliance, leave management, support in the recruitment and onboarding of regional teams.
• Monitoring and supervision of regional staff compliance to Child safeguarding practices during the course of implementation to ensure prompt reporting of violations.
• Perform any other tasks required for the needs of the project as assigned by the supervisor or designee.

Qualifications

• A Master’s degree in a field related to education, Business Administration, OR commensurate experience in senior level position within the Ugandan Education System, or a related field.
• Minimum 7 years' technical experience in education programming;
• Excellent organizational skills and time management;
• Proven stakeholder management including demonstrated ability in managing sub-partners, subcontractors, and grant recipients;
• Demonstrated ability to effectively manage a regional team that works across multiple districts and with a variety of sub-partners and stakeholders;
• Ability to establish and maintain excellent relationships with project team members, funders, and other stakeholders;
• Demonstrated ability to monitor and ensure compliance with company and donor policies and procedures, including Child safeguarding practices;
• Excellent oral and written communication skills;
• Prior work history within international development, specifically USAID-funded projects, preferred.

JSI/WE is committed to protecting the populations we serve from exploitation, sexual abuse, child abuse and child neglect. We are a child-safe organization and the safety and wellbeing of children is a priority of our organization, as is the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse in any form. We have zero-tolerance for such behavior and we will take every measure to prevent such incidents. We have robust recruitment procedures to ensure that all staff are suited to work with the communities served by our programs.