Senior Girl's Education Challenge Contracts Manager

BACKGROUND

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is one of the world’s leading humanitarian relief and development organisations. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people survive, recover and rebuild their lives. The IRC delivers emergency aid, protects children, provides health care, prevents and responds to violence against women and girls, safeguards human rights and helps to kick-start economic recovery. Working in more than 40 countries, the IRC has restored hope and opportunity to many millions of people.

The IRC is committed to a culture of bold leadership, innovation in all aspects of our work, creative partnerships and, most crucially, accountability to those we serve. The IRC is a tireless advocate for the most vulnerable.

The IRC’s global headquarters are in New York. Our European headquarters were established in London in 1997 to support the organisation’s global activities and particularly to diversify its donor base and be able to better advocate with European policy-makers on behalf of the people we serve. Since 1997, IRC-UK has grown rapidly with income rising from £30,000 to £56 million in 2012. The IRC also has offices in Belgium and Geneva.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the International Rescue Committee (IRC) is one of the largest providers of relief and development assistance. With an annual budget of approximately US$ 75 million, $320 million overall grant portfolio and more than 1,000 staff in six provinces, the IRC supports Congolese communities and institutions in seven conflict-affected provinces in the areas of health, governance and community development, education, women’s protection and empowerment, and emergency response.

PROGRAMME SCOPE

To address the economic barriers, socio-cultural norms, and low quality teaching that prevent Congolese girls from succeeding in school and completing the primary cycle, IRC and its partners Save the Children and Catholic Relief Services have joined the international Girl’s Education Challenge Program through the Valorisation de la Scolarisation de la Fille project, VAS-Y Fille. The project’s objective is to ensure that marginalized girls complete primary school with improved academic skills in five provinces where girls’ learning and completion are among the lowest in DRC.

The project works to:

1. Improve parental financial capacity to support girls in primary education;
2. Improve girls’ reading and maths skills through teacher training, tutoring and community reading program;
3. Increase community involvement, ensuring girls’ access to quality education in a safe environment; and,
4. Increase civil society engagement in providing alternative learning opportunities that will allow out of school girls to complete primary education.

IRC is seeking a Senior Contracts Manager to be the GEC focal point within IRC DRC. Based in the IRC’s DRC headquarters in Kinshasa, the Senior Contracts Manager will be 100% dedicated to the VAS-Y Fille project. The Senior Contracts Manager will be responsible for ensuring effective coordination between the project team in DRC, including the DRC finance department and program staff, in-country, Price Waterhouse Cooper (PWC) in the UK, consortium partners in the UK, and other internal stakeholders across the IRC, including IRC UK and the IRC NY-based technical and Research, Evaluation and Learning (REL) units. The Senior Contracts Manager will support the Project Director in ensuring that the project is implemented in accordance with DFID/PWC regulations and IRC policies and that international standards of researching VAWG are compliant with donor reporting requirements. Specifically, the Senior Contracts Manager will be responsible for the preparation and compilation of high quality and accurate quarterly reports to DFID/PWC. She/he will also be the DRC point of contact with PWC on all administrative issues related to GEC contract management.

The Senior Contracts Manager will report to the Project Director and work closely with the Education Technical Advisor, the Grants unit and Finance team in DRC and the International Programmes Team in London. The position will require travel to project field sites and to IRC headquarters. The Senior Contracts Manager will be responsible for representing the project to external actors within UK.   This position is anticipated to begin in April 2015.

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Project Coordination and Compliance

• Serve as the focal point for information-sharing and guidance on VAS-Y Fille donor rules, communications for IRC and, when relevant, partners. This includes communicating all compliance and donor related information and monitoring their timely implementation/compliance in coordination with the GEC Finance Controller, UK Regional Grant Officer and Partnership Compliance Coordinator.
• Liaise with the UK Regional Grants Officer on compliance questions and communication of in-country challenges to donor.
• Track contractually-binding quarterly milestones:
  • Works with M&E Coordinator to split quarterly targets per organization per quarter
  • Checks in with IRC and partner focal points mid-quarter on achievement.
  • At end of each quarter, compiles achievement of each milestone for project and by organization and sends to Finance for partner reimbursement, Project Director/Technical Advisor for partner follow-up, copying the CYPD Grants Coordinator and M&E Coordinator.

• Facilitate project coordination and maintain comprehensive electronic files for the project, and ensure project team and partners have access to relevant records
• Travel to field sites for the purposes of project coordination and to be better informed about project implementation progress.
• Supervise and complete special projects as assigned by the Project Director and CYPD sector Director that may fall outside of this job description.

Maintaining Relationships with PWC

• Liaise with PWC and other operational partners through attendance at scheduled and ad hoc meetings and consultations upon the Project Director’s  request, and represent IRC and IRC’s interests by maintaining positive and constructive relations
• Respond to ad hoc requests from PWC for information (programmatic, financial or administrative)
• Ensure that the project team and partners are aware of all relevant PWC communications, changes in their regulations, and meetings or conferences.

• Participate in PWC DRC Education and Financial Monitoring visits and/or meetings as per the agreed timeline of visits.

Reporting

• Serve as the project focal-point for the production, review and quarterly donor reports ensuring quality, accuracy and timely submission of report. This includes translating (French to English), compiling and writing sections of the report, as well as liaising with partners, IRC field-based and Kinshasa project team for review and in collaboration with the IPT Regional Grants Officer for quality, accuracy, and style.
• Ensure timely submission of all donor reports, including financial, narrative and asset, and that all deadlines are communicated to teams in a timely manner. Proactively liaise with PWC if deadlines cannot be met.
• Responsible for submission of donor reports (technical narrative and financial reports) and information, communication of compliance questions or project challenges.

Partner Coordination with UK

• Act as the primary liaison with the UK offices of project partner to develop project documents including inception report, monitoring plans, contracts and activity plans

Institutional Learning

• Support IRC-UK to capture ‘lessons learned’ from the GEC project, in collaboration with the Education Technical Advisor, Payment By Results and DFID’s use of Fund Managers.
• Ensure future opportunities that use PBR or fund manager mechanisms are informed by IRC experience through the GEC project.

Person specification

Essential qualifications, skills and experience

• Masters level education in development studies, education or a related field
• Excellent organisation, coordination and project management skills including budgeting and developing project management documents such as work plans with milestones
• Excellent written English including the ability to edit, synthesise information and produce high quality reports  
• Experience and a good understanding of international development
• Proven ability to operate in a complex organisation, across funct ions and work on own initiative and collaboratively as part of diverse teams
• Ability to manage a varied workload, work under pressure, prioritise and meet deadlines

• Excellent influencing, negotiating and communication skills in both English and French. French language skills – professional working proficiency level; Fluency in English.

• Excellent IT skills (Word, Outlook, Excel)
• Self motivated, flexible and adaptable to the needs of the organisation.
• Knowledge of DFID donor regulations

Desirable qualifications, experience and competences

• 4 years professional working experience in international development with a focus on grant reporting and compliance
• Field experience of project management of international development projects
• Experience of managing donor-funded contracts, especially complex funding arrangements
• Good understanding of research design and methodology.

Specific Security Situation/Housing:

This is an unaccompanied post based in Kinshasa. Comfortable and secure shared housing is provided by IRC. The current situation in Kinshasa is stable; however the overall security situation can be unpredictable and complex. Staff can move by foot in very limited areas of the city during daylight hours. Transportation is provided through a pooled vehicle arrangement. All possible measures are taken by IRC to ensure staff safety and security.