JOB DESCRIPTION

Title: Regional Program Manager

Location: Remote (any country of operations for RI, GMT+1-GMT+3 preferred)

**Travel:**30% of time

Job Family and Grade: Program Management & Leadership, M7

Pre hire checks

This role is classified as requiring standard Enhanced Due Diligence

1. Scope

Department: Program

Reporting to: Regional Program Director

Direct reports:1

Budget responsibility: —

Relationship management: Regional Team, Country Programs, Global Team

2. Context

About Relief International

Relief International (RI) partners with communities impacted by conflict, climate change, and disaster to save lives, build greater resilience and promote long-term health and wellbeing.

Currently, RI is active in 15 countries around the world, including some of the most fragile: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Myanmar, occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), Pakistan, Philippines, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen.

Relief International includes the four corporate members of the RI Alliance: Relief International Inc., Relief International-UK, Relief International-France and Relief International-Europe Under our alliance agreement, we operate with a single, shared management structure.

Middle East Region

RI operates in seven countries in the Middle East region: Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), Syria, Turkey and Yemen, with a focus on the four RI sector pillars: Health, WASH, Education and Economic Opportunity. We employ more than 4,000 staff (direct and indirect) in the Middle East region and implement a range of humanitarian and development programs valued at approximately $70 million USD on an annual basis.

3. Job Profile

As part of the Regional Programs Team within the Regional Support Office (RSO) for RI’s Middle East Region, the Regional Program Manager (RPM) will support Program and Portfolio Management across the Middle East region and be responsible for program and grants management backstopping for the Middle East portfolio. The RPM works with the Regional Program Director to provide ongoing support to country program teams and ensures close coordination with the Global Award Management Unit (AMU), the Global Program Development (PD) Team, the global Technical Assistance Department (TAD), and other departments at the Global Support Office (GSO). The RPM will also liaise with donors, working with country, regional and global team members to ensure that RI is accurately and promptly complying with donor requests related to program and grants management.

This position will undertake key tasks and deliverables for the Middle East program portfolio, currently consisting of humanitarian and development programs across the six countries as assigned to by the Regional Program Director. Periodic field travel will be expected, to provide direct support, gap filling, monitoring and serve as surge support in response to humanitarian crises.

This position demands a highly dynamic, proactive, autonomous, and flexible individual with solid and effective, quality project cycle and grant management skills who is ready to provide substantive contributions and explore advancing their leadership capacity for achieving results in a demanding and fast-paced environment. An excellent communicator and team player with fluency in English and who is at ease working in a highly diverse team, capable of adapting communication styles to different audiences.

4. Key responsibilities

Accountability and Complexity

• Work closely with regional and country level teams to ensure highest quality of program implementation and reporting.
• Identify and raise risks on project implementation at country offices level.
• High level of coordination with internal stakeholders and donors.

Program Management Support

• Provide comprehensive in-person and remote guidance and support with the implementation of sound project cycle management in accordance with RI’s Program Management Framework (PMF).
• Support timely country-level project mobilization for all new projects in the region, as well as closeout for existing projects, involving relevant country programs, regional, and GSO departments and ensuring follow-up and appropriate documentation is in place.
• Participate in project review meetings with Program Managers for ongoing projects as assigned and provide regular project progress updates to the Regional Programs Team.
• Support and ensure that the program teams regularly update, share and follow project management tools, such as detailed implementation plans, spending projections, procurement plans, and M&E plan as set out in RI’s Mobilization Tool.
• Actively participate in monthly Portfolio/Project Risk review meetings with RSO and country teams, ensuring documentation of program implementation status, challenges, achievements, and risks and follow-up on action items in a timely fashion, flagging risks and issues for under or overspending of budgets, under-achievements, and other implementation challenges. Liaise with country teams on issues that need support from GSO or RSO units (HR, Ops, Security, AMU, Finance, etc.).
• Support the Regional Program Director with the reporting of Programs KPI to GSO and support in the roll-out of KPI feedback processes and improvement plans.
• Work with the Regional MEAL Manager to support MEAL activities and ensure they are carried out regularly, including data collection & analysis, monitoring of project progress against established work plans, monitoring of established indicators, and utilization of results to inform program adaptation.
• Travel to country offices to provide support, monitoring, and capacity building as per program needs, including gap-filling of key program positions and/or surge capacity as needed.
• Provide program coverage for country offices during peak times or Program Director gaps.
• Actively support the constant improvement of program quality and management efficiency through contributions to country, regional and global initiatives, such as SOP/tool/template development/refinement.
• Lead the induction and onboarding for newly recruited Program staff, country grant focal points, and any other relevant new RI team member on the required tools and processes set out in RI’s Program Management Framework, RI Program Strategy, and RI System Approach.
• Provide program input for monthly updates to RI’s Leadership Team.

