Concern Worldwide is present in Burundi since 1997.  Concern is one of the biggest humanitarian organisations in Burundi.  Its operations have grown substantially in the last three years to meet growing

challenges in the domains of social protection, food security, health, nutrition, WASH and refugee reintegration. This is an exciting opportunity to create and maintain business opportunities for Burundi and Rwanda and make sure they correspond to the highest quality standards in both countries.

About the role :

This is a 12 month role with unaccompanied terms based in Bujumbura, with frequent trips to other programme locations in Burundi.  Trips to Rwanda are less frequent, maximally twice per year.  The role is graded in Grade 4 € 43,268 – 48,076.

You will report to the Programme Director and will lead the Programme quality team with line management of the M&E Manager, the Accountability and Gender (A&G) Officer, and the Communication Officer. You will work closely with the Dublin M&E Technical Advisors and Desk Officer.

We would like you to start in May 2022.

Your purpose :

One of your priorities is to lead on the grants and compliance aspects of Concern’s programme in Burundi/Rwanda, including managing all grants, finalising reports and ensuring they are compliant with donor requirements and writing high quality proposals based on Concern strategic objective. Concern’s Rwanda portfolio is small in scale and attached to the Burundi programme.

You will ensure high quality programme design and implementation through the continued critical review of M&E systems, incorporate learning in programme design, and make sure that cross cutting issues including gender and protection are systematically included.  You will also be the focal point for partnerships and will support the Communications function. You will lead on research activities, liaising with external consultants and Dublin technical experts, and will be the focal person for all mainstreaming and accountability issues, both internally and as part of our programme activities. You will also ensure that appropriate programme documentation, reporting and filing processes are in place.

You will be responsible for :

Programme Design and Quality :

• Lead on proposal development with the support of the Communications Officer and the rest of the programme and support teams to ensure a coordinated plan and strong programme logic in line with the programme strategy ;
• Coordinates processes to ensure program quality including the full program cycle, strengthening systems for proposal development, program implementation, monitoring and evaluation and learning, under the leadership of the Programme Director ;
• Monitor programme activities in line with organisation’s internal systems and procedures and that adherence to the Core Humanitarian Standard’s commitments on accountability are met ;
• Communicate agreed reports and other information in a timely and relevant manner to various stakeholders ;
• Oversee the implementation of a robust complaints and response mechanism (CRM) and ensure that any feedback or complaints from stakeholders are handled in an appropriate and systematic way ;
• Ensure that Concern mainstreaming polices and “How Concern Understands Extreme Poverty” (HCUEP) are understood by all staff and are implemented at all levels, both in the programmes and internally ;
• Develop fact sheets on programme quality initiatives and best practice, with the support of the programme team and technical advisors ;
• Together with the Programme Director, promote a culture of shared learning across all programme locations and with colleagues in the region including organising quarterly project review meetings and grants opening and closing meetings. 

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning :

• Oversee the integrated and results based M&E system that provides appropriate measure of programme progress against agreed objectives ;
• Support the M&E Manager in coordinating and strengthening programme-level M&E activities, including implementation of baseline, midline and endline surveys ;
• Supervise the use of Concern DDG system for the collection of the data ;
• Support the M&E Manager in the implementation of technical surveys working (e.g. SMART, KAP) with the relevant programme teams to ensure that data collection techniques are robust, that staff and agents involved have a good understanding of their roles, that the data entry processes are timely and accurate, and that the data analysis is timely and meaningful ;
• Develop a knowledge management system to capture lessons learned and disseminate these within Concern in Burundi and wider ;
• Ensure all aspects of the programme activities adhere to programme quality standards and policies (PM&E, accountability and mainstreaming) in a coherent and integrated manner ;
• Oversee any research activity conducted by the country programme, both directly and through consultants and ensure research outcomes are clearly documented ;
• Facilitate support visits from technical advisors and ensure dissemination of learning.

Accountability and Gender :

• Integrate a gender perspective, with help of the Accountability & Gender Officer, into Concern’s routine activities and the organization’s programme portfolio, and provide expert advice on this to Bujumbura and field offices ;
• Support training sessions by the Accountability & Gender Officer for all staff (Concern and partners) to support and ensure adequate consideration of gender issues (e.g. in program implementation and recruitment processes at all levels) ;
• Follow up on and use feedback from comments and complaints from beneficiaries.

Support to Programme Management :

• Liaise with your team and other colleagues to complete internal, HQ and donor reports as required ;
• Participate in preparing complete, accurate and realistic budgets for donor proposals and as part of Concern’s internal budget procedures, in collaboration with the Programme Director and Country Financial Controller ;
• Ensure the allocated budget for programme quality is utilised effectively and any necessary adjustments are requested in a timely manner in coordination with the budget holders ;
• Ensure high quality internal and external reports are prepared by the programme ;
• Ensure that all grant documents are properly filed for reference and retrievable for donor and other audits and otherwise whenever required ;
• Promote donor compliance, ensuring that programme managers understand and adhere to donor regulations as stipulated in donor contracts ;
• Ensure that all grants are created in the GMS platform and that all grants related documents are save on GMS and in the internal server.

Capacity Building :

• Oversee capacity building of M&E staff on project cycle management and M&E tools  and support them if need be ;
• Build the capacity of the staff, specifically in development and use of log frames for planning and monitoring of progress as well as in report writing in general with the help of technical advisors ;
• Ensure that new tools and approaches are shared and understood by staff and partners.

