Job Description

The Senior Technical Advisor-Education (STA-E) will provide technical guidance to Country Offices, CARE Member Partners (CMPs), and technical units across the Program, Strategy, and Impact (PSI) team, providing input into the design of new initiatives and to the revision of existing approaches, fostering innovation and strengthening overall technical quality. They will ensure that the technical assistance process places a strong emphasis on capacity enhancement of and mutual co-learning with local teams. In particular, the STA-E will support local teams to engage with governments and private partners to strengthen education systems. They will help integrate new/proven innovative approaches to education, scale them, and identify synergies with existing programs to avoid duplication and maximize impact.

In particular, this STA-E will serve as the Project Director (roughly 70% of their time) and provide overall leadership, direction, and management to successfully guide the Re-IMAGINE Project in Niger. RE-IMAGINE aims to test a holistic intervention package that can effectively delay first births among unmarried adolescent girls in Zinder Region. To do so, RE-IMAGINE is conducting a multi-arm randomized controlled trial (RCT).

Specific responsibilities for RE-IMAGINE's Project Director include: (a) Providing strategic guidance for all project operations, including setting up and overseeing work plans/contracts with country office teams and partners; (b) Ensuring quality and timely implementation of interventions according to the project’s work plan; (c) Providing technical leadership to guide the project and facilitate cross-learning with internal and external partners; (d) Maintaining a strong and effective relationship with the donor; (e) Overseeing evaluation design and guiding implementation to align with the requirements for an RCT; and (f) Guiding the development of knowledge products, including documentation and dissemination of results through reports, peer reviewed journals, conferences, etc.

In addition, the STA-E will support other projects globally as requested in education and skills. They will also contribute to resource mobilization/program development and engage with donors to generate additional funding for education/girls' empowerment programs. The STA-E will serve as the primary writer for proposals to bilateral/multilateral donors, contracting agencies, and private foundations. They will help mentor other technical advisors and staff across the organization to ensure program quality and alignment with donor requirements. The STA-E must possess excellent interpersonal, communication, and analytical skills, have project management experience, and be an experienced team leader.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Project Leadership, Oversight, and Direction Setting

On the RE-IMAGINE Project, the STA-Education is expected to:

• Oversee the work of a Core Program Management Team (PMT), consisting of CARE Niger's technical advisors and RE-IMAGINE's Program Manager, technical and MEL advisors from the Education & Skills (E&S) team, and technical and MEL advisors from the Global Health (GH) team.
• Provide overall leadership for the project’s implementation, alongside counterparts in Niger and relevant staff from the E&S and GH teams, university research partners, and the donor.
• Ensure project deliverables and expenditures are on track (aligned with the Gantt chart, budget, work plan, and results framework) and that timely mitigation actions are taken and communicated to the donor as needed.
• Ensure donor’s feedback to the various versions of the budget is incorporated, and revised versions are resubmitted on time, in collaboration with the PMT members.
• Monitor budget implications on changes in timelines, project design, and research design, and ensure the donor is informed in a timely manner.

• Lead discussions on any needed budget adjustments and ensure they are communicated to the donor in a way that balances donor priorities with the country office's operating realities.

Collaboration, Representation, and Relationship Management

On the RE-IMAGINE Project, the STA-Education is expected to:

• Lead weekly calls with the PMT members and the CARE Niger team.
• Co-lead monthly meetings with the donor and project partners and ensure actions are communicated and followed up on.
• Co-lead regular calls with CGE Nigeria to ensure regular communication and engagement to inform ongoing curriculum adaptations, as well as exchange visits between the RI-MAGINE Niger team and CGE Nigeria to inform curriculum adaptations, implementation fidelity, and ways of working.
• Ensure CGE’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is reviewed regularly and updated as necessary based on new agreements.
• Represent the technical work and specific grant(s) within internal and external forums that focus on knowledge management, global best practices, and research priorities.

Technical Assistance

The STA-Education is expected to support the RE-IMAGINE Project and other projects as demanded, with technical assistance including:

• Provide technical assistance and mentoring to the CO/project staff on best practices related to key programmatic approaches.
• Ensure implementation design, work plans, technical reports, and budgets align with donor technical requirements. This should also include the review, quality assurance checks, and signing off on all education-related technical deliverables developed and used under RE-IMAGINE.
• Collaborate with the Project Manager to develop/update the work plan for all the technical deliverables for all technical approaches (girls’ collectives’ curriculum and facilitator’s guidelines, Social Analysis and Action (SAA) approach adaptation for the Niger context; FADA/men’s/boys’ engagement; religious leaders’ training guidelines).
• Collaborate with the Project Manager and the Livelihoods Advisor on the consultancy process for completing the market analysis and the development of various training pathways for the girls transitioning from the girls’ collectives.
• Ensure that high-quality reports and communication materials are submitted to the donor, in partnership with the PMT members and the Relationship Manager, with monitoring and evaluation findings well integrated into all donor reporting.

Resource Mobilization

The STA-Education:

• Leads resource mobilization and new business development through the development of concept notes, program design, and/or proposals on opportunities that arise aligned with CARE’s Global Strategy, GH, and E&S priorities, and taking evidence-based key components to scale. This may include technical writing and providing inputs to budget designs to ensure alignment with technical approaches/program design.
• Engage with the donor around existing and potential future funding opportunities. This may be during the scoping stage, live bids, and/or donor engagement for continuation of existing funding.

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