Grants Management Support

• Work with the Regional Awards Manager to facilitate initial compliance and close-out calls with country offices, engage country teams in delivering mandatory mobilization and close-out tools, and flagging relevant reporting information to country teams.
• Work with the Regional Senior Awards and Reporting Officer, Awards Managers, and Programs Director to ensure the quality and timeliness of all donor reports.
• Ensure high-quality content and compliance with guidelines and requirements for donor reports. Provide final copy edit and/or support in writing assigned sections, upon request. Ensure submission under certain donors’ dedicated platforms in coordination with country offices. When needed, deploy to country programs to assist in writing reports.
• Ensure regional grants and reporting trackers as well as online grant folders are updated regularly in coordination with Regional Senior Awards and Reporting Officer and Regional Awards Manager as necessary.
• Lead on overall coordination of grant modifications between country offices, RSO and AMU, facilitating reviews/input from regional and global departments as needed.
• Provide other grant management and compliance tasks as needed and in coordination with Regional Awards Manager.

Communications and Representation Support

• In collaboration with the Regional Program Director, serve as a focal point with donors (i.e. USAID, BHA, PRM, and ECHO), coordinating with appropriate RI colleagues to ensure accurate and timely communication. Actively participate on program related meetings and calls with donors, providing program updates and facilitating information sharing between country program teams and donors.
• Attend and participate in external meetings, workshops, conferences etc. and brief the Middle East team as needed.
• Coordinate and participate in regular management meetings with field, RSO and GSO colleagues, including the documentation and sharing of the minutes and action items, encourage overall program cohesion through coordination and information sharing with and between program teams, RSO and GSO.
• Produce and update regular programmatic updates/briefing materials/capacity statements/country profiles for business development purposes.
• Ensure Middle East Intranet is up to date on a regular basis and liaises with country offices and RI’s global Communications & Development Team to gather content and stories for use on RI’s website, social media, and other channels.

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People Management

• Responsible for day-to-day management of RI’s Regional Program Coordinator based on internal HR processes to ensure successful project’s implementation.
• Provide mentorship /coaching to direct staff as well as other key program teams.
• Strengthen champion for stronger teamwork and collaboration among program and other relevant departments.

Behavior and conduct

• Ensures that behavior inside and outside of work promotes the values in RI’s code of conduct and safeguarding policies.
• Acts with integrity and holds themselves accountable for being respectful, inclusive and professional.
• Reports any concerns.

Management and leadership

• Ensure the highest standards of behavior inside and outside of work promotes the values in RI’s code of conduct and safeguarding policies.
• Be a model for ethical conduct standards for other team members.
• Embrace diversity, and model inclusive and equitable behaviour.
• Ensure own actions and the actions of the teams’ members they manage do not adversely impact the safety of the RI team and the vulnerable communities we serve.
• Ensure donors, partners and communities are aware of RI conduct and reporting mechanisms.
• Ensure safeguarding is embedded in all the work we do.
• Be responsible for ensuring a culture and systems in place for reporting.
• Report any concerns.

5. Person Specification

Essential criteria

• Master’s degree in International Development, Humanitarian Studies, Management Studies, or a related field in alignment with the relief and development sectors
• 5 years demonstrated progressive professional experience managing humanitarian/development programming (including field experience) or similar role in a regional capacity;
• Exceptional and demonstrated skills in program cycle management, covering the entire program cycle
• Familiarity with US Government grants, as well as ECHO/EC and or/ UN grants
• Excellent independent and collaborative report writing and data analysis skills
• Demonstrated ability to coordinate complex activities, meet deadlines, and exercise sound judgment and discipline
• Logical and critical thinking skills, and comfort working with complex budgets and spreadsheets
• Strong independent task management skills and techniques, ability to prioritize and organize own workload
• Willingness to think outside the box, approach challenges with creative solutions
• Comfortable absorbing workload under stress periods
• Superior oral and written communication skills in English, including consensus building and triangulation of information from multiple stakeholders
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively as part of a team with a high degree of drive, initiative, and autonomy
• Willingness to accept and absorb direct critique and participate in two-way dialogue with peers and managers to improve work quality and results
• Proven high level of computer literacy and advanced Microsoft Office Suite skills (with emphasis on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, Sharepoint)
• Ability to travel internationally to support country programs

Desirable criteria

• Understanding/experience in at least one of the key sectors of RI (health, nutrition, WASH, education, economic opportunities)
• Experience in Grants Management positions
• Experience with data visualization software/plaforms i.e. PowerBI, Smartsheet, etc.

6. RI Values

Guided by the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, as well as “Do No Harm,” Relief International Values:

• Integrity
• Adaptability
• Collaboration
• Inclusivity
• Sustainability