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Program Lead- Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE)

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Program Lead- Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE)

Position Title: Program Lead- Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE)

Number of position: 1

Reporting Line: Director, Strategic Partnerships & Systems

Location: New Delhi

Duration: 2 years

Project Background: 

In India, government procurement constitutes above 20 percent of the GDP ~ $500 billion. In fact, India is among the large emerging economies where procurement by the government accounts for over 20% of the GDP. Since 2018, the provisions under Govt. of India mandate public buyers to procure at least 25 per cent of their annual procurement of goods from Micro & Small Enterprises (MSEs). With a view to support MSEs, several benefits have been provided, e.g., issuance of tender document for free, exemption from Earnest Money Deposit requirements and reservation of 358 items for exclusive procurement from MSEs. There has been a gradual increase in the share of government procurement made from MSEs in the past four years barring FY 2021.

However, in the public procurement of goods and services in India, Women’s Self-Help Groups and their federations have largely remained excluded and have not had the opportunity to create wealth for the rural poor through entrepreneurship. One of the reasons for this is a scarcity of evidence to demonstrate that viable models managed by community-based institutions exist and are successful in catering to the requirements of the State adequately and efficiently at scale.

PCI India has recently been engaged by a leading international philanthropic foundation to address this evidence gap and provide technical assistance (TA) to several State Rural Livelihoods Missions (SRLMs) to enable them to plan, create and manage more women-led businesses in public procurement space, thereby generating more jobs and income for women. The project is called ‘Leveraging Public Procurement for Women’s Economic Empowerment’.

Job Summary:

The Program Lead shall head a team of Program Managers (3), Program Officers (2) posted in various cities along with an MIS Executive (1). The lead along with their team, shall be responsible for the following:

  1. Through a nationwide landscaping, identify goods and services that SRLM-promoted WLEs are efficiently providing to various buyers (ministries, departments, autonomous organizations of government, PSUs etc.) OR can do with support from SRLM;
  2. Generate evidence of best practices adopted by such WLEs and the portability of such practices to other states and product categories;
  3. Develop and scale up of at least one enterprise model in states where new opportunities are being explored;
  4. Work with select SRLMs and various departments to create specific instructional playbooks on PP, laying down systems and processes for WLEs and SRLMs to follow, so that their outputs satisfy the quality and cost standards of government and create long-term business opportunities for WLEs;
  5. Provide TA to SRLMs to accomplish various activities, e.g. negotiating with different ministries to procure items from WLEs; development of standard MOUs and setting up review systems for SRLMs and ministries to track the increase in efficiency in contracting, quality of products and services supplied, payment processes, etc. of WLEs; identifying and managing specialist partners that would support CLFs/ WLEs to build the required business and technical skills, thus leading to accelerated business improvement;
  6. Achieve replication and scale-up in a certain number of states; and
  7. Refine and disseminate a learning document based on the results of the TA.

Key Roles & Responsibilities

a. Strategic Project Management

  1. Lead the finalization of methodology and tools of enquiry for landscaping and secondary research
  2. Lead the design and structuring of all major knowledge products (including research reports, situation analyses, instructional playbooks, Lessons Learnt Documents, workshop reports, etc.)
  3. Lead the decision-making related to short-listing of locations and enterprise models for deeper study, exposure visits required for representatives of women’s groups, etc.
  4. Discuss and determine the key indicators of progress and impact of the project, data to be captured through the MIS and analyses to be carried out
  5. Lead the selection of and negotiations with external experts and define the scope of work of all such experts to be hired
  6. Identify best practices and lessons learned to guide programme improvement and strategy planning
  7. Report any major or unforeseen roadblocks to senior management of PCI India to ensure that the project stays on course
  8. Work closely with program support team to ensure judicious use of project resources in compliance with organizational policies
  9. Manage grants and contracts of any partner or collaborating organizations hired by the technical team
  10. Support in managing and optimizing project operational procedures, partnership management, contract management in sync with evolving program strategies in close coordination with COPs.
  11. Development of program assessment protocol for evaluation and improvement of project outcomes.
  12. Development of new proposal and business plans for expansion of WEE program across different states.

