Programme Manager

Supporting ‘green’ transformation in Armenia through facilitating strategic investments in energy efficiency and renewables is one of the priorities of the UNDP programme in Armenia in line with the Country Programme Document 2021-2025. In this regard, UNDP implements a dedicated portfolio of projects - The Climate, Environment, and Resilience (CER) Portfolio - that have a common goal to support the Government of Armenia in development and implementation of the climate and facilitate access to international climate financing mechanisms for mitigation and adaptation, including through establishing climate budgeting frameworks. 

The Climate Promise-2 project has an objective to leverage the stakeholder engagement processes of NDC revision to support all actors be agents of change and deliver the NDC while continuing to advocate for ambition. There is an important challenge to transform the updated NDC targets into tangible actions that lead to long term low emission and climate-resilient development. The Climate Promise 2 project, along with the several UNDP implemented projects is set to contribute to filling this gap and will create a solid base for the development and implementation of set objectives under NDC 2021 and help to formulate the next enhanced NDC. The activities delivered under the project are partly based on the request submitted by the national authorities to the NDC Partnership including the request to review of existing government policies for alignment with NDC target, compiling proposed changes to legislation and other regulations to align them with the NDC; building institutional capacity in responsible agencies and support active involvement of Armenian civil society, private sector and media to promote active and inclusive participation in implementation of the climate agenda, promoting innovation and enhanced climate action by small business and start-ups.

The SIDA funded “Strengthened Community Resilience through Energy Efficiency and Low Emission Development” project objective is to enhance the economic, environmental, and social resilience of Alaverdi consolidated community of Armenia by developing, piloting and scaling a model for energy efficient and low carbon development that can be replicated in other communities of the country. The project will provide foundations for sustainability and replication for a “green recovery”, that in turn will contribute to the reduction of energy poverty reduction through adoption of energy efficiency and renewable energy actions on the level of community.  Green investments have the potential to accrue social and environmental dividends while helping to generate financial benefits and contributing to economic recovery.
 

• Prepares all required work planning and reporting in terms of their technical content including AWP, Annual Project Progress Reports, Quarterly progress updates/reports, Terminal Project reports etc.,
• Provides technical support to the UNDP CO in communication with NDC Partnership Support Unit and Climate Promise Global team, donors with provision of technical inputs into various UNDP corporate technical documents related to the climate change;
• Prepares reports for the Project Steering Committee/Project Board meetings;
• Conduct project budget planning, analyses, monitoring of budget disbursements; control financial input delivery and planned outputs of the programme as per project documents and ensure timely submission of financial reports;
• Provide recommendations for specific training needs and other personnel capacity building initiatives. 

Supporting in mobilization of technical expertise for the project successful implementation:

• Draft TORs aligned with the project document outputs and expected results; coordinates TOR development with UNDP CO, UNDP Climate Promise coordinating unit and national partners (as necessary) in terms of expected results; in coordination with UNDP CO secures ownership and participation of key national partners from line ministries in the project’s technical work,
• Ensures oversight over the hiring of knowledgeable national experts and supervise on their work, to implement activities and quality deliverables,
• Supervise the technical national consultants’ teams, provide leadership and guidance, act as a quality assurance for all the technical deliverables,
• Ensure effective team leadership by holding periodical technical team meetings, checking progress towards delivery of technical reports, ensure quality of deliverables; facilitates national partners’ involvement and ownership over the technical knowledge products.
• Identify and analyze programme area related development trends, ongoing processes and initiatives in the country, contribute to the priority identification process for further programme development, contribute and coordinate development of project respective proposals.
• Ensure resource mobilization and partnership building: maintain and animate effective dialogue with partners and among stakeholders. Engage with relevant donors and ensure resource mobilization of the CER portfolio.

Bearing responsibility over technical knowledge management products:

• Leads the mitigation related analyses and guides the team of national experts involved in assessment of the mitigation measures impact,
• Reviews, follow-ups and finalizes all technical reports, best practices, lessons learned, publications, etc. prepared by the project,
• Consolidates and analyzes country challenges, needs, current status of Paris Agreement implementation progress in the context of NDC and LT-LEDS implementation,
• Ensures provision of technical information and briefs, inputs to various UNDP corporate reports, briefs, inputs into policy papers, advocacy and information materials etc.
• Ensures involvement of local administration bodies in NDC implementation.

Knowledge management, events coordination:

• Organizes and facilitates technical events at national level and supports the exchange of information/experiences, aimed at national climate agenda formulation.
• Assist in developing of NDC implementation tracking formats, meetings/events to optimize transparency and exchange of practices,
• Designs targeted sessions for discussions on NDC/MRV/NAP related policy issues,
• Oversees logistics related activities of formulation of the new NDC and other technical events in particular ensures the participation of all the relevant key stakeholders, including local self-administration bodies, NGOs and Private sector in NDC implementation and ensures overall smooth dialogue,
• Contributes to the development of knowledge products (e.g. - guidance, documents, articles, blogs etc.),
• Prepares and delivers presentations, briefing materials, talking points, contributions to corporate materials etc.

Monitoring and evaluation:

• Ensures actions for effective implementation of the M&E plan and information availability on process and generate materials required to measure project progress towards indicators.
• Support and ensure availability of information and all necessary arrangements for the projects’ final evaluation.

The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.

Institutional Arrangement

Under direct supervision and overall guidance of the UNDP CO Climate, Environment and Resilience (CER) Programme Analyst, the incumbent provides effective and efficient management of the project through a range of actions contributing to the design, planning, management and monitoring of project activities. 

The Programme Manager will ensure the provision of development service product (commensurate with the scope of the Climate Change Programme) of the highest quality and standards to national counterparts and clients through applying human rights-based approach (HRBA) and gender equality (GE) approaches. 

• Achieve Results: LEVEL 3: Set and align challenging, achievable objectives for multiple projects, have lasting impact 
• Think Innovatively: LEVEL 3: Proactively mitigate potential risks, develop new ideas to solve complex problems 
• Learn Continuously: LEVEL 3: Create and act on opportunities to expand horizons, diversify experiences
• Adapt with Agility: LEVEL 3: Proactively initiate and champion change, manage multiple competing demands 
• Act with Determination: LEVEL 3: Think beyond immediate task/barriers and take action to achieve greater results
• Engage and Partner: LEVEL 3: Political savvy, navigate complex landscape, champion inter-agency collaboration
• Enable Diversity and Inclusion: LEVEL 3: Appreciate benefits of diverse workforce and champion inclusivity

• Project Management:
  • Ability to plan, organize, prioritize, and control resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific goals.
• Resource Mobilization:                
  • Ability to identify funding sources, match funding needs (programmes/projects/initiatives) with funding opportunities, and establish a plan to meet funding requirements.
• Strategic Thinking:         
  • Ability to develop effective strategies and prioritized plans in line with UNDP’s objectives, based on the systemic analysis of challenges, potential risks and opportunities; linking the vision to reality on the ground, and creating tangible solutions.
  • Ability to leverage learning from a variety of sources to anticipate and respond to future trends; to demonstrate foresight in order to model what future developments and possible ways forward look like for UNDP.
• Relationships management:     
  • Ability to engage with a wide range of public and private partners, build, sustain and/or strengthen working relations, trust and mutual understanding. 
• Monitoring:        
  • Ability to provide managers and stakeholder with regular feedback on the consistency or discrepancy between planned and actual activities and programme performance and results.
• System Thinking:            
  • Ability to use objective problem analysis and judgement to understand how interrelated elements coexist within an overall process or system, and to consider how altering one element can impact on other parts of the system