Project Manager, ECHO

Plan International

The project is a 24-month collaboration between Plan international, CARE Egypt Foundation and Women of the South that is now in its 13th Month. Its overall objective is to improve access to safe, quality and inclusive education that promotes a more integrated society for refugee and Egyptian host community boys and girls in Aswan, Egypt. This will be achieved by adopting a structured framework of interrelated services and capacity-building activities to address core barriers faced by vulnerable children and youth to access education in the target communities. To realize this objective, the response will work towards achieving the following results

• Improve access to education for the target group through the integration of eligible refugee OOSC out of school children into the Egyptian school system, as well as provide access to accredited community schools for those who are not eligible for the Egyptian system. The response will also address financial barriers by providing Cash Plus to vulnerable households, improving the infrastructure in schools, providing catch- up and remedial classes necessary for children to re-join or be retained in the education system, and building the capacity of educators.
• Improve protection of the target group and promote social cohesion: this will involve personalized (case-by-case) support aiming to address the unique barriers faced, Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) and recreational and social cohesion activities.

The purpose of the role is to manage the project, while ensuring a seamless integration and quality of deliverables in line with the Country Strategy. The Project Manager will be responsible for the design, planning and successful delivery of ECHO project at every stage of the project management cycle in line with donor requirements and Plan International minimum standards and best practices. The PM is intended to manage partnerships as appropriate and sustain good working relationships with local partners to help providing quality delivery of the project. The PM is the link between the target beneficiaries and all stakeholders critical to the project success. The PM is the accountable for ensuring timely and quality delivery and monitoring the implementation of the project s activities in addition to budget monitoring to ensure meeting both Plan and donor s requirements.

ACCOUNTABILITIES AND MAIN WORK ACTIVITIES

1. Management

• Role models Plan International Egypt s values and behaviors for staff and partner(s).
• Provides leadership and management to create a motivated, engaged and high performing team.
• Ensures that all team members and partners are aware of ECHO project objectives and their role in achieving them.
• Plans and distributes tasks and workload among the teams, guiding their understanding of the issues linked to ECHO project through regular working meetings and feedback, to ensure an efficient deployment of the resources and the achievement of expected goals.
• Liaises with relevant departments and team at the Area office and CO to ensure ECHO project team receives the required support in a timely manner.
• Supports project officers and M&E officers to regularly monitor project outputs in accordance with the M&E frameworks of ECHO project.
• Ensures full compliance with Plan international Egypt financial and procurement policies and guidelines and Plan international templates are used.
• Supervises the project material resources put at disposition in order to ensure a correct use and its longevity.
• Manages the relationship with ECHO project partners with regular meetings/follow up and providing necessary support.
• Ensure partner capacity strengthening plan when needed, is followed and offers support to partners as needed

2. Project Idea Phase

• Contributes to the initiation of project ideas in line with the country strategy.
• Identification of project potential local partner(s)

3. Project Design Phase

• Lead the due diligence process with support from the Programme Area Manager and coordinate input from all relevant departments.
• In collaboration with the relevant functions, analyses the context, the outcome of the due diligence process and associated risks and constraints and estimates material, human and financial resources needed (Risk register, Procurement plan, HR plan, Budget).
• Ensures that safeguarding for children and young people risks are included in the project planning and actions to mitigate identified risk are budgeted for.

4. Planning phase

• Lead, review, and approve the annual planning and budgeting for ECHO project.
• In collaboration with partner(s), establishes and confirms ECHO project governance (roles & responsibilities, project tolerances and change control mechanisms).
• In collaboration with the partner(s) and in consultation with relevant functions, develops a comprehensive detailed implementation plan including as a minimum the implementation plan, the risk register, the issue log, the procurement plan and schedule, the HR plan, the M&E indicator matrix and the project and partner budgets.
• Formulates project activities to include gender transformative aspect in order achieve gender equality outlined in the policy on gender equality and inclusion.

5. Project Implementation phase

• Leads ECHO project team to implement project activities as agreed in the project documents, frameworks and timeframes.
• Coordinates with other departments to ensure ECHO project receives the required technical supports and resources to achieve their objectives on time.
• Jointly with the partner(s), oversees and manages the delivery, monitoring and evaluation of ECHO project in collaboration with the team, by analyzing information and comparing it with the objectives, and schedules to monitor progression, early detection of deviations and proposed corrections.
• Provides reporting to the PAM, HoP and BDM on ECHO project s evolution and propose corrections if needed as required.