b. Stakeholder and Partnership Management

  1. Anchor strategic positioning of the WEE project nationwide & globally.
  2. Maintain excellent relationship and meaningful association primarily through and facilitated by the governmental and non-governmental organizations and ensuring that the technical support provided by WEE team is valued by them and potential of WEE team is fully exploited in improving their work
  3. Maintain and manage the channels of communication with the leadership teams of PCI
  4. Ensure excellent communication and good working relationship with Government stakeholder’s other key players at the state level including other NGOs and civil society organizations. Also, on behalf of PCI and WEE team, contribute in bringing in community perspective in the Government policies linked with women development, livelihood enhancement and support in operationalizing the same; and, actively engage and liaison with MWCD, ICDS and other development partners to promote and implement evidence based interventions
  5. Support building new technical partnerships with different national and international technical organizations and academia to improve overall technical capacity of PCI.

c. Donor management and compliance

  1. Submit the progress reports to and attend briefing meetings and discussions with the donor representatives
  2. Assume accountability for the quality and timely completion of final deliverables
  3. Lead the donor-facing presentation and high-level dissemination of all final products
  4. Negotiate and interact with donors, identify and analyse trends, opportunities and threats to fundraising

d. People Leadership & management

  1. To support the leadership & project teams of PCI across states to build systems, develop strategies and action plans for leveraging public procurement for Women’s economic empowerment.
  2. To appraise performance and achievement of objectives of all members of their team in a regular frequency, advisably more frequent than annually.
  3. To ensure high motivation level among team members and promoting their urge to constantly innovate new strategies and approaches for WEE with increasing efficiency and effectiveness.
  4. Plan, prioritize and monitor the activities of the TA team on a regular basis

e. Overall Thought Leadership

  1. Be a part of the leadership team with a vision of managing and scaling Women’s economic empowerment projects
  2. Contribute to designing the overall technical support in WEE projects with the union and state governments and other organizations

f. Other responsibilities

  1. To carry out any other relevant duties as required.

 Experience & Qualification:

Qualifications: 

  • Post-graduate degree/ diploma in business management (preferably agri-business management, marketing, financial management or rural management) or entrepreneurship development

Experience

  1. The ideal candidate should have minimum 15years of experience in working with government and international donors and expertise in one or more of the following domains:
    • rural livelihoods,
    • small and micro enterprise promotion,
    • financial inclusion,
    • skilling and
    • employment generation.
  2. The candidate should preferably have a deep experience of working as part of the core team of major Technical Support projects for the government, with a special focus on managing relations with donors and bureaucracy, writing project reports, budgeting and cost management.
  • Minimum 8 -10 years working experience in accounts and finance function;
  • Excellent knowledge of FCRA, Income tax and other applicable laws;
  • Working knowledge of legal requirements as per Indian law;
  • Excellent analytical, verbal and written communications skills;
  • Strong sense of professional commitment and maturity.
  • Attention to details and ability to multi-task.
  • Ability to work independently and handling a team

Skills and Attributes:

  1. Knowledge of sourcing and procurement techniques as well as a dexterity in “reading” the market
  2. Knowledge and experience with gender approaches and tools
  3. Strong leadership capabilities & people management skills
  4. Good analytical and problem-solving skills
  5. Excellent oral and written English skills
  6. Knowledge of local languages is a plus
  7. Sophisticated digital literacy including word processing, database systems, and PowerPoint. Strong command of excel and budget management is a plus.

Application Process

Interested candidates can apply for the position of Program Lead, Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) by 28th September,2022.

PCI India is an equal opportunity provider and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability and/or marital status

Female candidates are encouraged to apply

 

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