Programme Development and Quality Coordinator

Overall purpose of the role

The Program Development and Quality Coordinator (PDQC) is responsible for the coordination and management of key program processes, particularly in proposal development and grants management and reporting, ensuring timely reporting to donors, ensuring communication tools and strategies are in place. The PDQC contributes to increased quality by ensuring program coherence, adherence to program standards and appropriate learning from lessons learnt across the country program. The Coordinator is also responsible for donor compliance, application of correct procedures and guidelines, and liaison with support and partnership teams in support of grants processes.

Responsibilities

Grants Support

• Be responsible for the delivery of quality narrative reports, reflecting the progress and status of projects, in a transparent, timely and professional manner
• Contribute to addressing all comments and issues on proposals or reports, liaising with relevant Managers and finance to ensure coherence between financial and narrative reports;
• Ensure the DRC grants management system is regularly and fully updated. Includes Dynamics ERP system (creating grants, uploading documents, managing instalment tracking and billing rules, updating checklists and tasks assigned); internal funding tracker and reporting deadlines communications;
• Support grant relationships and communications with donors to ensure correct, compliant and smooth flow of information;
• Support the maintenance of simple grant tracking tools, such as reporting calendars, compliance trackers and MoV trackers.
• Support with communication and visibility tools and items as per donor and internal guidelines including their dissemination and availability to DRC teams and donors.
• Support / facilitate Go/No Go, Kick Off and grants closing meetings
• Help follow up on donor requirements, reporting deadlines and outstanding documentation.
• Support programme teams with questions around donor rules, budget flexibility and required approvals.
• Contribute to preparations for donor visits, TPMs, spot checks or other reviews.
• Support Grants & Business Development Manager in managing fundraising strategy, donor engagement plan, donor mapping by conducting research, maintaining and updating engagement plan and donor database.

Program Development and Quality

• Work closely with the Head of Humanitarian Disarmament and Peacebuilding (HDP), PDQS, and Programme Manager to transform content and conceptual designs into competitive final proposals responsive to the donor guidelines.
• Coordinate and provide oversight to all aspects of the proposal development process from the development of a writing guide, proposal calendar, through to delivery and timely submission of proposals.
• Review proposals for consistency with the requirements of solicitations, requests or calls for proposals, predicting or preventing bottlenecks in the proposal development process and securing the necessary information to complete process.
• Ensure the proposal development and project implementation process takes into consideration the mainstreaming of CHS, global cross cutting themes such as Age, Gender and Diversity, AAP, and lessons learnt from previous programming
• Help track donor visibility requirements and planned communication outputs.
• Support the collection of case studies, success stories, photos and related consent/documentation.
• Ensure that the Technical teams and Managers provide input into reports and proactively communicate planned requirements of program design and implementation to the relevant area and country office functions.
• Ensure an appropriate level of technical assistance and capacity building is provided to DRC’s implementing partners.
• Support the Operations Manager in monitoring of project technical goals, objectives and policies. Link DRC’s MEAL processes with HDP IM processes to establish clear ways of working and project implementation monitoring and ensure project data and indicator tracking are aligned with reporting requirements.
• Assess opportunities to improve program quality through alignment with DRC’s Programme Quality Framework
• Support regular internal reviews of project progress and outstanding actions.

Program Support

• Collaborate with the HDP tech team to ensure field-based implementation processes and documentation are properly managed and compliant with DRC requirements and sector best practices.
• When necessary, support HDP team in developing comprehensive procurement plans. Upon receipt of project related goods and services, collaborate with the logistics and procurement teams in quality assurance. From time to time, support or facilitate tendering processes, procurement committee meetings and in the review of bid analyses.
• Ensure development of work plans and budgets for DRC projects. Ensure that appropriate management systems are followed and that the programs make progress towards objectives.
• Capacitate field teams to manage timely and quality completion of program deliverables and reports in accordance with donor guidelines.
• Support the development of project work plans and contribute to development of performance monitoring plans.
• Provide support to project technical managers in the interpretation of donor guidelines in the implementation of project activities.

Partnerships

• Support the development of partnerships such as implementing partner identification and mapping, due diligence, support with selection, relationship management, capacity building and any closure processes.
• Support partners with reporting requirements, documentation standards and donor compliance where needed.
• Review partner narrative and technical inputs and provide feedback before consolidation.
• Contribute to follow-up on partner agreements, scopes of work and related documentation

Qualifications, experience and technical competencies

• Bachelor’s degree in communications, political science, international development, law or other relevant discipline
• Minimum 5 years of UN/INGO experience in proposal writing, including conceptualizing and technical writing under strict deadlines with demonstrated success
• Excellent project management skills
• Recognized leadership role in program development and quality
• Ability to work rapidly with staff in the field directly, and remotely in writing and where necessary revising concepts, proposals and reports.
• Capacity to work in a multi-sector team, including coordinating technical input into proposals
• Familiarity with requirements of key humanitarian donors and capacity to work in a multi-donor environment, including EU/ECHO, FCDO, UN donors among others.
• Good humanitarian and development programming skills, including capacity to prepare logical, coherent and consistent documents including log frames.
• Communication skills: excellent written and articulate oral communication skills, particularly in English.

Languages:

• Excellent written and spoken English.

About you

In this position, you are expected to demonstrate DRC’s five core competencies:

• Striving for excellence: You focus on reaching results while ensuring an efficient process.
• Collaborating: You involve relevant parties and encourage feedback.
• Taking the lead: You take ownership and initiative while aiming for innovation.
• Communicating: You listen and speak effectively and honestly.
• Demonstrating integrity: Upholding and promoting the highest standards of ethical and professional conduct in relation to DRC’s values and Code of Conduct, including safeguarding against sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment.

Conditions

Contract: Six Months’ contract with possibility of extension, subject to funding and performance. Salary and conditions in accordance with the Danish Refugee Council’s Terms of Employment for International staff. This position is graded at Band NM.G

Start Date: November

Duty Station: Omdurman

Reports to: Head of HDP