Job Title: Child Protection and Child Rights Specialist
Organisation: Save the Children International
Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda
About US:
Save the Children International is an international relief organization that was established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic opportunities, as well as providing emergency aid in natural disasters, war, and other conflicts.
Job Summary: The Child Protection (CP) and Child Rights e (CR) Specialist supports ensuring the strategic direction and coordination of Save the Children’s work on CP and CRG, policies, practices, and program monitoring and evaluation, in the Uganda programme in line with Save the Children 2030 Strategic Ambition. As a technical member of Programme Development and Quality (PDQ) Department, the CP and CR Specialist is responsible for supporting the development and delivery of high quality, innovative, cost effective programmes in CP and CR across the full spectrum programming, resulting in immediate and lasting change for the most deprived children in Uganda.
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
Strategic Programming
- Support in developing and realising ambitious yet practical CP and CR plans as part of the country program
- Seek strategic linkage, wherever applicable, with other thematic areas of Uganda Programme i.e Education, Health & Nutrition, DRR and Youth Empowerment, and Child Poverty for developing integrated programmes for the most deprived children in Uganda.
- Ensure that children’s participation in programme and policy designs occurs at all levels.
- Establish and maintain strong working relationship with child protection (CP) and CRG technical advisors, SC members and SCI CP and CRG Initiatives (globally and regionally) and thereby ensure that the country programme benefits from possible opportunities (funding and other Programme developments areas)
- Oversee the coordination and implementation of CP awards across the Country Program in line with projects designs and donor requirements and Support projects management and ensure timely implementation
Resource Mobilisation:
- Work together with PDQ and Operations teams to initiate and design high quality, cost-effective, innovative and sustainable project proposals and concept notes
- Analyse and inform donor priorities and positions on issues related to Child protection and inform Head of sector to influence strategic priorities for the CRG/CP thematic area and contribute to the development and regular updating of SCI Uganda fundraising plan
Strategic Technical Assistance and Capacity Building
- Ensure inclusion of the most deprived children (with a particular focus on the differently abled children) into our programming in line with the main breakthroughs of Save the Children (all children survive, all children lean and all children are protected)
- Develop and ensure application of Quality Benchmarks into all Save the Children’s programmes related to Child Protection and CRG.
- Assist the Field area teams in technical assessments of local/implementing partners, particularly in Child Protection
- Carry out extensive field monitoring visits to document observations and good practices and share them with regional offices and PDQ teams to enable taking corrective measures in the project implementation
- Provide technical guidance and inputs to the Operations and PDQ teams as well as partners and provide technical review of donor reports to ensure high quality reporting.
- Support start up and management of new awards before the respective PM are hired and on board and Support the recruitment of PM positions for CP awards.
- Provide lead in planning, development and management of detailed implementation plans, phased budgets, implementation, monitoring, documentation and reporting.
- Provide continuous development support to PMs project implementation, budget management, reporting and staff performance management and Identify learning and training opportunities for staff and support to staff development.
Policy Analysis, Representation and Advocacy
- Support to represent Save the Children in Uganda programme in relevant internal and external fora including donor and government meetings related to CP and CRG ensuring that our three main breakthroughs of the 2030 Strategic Ambition are brought on the agenda.
- Work closely with PDQs and Operations teams to develop policy research and advocacy strategy in CP and CRG in line with the Uganda Country Strategic Plan and the 2030 Strategic Ambition of Save the Children International
- Facilitate appropriate dissemination of research findings and good practices documentations in the projects internally and externally to donors, governments, partners and other key actors strategic for immediate and sustainable development of the most deprived children in Uganda.
- Work closely with a range of stakeholders to ensure that we catalyse impact at scale related to programmes targeting the most deprived children aimed to change children’s lives.
Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, Learning
- Assist PDQ team to ensure that all CP and CRG projects and components have robust Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning plans
- Support to oversee the preparation of timely and high-quality progress and end of project narrative and financial reports which are in accordance to the donor reporting schedule, formats and donor requirements.
- Ensure to provide an avenue for children’s voice through Accountability mechanisms across all CP/CRG programmes being implemented either directly or through partners.
- Support to ensure that learning from Save the Children in Uganda programmes is consistently documented, shared and used to improve quality programming and to influence how other stakeholders address the rights and the needs of children.
- Work closely with the MEAL advisor and field-based specialists to ensure that the CP/CRG work contributes to all relevant programme and Global Indicators
- Support appropriate dissemination of research findings and good practices documentations in the projects internally and externally to donors, governments, consortium partners and other key actors strategic for immediate and sustainable development of children in Uganda
- Work with technical resources among Save the Children members to facilitate sharing and systematic Learning in CP and CRG; sharing of good practices and leverage their support for strengthening CP and CRG related studies, assessments, innovations, advocacy and capacity building in favour of the most deprived children in Uganda.
Budget Holding
- Support the management of technical budgets in CP and CRG efficiently and in line with donor guidelines and project plans as appropriate and as delegated.
People Management, Mentoring and Development
- Support to ensure that all technical staff and volunteers in CP and CRG understand and are able to adapt their roles in full spectrum programming
- Assist in management of the CP and CRG team; define expectations, provide leadership and support as needed.
- Specifically take responsibility technically support Programme/project managers/Programme officers-CP/CRG working in the regional offices by contributing to setting their objectives and reviewing their performance regularly together with the Regional Area Managers.
Qualifications, Skills and Experience:
- The ideal applicant must hold a Bachelor’s degree or higher in child rights, social sciences or related field; training and experience in child protection and Child Rights Governance including in emergencies and project planning and management techniques, is of added advantage.
- Minimum of five years’ relevant technical experience.
- Knowledge of current regional and local debates on Child Rights Governance and child protection policies and practices.
- Proven skills and experience in undertaking assessments and designing/writing quality technical proposals in the sector.
- Proven experience in programme development, project cycle management and monitoring and evaluation related to the sector including writing up high quality project/donor reports.
- Proven experience of developing and managing high quality, innovative and cost-effective technical Child Rights Governance and Child Protection projects in fragile and insecure environments, preferably in Uganda and/or Regional context and with International NGOs.
- Proven experience and skills in advocacy and building work relationships with local/national governments and influencing institutional, private and/or corporate donors.
- Solid experience and excellent skills in capacity building of systems, staff, partners and other actors related to Child Rights Governance and Child Protection.
- Ability to extensively travel for project monitoring and provide on-site technical support to field teams.
- Highly developed interpersonal and communication skills including influencing, negotiation and coaching.
- Highly developed cultural awareness and ability to work well in an international environment with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures.
- Strong results orientation, with the ability to challenge existing mindsets.
- Experience of solving complex issues through analysis, definition of a clear way forward and ensuring buy in
- Ability to present complex information in a succinct and compelling manner.
- Ability and willingness to dramatically change work practices and hours, and work with incoming surge teams, in the event of emergencies.
- Willingness to be deployed part or full time in to emergency response as per need and as directed.
- Commitment to Save the Children values.
How to Apply:
All candidates who wish to join Save the Children should apply online at the link below.
Click Here
Deadline: 21st April 2023
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