Project Management Specialist

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. Our mission is to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled. We promote gender equality and empower women, girls and young people to take control of their bodies and their Organisation futures. We work with partners in more than 150 countries to provide access mission and to a wide range of sexual and reproductive health services. Our goal is objectives ending unmet need for family planning, preventable maternal death, and gender-based violence and harmful practices including child marriage and female genital mutilation by 2030. The UNFPA Sub-regional Office for the English and Dutch speaking Caribbean supports 22 countries and territories and has offices in six countries, i.e. Jamaica, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad & Tobago.

UNFPA and UN Women, with funds from Global Affairs Canada, will jointly work in four Eastern Caribbean countries to improve economic and social equality for women and girls, including marginalized or vulnerable women and girls. UNFPA will particularly contribute to enhanced quality and accessibility of sexual and reproductive health and rights frameworks and services.

The project management specialist will oversee the day-to-day management of two main projects funded by the Government of Canada; one in Guyana dubbed Equal Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and the second project in the four Eastern Caribbean project countries - Build Back Equal (BBE) to improve economic and social equality for women and girls, including for marginalised or vulnerable women and girls. The projects contribute to enhanced quality and accessibility of sexual and reproductive health and rights frameworks and services for women and adolescent girls, especially for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.

The Project Management Specialist is located in the UNFPA Guyana office. Under the general guidance and direct supervision of the Sub-Regional Office of the Caribbean, Sexual and Reproductive Health Advisor, the Project Management Specialist will be responsible for providing strategic and technical support for project coordination, day-to-day management, implementation, and reporting. She/he will work closely with the Liaison Officer for Guyana and the Liaison Officer for Barbados and the OECS; staff from the two offices and particularly the project teams.

She/he assists in advocating and mainstreaming the rights-based approach and result-based management to development programming and implementation. The job also involves maintaining constructive relationships with stakeholders; the Government and other UN agencies, donors and the private sector.

How you can make a difference:

UNFPA is the lead UN agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled. UNFPA’s strategic plan (2022-2025), reaffirms the relevance of the current strategic direction of UNFPA and focuses on three transformative results: to end preventable maternal deaths; end unmet need for family planning; and end gender-based violence and harmful practices. These results capture our strategic commitments on accelerating progress towards realizing the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Decade of Action leading up to 2030. Our strategic plan calls upon UN Member States, organizations and individuals to “build forward better”, while addressing the negative impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on women’s and girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, recover lost gains and realize our goals.

In a world where fundamental human rights are at risk, we need principled and ethical staff, who embody these international norms and standards, and who will defend them courageously and with full conviction.

UNFPA is seeking candidates that transform, inspire and deliver high-impact and sustained results; who are transparent, exceptional in how they manage the resources entrusted to them and who commit to deliver excellence in program results.

Sustainable Development Goals:
SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
SDG 5: Gender Equality
SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities
SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals

Programme management
○ Support the development of tools, work plans and mechanisms for effective and efficient monitoring of project implementation
○ Carry out screening of project activities and help to prepare Implementing partners annual workplans and their implementation;
○ Collaborate with relevant colleagues to ensure the achievement of results according to targets and performance standards. Identify bottlenecks and potential problems that may hinder the achievement of results and alert the project technical lead to ensure remedial actions are taken promptly.
○ Contribute substantially to the development/strengthening of national strategic and technical plans when required.
○ Assessment of the technical assistance needs and delivery of technical assistance including result-based management, priority settings, intervention strategy, partner reporting when required, to ensure timely delivery of project targets.
○ Support data collection and analysis of the project implementation challenges, results, and strategies to inform learning and reflective processes during implementation.
○ Produce project analytical inputs for defining Implementing Partners capacities for delivering integrated Sexual and Reproductive Health, Gender-based Violence, in the project areas;
○ Collaborate with the Sexual and Reproductive Health technical advisor on monitoring consultants' work to ensure timelines are adhered to.
○ Facilitate evidence-based decision making on critical issues related to the project implementation through provision and analysis of information, preparation and briefing notes, and through internal information dissemination

Capacity Building and System Efficiency
○ Manage the planning and organizing of training activities and act as resource person and facilitator during such events;
○ Support in the design and delivery of project training modules along with partners, when needed;
○ Design and deliver capacity building inputs for ensuring the implementation of the entire project;
○ Contribute to the documentation of results and impacts of project activities including documentation of impact stories for the project collaboratively with the sexual and reproductive health team and the communication specialist;

Financial management of the project(s)
○ Ensures full compliance of financial activities, financial recording/reporting system for the projects following UNFPA rules, regulations, policies and donor requirements
○ Support implementation of the effective internal control, proper design and functioning of the financial resources management system.
○ Oversees the financial management and performance of the projects, continuous analysis and monitoring of the financial situation, presentation of the financial reporting
○ Draft quarterly monitoring/donor reports for the projects.
○ Routinely monitors financial exception reports for unusual activities, transactions, and investigates anomalies or unusual transactions
○ Contribute when needed, to the procurement procedures in support of the review of projects/fund requests and the monitoring and tracking of allocation and utilization of budgeted resources for project process.
○ Support the development of tools and mechanisms for effective and efficient monitoring of project budget, coordinate compilation of financial data and provide accurate and up-dated financial information to project staff and partners on a continuous basis.
○ Monitors the implementation of financial, procurement, and administrative systems related to the implementation of the project, ensuring adequate training of project staff and partners working in close collaboration with operations and programme management.
○ Reviews and takes corrective action as appropriate on audit findings for implementing partners working of relevant projects

Other
○ Any other responsibility specifically related to the concerned program portfolio as assigned by the supervisor

Furthermore, UN Volunteers are encouraged to integrate the UN Volunteers programme mandate within their assignment and promote voluntary action through engagement with communities in the
course of their work. As such, UN Volunteers should dedicate a part of their working time to some of the following suggested activities:

● Strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the concept of volunteerism by reading relevant UNV and external publications and take active part in UNV activities (for instance in events that
mark International Volunteer Day);
● Be acquainted with and build on traditional and/or local forms of volunteerism in the host country;
● Provide annual and end of assignment self-reports on UN Volunteer actions, results and opportunities.
● Contribute articles/write-ups on field experiences and submit them for UNV publications/websites, newsletters, press releases, etc.;
● Assist with the UNV Buddy Programme for newly-arrived UN Volunteers;
● Promote or advise local groups in the use of online volunteering or encourage relevant local individuals and organizations to use the UNV Online Volunteering service whenever technically
possible.

Results/expected outputs:
As an active UNFPA team member, efficient, timely, responsive, client-friendly and high-quality support rendered to UNFPA and its beneficiaries in the accomplishment of her/his
functions, including:
● Regular updates on the project's progress, including achievements, challenges, and risks.
● Documentation of proposed changes to the project scope, along with their impact and approval status.
● Documentation of key project decisions made and follow up to implementation.
● Capacity building of project staff and implementing Partners.
● Regular update and overview of the project's outcomes, including achievements, challenges, and financial performance.