Job opening: Regional Consultant.

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REGIONAL CONSULTANT

Position Location: KATHMANDU, NEPAL

Added to system: 4/23/09 4:24 PM

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Description

CARE Bangladesh, CARE India, and CARE Nepal have been successfully awarded a £ 5

million grant from the Big Lottery Fund. The grant is for a regional programme

focusing on HIV prevention for mobile populations, with a particular focus on

women. The aim of the project is to reduce the incidence of HIV & AIDS infection

in mobile populations as well as source communities through a source, transit,

destination continuum across the 3 countries.

The actual project start-date, which is defined as when most (preferably all) of

the project staff will commence in post, will be Monday 3rd August 2009. The

time up until that date will be referred to as the lead-in phase of the project.

The lead-in phase will require certain key tasks to be undertaken in preparation

for the start-up phase.

The lead-in phase was to have been led by the CIUK HIV & AIDS Advisor. However,

since this post is currently vacant, it is necessary to identify and hire a

consultant with sound project management and financial budgeting skills to lead

this process until the end of August.

Purpose of the Consultancy

The consultant will be responsible for liaising very closely with project

development teams in Bangladesh, India & Nepal, with key staff at the Asia

Regional Management Unit (ARMU) and CARE UK to finalise certain key tasks.

Whereas, Rahman, (Senior Trusts Executive, CARE UK) will be responsible

for the overall co-ordination of the lead-in phase.

Expected Consultant Outputs and Tentative Timeline

The following outputs would be the responsibility of the proposal coordinating

consultant:

Key Outputs: The consultant is expected to complete all the tasks and generate

corresponding outputs, as outlined below, along with the hand-over notes.

Toward these ends, the consultant will undertake the following tasks:

Key tasks : Coordinate with respective COs and ARMU to, and ensure there is a

common understanding of the project and a set of documents with all COs and at

ARMU

1. Recruitment

-Lead and support recruitment process for Sr. Management Positions[1] (including

reviewing and short listing candidates, set-up interview panels, organise

interview schedules, negotiate terms of employments, etc), in coordination with

respective HR department colleagues

2. Work-plans

-Develop detailed workplans for lead-in & start-up phase at CO levels and at the

Regional level

-Support Sr. Management Team in the development of Yr 1 plan of the project

3. Budgets

-In addition to CO and ARMU programme point people, liaise very closely with CO

finance teams, ARMU Finance Controller, to review the project budget – for

content, as well as revisions in light of recent currency fluctuations, and to

adjust to the format to match BLF requirements.

4. Work-group and management modalities

-Coordinate a project working group (to include CIUK Senior Trusts Executive, CO

representatives, ARMU representative, CIUK Asia Regional Manager,) to steer and

guide lead-in and start-up phase, in line with country context and emerging

needs)

-Clarify and develop common understanding on roles and responsibilities of each

CO, ODI, ARMU, CARE UK actors, that ensures right mix of decentralized decision

making and implementation as well as centralized planning and cohesiveness of

the programme.

5. Start-up workshop and related activities

-Develop ToRs for external facilitator and M & E specialist for start-up workshops

-Develop agenda & content for start-up workshops

-Support facilitation of key sessions at the start-up workshop

-Gather and write-up all main actions & issues from start-up workshop

6. External communications (Govt. and partnership with local NGOs)

-Support country offices to seek authorization, permissions from respective

Govt. departments for the implementation of the project

-Identify key issues for developing MoUs with relevant Govt. agencies

-Support the development of partnership agreements with the local NGOs,

identifying key issues that the project needs to pay attention to in the

partnership.

-Identify key issues that may need to be discussed across countries with Govt

and related agencies

-Identify relevant data sources in country for best practices, lessons learnt

etc.

7. Procurement

-Support COs to develop a plan for procurement, and facilitate critical

procurements for lead-in phase.

Proposed Activities

The above will be undertaken through visits to COs, discussions via telephone

calls and emails, and a significant amount of time in writing and editing.

Visit each CO to establish rapport and gain in-depth understanding of portfolio

and work on related issues.

Liaise very closely with CIUK Senior Trusts Executive to ensure timeline of

activities being met and work-plan being adhered to (via weekly conf-calls)

Liaise closely with Overseas Development Institute (in conjunction with CIUK

Senior Trusts Executive) to establish research component activities of project.

No. of Days: 90 days, to be scheduled between the dates of 15th April – 31st

August 2009.

Work-conditions: The consultant could be based in any of the CARE offices in the

region (ideally from Kathmandu where project secretariat will be based), and can

partly be working virtually/ from home.

http://www.care.org/careers/apply.asp