PROJECTS & PARTNERSHIP MANAGER

I-General overview of position / working conditions:

Title: PROJECTS & PARTNERSHIP MANAGER

Location : Lebanon

Line Manager: Country Representative

Line Report(s): Project Officer, Technical Advisor, Consultant

Main functional relationships: Office Assistant, Administrative and Finance officer

Status: Local fixed-term contract

Asmae is a French international solidarity NGO specialized in child development. It is independent, non-religious, non-political, and open to everyone.

Created in 1980 by Sister Emmanuelle following her experience with scavengers in Egypt’s slums, Asmae keeps on respecting its founder’s values and methods: listening and proximity, pragmatism, respect of the differences, professionalism and reciprocity.

Asmae’s action aims to support vulnerable children and their families through providing tailor-made and long lasting support to local stakeholders working on education and child protection.

Its vision, “A fair world which guarantees that children can live and grow with dignity within their environment, to become free women and men who contribute to society”, is broken down into four missions:

Stimulate child development through a global approach. To do this, Asmae also works on family support by taking their environment into account;

Build the capacity of local stakeholders involved in child development, boost cooperation amongst them and maximize their social impact;

Stand up for children by raising awareness and advocating;

Experiment, disseminate and share practices.

Nowadays Asmae supports education and child protection projects through 64 local organizations in Burkina-Faso, Egypt, India, Lebanon, Madagascar, Mali and the Philippines. Furthermore, in France, Asmae also directly manages a mother and childcare center.

II- background on Asmae in Lebanon:

Asmae has been working in Lebanon since 1986 (local coordination office opened in 2005).

Asmae is currently working in partnership with six local organizations in the areas of education and child protection: Prevention of school drop-out and underperformance, Prevention and care of children at risk, and Adolescence support.

Activities are located in Great Beirut, Central and North Bekaa (Zahle and Hermel), and South Lebanon.

Asmae’s team in Lebanon is composed of 3 members (1 expatriate and 2 national staff), working in our head office in Beirut.

III- Mission and Responsibilities:

The Project-Partnership Manager leads the direction for developing Asmae’s interventions in a given country, and implements Asmae’s strategy in that country. He coordinates and ensures the monitoring and evaluation of activities in collaboration with local partners, and facilitates relationships within the partnership. He capitalises on and promotes the supporting activities implemented within the country, and contributes to raising and monitoring of public and private co-funding. In addition, he leads and manages the staff under his direct supervision.

Should there be no Project Officer in the country concerned, he is also responsible for ensuring that this role is fulfilled.

The Project – Partnership Manager follows the local security and safety rules and procedures and participates to the security context analysis.

3.1. Implementation of the intervention strategy in-country:

Contributes towards situation analyses (both geographic and sectoral) for the development of the Asmae interventions in-country

Participates in developing strategic and operational planning (including: the strategy for supporting partners within the sector, provisional budget, annual action plan)

Ensures the monitoring and evaluation of Asmae’s intervention strategy in-country

Identifies, initiates and ensures the monitoring of relationships within the partnership (research, initiation, developing contracts, closure) and of projects implemented by local partners

Manages needs analyses of partners, then establish a support plan (advice, technical support, training) in collaboration with the Technical Consultant

Organizes regular monitoring visits with local partners, ensures a support and advice programme, and mobilises sufficient resources in line with the action plan and Country Budget

Ensures the operational monitoring of supporting activities and projects implemented by local partners, and contributes to facilitating bodies for this purpose

Leads on funding applications; supervises the monitoring, reporting and evaluation of projects

3.2. Management of Human Resources:

Lead and manage staff under his supervision

Contributes to the recruitment and integration of relevant national and international staff

Contributes to ensuring that Asmae’s practices are in lines with existing national regulatory frameworks

Ensures that security regulations are respected and implemented, and ensures the implementation of tasks assigned by the Country Representative

3.3. Financial and Budgetary Management:

Participates in the development of the Country Budget, in line with national and international stake holders working in the fields of education  and child protection

Contributes to the preparation and smooth running of financial audits, both of partners’ projects and of Asmae’s activities, in collaboration with the Administration and Finance Manager

Together with partners, elaborates the project budgets

Ensures that operational monitoring and financial monitoring are consistent, in collaboration with the Administration and Finance Officer

3.4. Facilitation of Internal and External Relationships:

After approval of the Country Representative, identifies, organises and/or participates in thematic groups with stakeholders working in education and child protection

Participates in organising visits from colleagues from Head Office, funders, Asmae partners and institutional actors

Supervises the preparation and execution of the international workcamps

Participates in developing support structures for external communications

Contributes to facilitating team meetings

Contributes to implementing intersecting activities from the HQ Program department

IV - PROFILE:

Education / Experience :

Master Degree in International Relations, Cooperation, Development, HumanHumanitarian Aid or equivalent

Minimum 3 years of experience in project management

Significant experience in Partnership relations with local nonprofit organizations (opening – support – termination)

Experience in Education or Child Protection project management

Experience in monitoring-evaluation, and project reporting

Security Management in a difficult context

Team Management in a multidisciplinary and multicultural context

Knowledge of the geographical area is an asset

Professional skills required:

Capacity to elaborate a country intervention strategy

Donor Rules and Regulations working knowledge (French Development Agency, EU, USAID, UN Agencies, bilateral cooperation)

Pack office Management : Specialist level of Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and Skype and Expert level of Excel

Fluency in English (Minimum level of B2 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages or a minimum TOEIC score of 785)

Fluency in French is an asset

Excellent writing and synthesis skills

Competency in reinforcement in capacity building, project management and training

SAGA (accounting software) knowledge is an asset

Personal skills:

Excellent in building relationship and representation

Sense of analysis and proposition capability

Adaptability and flexibility

Strong autonomy and team working focused

Stress resistant