Program Manager – Education and Empowerment CARE Zambia

CARE works around the globe to save lives, defeat poverty, and achieve social justice. We seek a world of hope, tolerance, and social justice, where poverty has been overcome and all people live with dignity and security. We put women and girls at the center because we know that we cannot overcome poverty until all people have equal rights and opportunities.

CARE Zambia an International Non-Governmental relief and development organization with various projects in Central, Copperbelt, Eastern, Muchinga, Luapula, Lusaka, Northern, North-western, and Southern provinces of Zambia, has the following two vacancies available at Head Office in Lusaka and Choma respectively;

Job Title: Program Manager – Education and Empowerment

Reports to: Director of  Programs

Location: Lusaka

Type of Contract: Fixed Term

Job Summary

The Program Manager – Education and Empowerment is the Thematic Lead for the Education and Empowerment Strategic Program Area (SPA). The incumbent sets an ambitious and focused agenda for the SPA, works with significant autonomy, and should have well developed skills in achieving results through others, program quality, proactively seeking and maximizing synergies, building strategic alliances that are mutually beneficial, and programme development and proposal writing.

Duties and Responsibilities:

1. Hold project managers accountable for delivery; developing a system for effective management of the project cycle, ensuring that delivery is on time, on target, and on budget. Among others, this will include performance management, mentoring and coaching of staff to build a future generation of leaders, and direct management to fill short term gaps.
2. Promote awareness of and compliance with CARE’s program quality standards, and instituting mechanisms for a culture of continuous quality improvement.
3. Promote awareness of and capacity in risk-based management among the SPA team.
4. Coordinate development of reports (project/donor and management reports) of high quality, ensuring that they are on time, written analytically, use credible data, and relevant photos of high quality.
5. Develop a focused strategy for the SPA: set an ambitious and focused agenda for the SPA. This should include an outline the macro-logframe, how success will be measured, funding/resource mobilization plan, and partnership strategy and advocacy plans.
6. Within the scope of the SPA, develop and periodically update the Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan to respond to humanitarian needs wherever and whenever applicable.
7. Develop strategic partnerships and alliances: develop relationships with civil society organisations and women’s networks to actualize CARE’s locally led programming and scale up agenda. This will include collaboration with the Awards Management Coordinator to develop an efficient and effective system for managing partners from a distance.
8. Lead the drive for growth of the funding portfolio for the SPA. Among others, this will include proactive identification of programming opportunities, leading the development of competitive concept notes and proposals, and collaborating with the Resource Mobilisation Manager and CARE Managing Partners (CMPs).
9. Strategic influencing to achieve SPA goals: conduct research and analyses to inform CARE’s position on strategic issues of interest; and develop alliances and communication strategies to influence measurable and sustained change.
10. Proactively seek and develop strategies to maximize synergies among CARE programs as well as will similar programs implemented by other agencies.
11. Participate as an effective member of the Program Leadership Team. This includes taking active interest in cross-cutting themes, putting the interest of the wider organization first (beyond SPA), and promoting CARE’s organizational values of transformation, integrity, diversity, excellence, and equality.
12. From time to time, provide temporary cover for the Director of Programs when s/he is out of office.

Qualifications, experience, and personal attributes:

• Possess a university degree in Education, Psychology or Sociology or other relevant social sciences. Post graduate qualification is preferred.
• 3 – 5 years’ experience in a similar role as described above.
• Is highly tactical and experienced in achieving results through others.
• Is able to write analytically and succinctly in English.
• Demonstrates skills and experience in partnership development and management
• Demonstrates skills in project development, including development of logical frameworks, budgeting, and technical writing for Education and/or Empowerment.
• Is self-directed, enjoys autonomy, and produces quality results with minimal supervision and/or support.
• Is resilient and able to thrive in a matrix structure and handle ambiguity with positivity.
• Invests in self-development, willing to learn, and continuously improves. 

Contacts/Key Relationships 

• This role is expected to establish and maintain open, professional, and cordial relations with the Country Office internal, CARE Regional, and external customers. These include and not limited to.

Internal

• Resource Mobilisation Manager, Strategic Program Area (SPA) Leads, Technical Advisors, Project Managers, CO.Director of Programs, Assistant Country Director, Country Director.
• Regional and CARE Member Partners (CMP): Regional Advocacy and Communications Teams, CMP Focal Points.

External

• Populations of concern and their communities (including children, women, and girls); Civil Society Organisations; Officials of Government Line Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs); current and potential program supporters ( funders or donors); different levels of staff from partner and peer organisations.