Tajikistan Project Manager Gender and Disability Rights

Position Title: Project Manager (PM) Gender and Disability rights in Tajikistan

Location: Penjikent Tajikistan with frequent travel and some time worked in Dushanbe Length of contract: 23 months, immediate start

Responsible to: Country Director, Tajikistan

Has reporting from: Local partners and Mission East Project team, including Project officer, Project assistant, Mobile Team, Lawyer.

Overall responsibility: The PM will provide overall management and oversight for this project and assume responsibility for meeting all project objectives and producing deliverables within the project cycle of 2 years. The PM will be responsible for: leading, focusing and motivating project staff; building up capacities of local partners; and for overall budget management.

Background: Mission East, founded in Denmark in 1991, is an international humanitarian organisation, working in Eastern Europe and Asia. The organisation’s activities in Afghanistan presently focus on rural community development through water and sanitation and hygiene, livelihoods recovery and development, and capacity-building of local civil society.

Mission East has been engaged in relief and development activities in Tajikistan since 1997. In 2008 Mission East began working in the area of disability. Mission East’s ‘Family and Child Support Services’ model brings rehabilitative care and support services to families with children with disabilities who would otherwise have no access to appropriate services. Since 2007, Mission East has implemented projects aimed at promoting understanding and improved exercise of the rights of women in Tajikistan.

Currently, Mission East is expanding its approaches to gender and disability programming to the remote and isolated Zerafshan Valley. The project will also introduce a new inclusive education pilot.

More information on Mission East and its work in Tajikistan can be found at: www.miseast.org.

Key tasks and responsibilities: Project Quality Assurance: • Ensure that planned outcomes are achieved for disability rights and services as well as women’s rights and capacity building of women’s organisations. • Ensure that the project is implemented in a consultative, participative and gender-sensitive way. • Take part in regular project monitoring and assessment
• Ensure quality assurance via benchmarking and monitoring activities in collaboration with the M & E teams.

Project Management and Coordination: • Development and regular review of systematic work plans in consultation with project teams. • Ensure appropriate human resources are in place, and manage project staff. • Project budget management, including expenditure forecasts. • Coordination of technical inputs • Build and/or strengthen the capacity of national staff in project management, Mission East procedures and guidelines, relevant donor standards, best-practices and codes of conduct. • Oversee capacity building of local partners • Work in close collaboration with Mission East’s other teams to ensure that the intervention is appropriate and compatible with other measures designed to assist beneficiaries. • Ensure designated staff abides by the Mission East Security and Safety Guidelines. • Implement a monitoring system to ensure precise information on project activity. • Coordinate with district- and provincial-level government officials and I/NGOs at sectoral and general coordination meetings, and with other NGO actors in the field.

Management of Field Offices: Support to the operation of Penjikent office (admin, finance, logistics) as undertaken by appropriate national staff - including matters such as vehicle allocation, resource distribution, staff overtime and other administrative tasks.

Reporting: • Facilitate and support baseline, mid-term, and end line surveys as planned. • Write progress reports as required and in keeping with internal/donor requirements. • Assist in the evaluation of projects.

Selection Criteria: Qualifications Required: • Education should be of degree level or higher, preferably in social sciences or development.
• Skills and Experience Required: • Solid theoretical and practical background related to the management of international development projects, with specific experience in the field of disability and/or gender rights. • Experience in rural development activities is an advantage • Previous experience working in Former Soviet countries an advantage. Necessary Skills and Competencies: • Excellent interpersonal skills; ability to self-motivate, proactive and comfortable with taking initiative. • Excellent report writing skills. • Ability to manage, motivate, train and develop staff. • Flexibility and willingness to live in an isolated environment • Excellence in written and spoken English. • Proficiency in Excel and Word. • Fluency in Tajik/ Russian would be a significant advantage • Sympathy to Mission East organisational values.

How to apply:

Application procedure You can submit an application for this position by filling in an application form. The form can be accessed by connecting to www.missioneast.org/apply . Please ensure that all sections are fully answered as candidates will be initially screened using data submitted on the online form. Interviews for this position will be conducted on a rolling basis. Final closing date for this position is 22/01/2012