People Management :

• Manage the M&E Manager, the Communication Officer, and the Accountability & Gender Officer contributing to their capacity building through technical support and on-the-job training and coaching, including a thorough induction at the start of their contract ;
• Ensure that they have tangible goals to follow up on and that they fully understand outcomes which are expected of them, by setting SMART objectives ;
• Ensure that they are aware of and comply with all of Concern’s policies and procedures.
• Monitor and review performance of these staff and hold them accountable for meeting their success criteria; give corrective feedback where required and take decisive action in the case of poor performance ;
• If any of these staff have line management responsibilities as well, ensure that they meet the requirements above for each of their team members.  This applies to the M&E Manager, who supervises three staff members ;
• Ensure that work within the team(s) is planned and organised in a way which will meet the organisation’s needs in the most cost effective manner possible; ensuring that team members are given appropriate workloads and are working efficiently ;
• Organise weekly meeting with each component of the Programme Quality team (Communication Officer, M&E Manager, G&A Officer) ;
• Inculcate a sense of responsibility, accountability and pride in programme excellence within the team.

Accountability :

In line with Concern’s commitments under the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) :  

• actively promote meaningful community participation and consultation at all stages of the project cycle (planning, implementation, M&E) ;
• work with relevant colleagues  to ensure that the Complaints and Response Mechanism (CRM) is functional and accessible, that feedback and complaints are welcomed and addressed ;
• work with relevant colleagues  to ensure that information about CRM, safeguarding and expected staff behaviour is disseminated among programme participants and communities.

Other :

• Actively participate in collective exercises such as preparation or updates of in-country and international Concern initiatives ;
• Take measures to address equality and protection issues, particularly relating to gender, in programme as well as operational (e.g. HR) activities ;
• Ensure the highest stands of accountability through ensuring good communication and information sharing within and outside the programme and enabling staff, beneficiary and other stakeholder participation at all stages of the project cycle ;
• Be aware of, understand and comply with all of Concern’s policies and procedures (P4, Safe Guarding, finance, logistics, HR, security management etc.) ;
• Contribute to ongoing security management and planning as necessary ;
• Actively participate in any emergency response if called upon to do so (within the existing programme area or in a new one) ;
• Undertake other related duties as may reasonably be assigned by the Country Director or the line manager (if changed) ;
• Represent Concern in national and where appropriate technical working group, cluster meetings  program and technical fora.

Your skills and experience will include :

Essential :

• Relevant graduate degree (economics, agriculture, development or equivalent) ;
• Five years relevant field based experience in the development/humanitarian sector ;
• Fluent English and French – written and spoken ;
• Demonstrated experience of proposal development for NGOs ;
• Demonstrated experience of working with rural communities ;
• Demonstrated experience in all stages of the PCMS (Programme Cycle Management Systems): assessments , programme development, including the logical framework approach ;
• Knowledge of M&E approaches ;
• Experience in preparing budgets and reports for international donors ;
• People management ;
• Computer skills including Microsoft Word and Excel ;
• Knowledge of mainstreaming Equality (especially Gender) and Protection ;
• Ability to work independently and under own initiative ;
• Ability to work under pressure and prioritise, often to strict deadlines ;
• Good networking skills, interpersonal communication, presentation and motivational skills ;
• Strong analytical and problem solving abilities ;
• Empathy with Concern’s goals and a commitment to capacity building, protection and participation ;
• Willingness to travel to rural areas up to 30% of the time between programme locations ;
• The ability to quickly develop fluency in Concern Worldwide’s policies and procedures, including policies such as equality and systems policies in logistics and transport ;
• Excellent organisational skills ;
• Excellent writing skills in both French and English ;
• Cross cultural awareness and sensitivity ;
• Knowledge of development issues and concepts ;
• Creativity ;
• Experience in staff capacity development.

Desirable :

• Post graduate degree in relevant discipline ;
• Practical experience of implementation of mainstreaming activities, especially in the key dimension of equality.

To apply :

Les candidatures en français sont les bienvenues. 

We would also like :

All applications should be submitted through our website at https://jobs.concern.net by the closing date and CV’s should be no more than four pages in length.

All candidates who are short-listed for a first round interview will be notified via email after the application deadline

Concern Worldwide is an Irish-based non-governmental, international, humanitarian organisation dedicated to the reduction of suffering and working towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries.

Concern has a Staff Code of Conduct and a Programme Participant Protection Policy which have been developed to ensure the maximum protection of programme participants from exploitation and to clarify the responsibilities of Concern staff, consultants, visitors to the programme and partner organization, and the standards of behaviour expected of them.  In this context staff have a responsibility to the organization to strive for, and maintain, the highest standards in the day-to-day conduct in their workplace in accordance with Concern’s core values and mission. Any candidate offered a job with Concern Worldwide will be expected to sign the Programme Participant Protection Policy and the Concern Staff Code of Conduct as an appendix to their contract of employment.   By signing the Programme Participant Protection Policy and the Concern Staff Code of Conduct candidates acknowledge that they have understood the contents of both the Concern Staff Code of Conduct and the Programme Participant Protection Policy and agree to conduct themselves in accordance with the provisions of these two documents.

Concern receives a substantial amount of funding from external donors each year.  Increasingly donors are introducing requirements whereby future funding is conditional on Concern ensuring that the names of any new employee or volunteer do not appear on terrorism lists generated by the European Union (List of person, groups and entities to which Regulation (EC No. 2580/2001 applies), the US Government (Office of Foreign Assets Control list of specially designated Nationals and Blocked Persons) and the United Nations (Consolidated List).  Any offer of employment (either paid or voluntary) with Concern Worldwide will not be made pending a clearance check being conducted on the applicant.  For additional information please consult our web site or contact the Human Resource Division in our Head Office.

Concern Worldwide is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications from all sections of the community.

Due to the urgency of this position, applications will be short-listed on a regular basis and we may offer posts before the closing date.

Documents :