Position Title: Program Manager- Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE)
No of Position: 1
Reporting Line: Program Lead – WEE
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 Manager based at Delhi is expected to support the Program Lead-WEE in developing project strategies, action plans, evaluation tools, budgeting and handhold the team based at different SRLMs in program implementation. S/he will be responsible for day-to-day coordination across different verticals of PCI for ensuring smooth implementation of the project. S/he will be responsible for supporting the program lead in nationwide landscaping for identifying goods and services that SRLMs promoted WLEs are efficiently providing to various buyers (ministries, departments, autonomous organizations of government, PSUs etc.). S/he will coordinate with the NRLM staff and other professionals of different SRLMs, as per the requirement, under the close supervision of Program Lead-WEE to effectively interact and gather information/input from different programs, and, develop reports for different stakeholders. S/he is expected to support the team in developing instructional playbooks on PP and undertake risk assessments of existing WLEs for generating evidence of best practice. S/he will also support the Program Lead-WEE in providing regular reports to different stakeholders as and when required.
KEY ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES:
a. Support in Project Operations & Management
• Support the project in Nationwide landscaping of Women-led enterprises on models of public
• procurement.
• Support Program lead in finalization of methodology and tools of enquiry for landscaping and
• secondary research.
• Complete the preparatory activities including sampling and contacting the respondents for interviews
• Conduct landscaping and desk review jointly with the external consultant and interns as required.
• Transcribe all interviews and ensure proper data protection as required
• Collect and verify secondary data for desk review
• Examine existing WLE contracts and practices to map the opportunities, learnings & risks.
• Write, edit, and proof-read assigned portions of the reports before final submission
• Support the selection of external experts, by drafting the scope of work of all such experts to be hired
b. Supporting Project team positioned at different SRLMs
• Support program managers in planning & executing project activities at different SRLMs.
• Support the program managers submit the progress reports to Program Lead and attend meetings and discussions with the donor representatives at different states as & when required.
• Be updated with all project activities at different states by having a regular connect with them, to serve as a stopgap, if required.
• Identify any shortcomings, and report to program lead to ensure uninterrupted project implementation.
• Support in project monitoring, timely reporting of the projects of different geographies.
• Assist the project teams in efficient budgeting of the project expenditures.
• Support in preparation of any strategic documents pertaining to any project geography as requested by donor, client or any other stakeholder.
c. Support in reporting & documentation
• Lead and support in developing PP documents and dissemination strategy along with Program Lead-WEE, for ensuring strategic positioning of the project at national and global level.
• Contribute to designing the overall technical support in WEE projects with the union and state governments and other organizations
• Support in finalising any captured learnings, project activities and best practices for dissemination at different online & offline platforms for upkeeping projects visibility.
• Work closely with PCI team members, external to the WEE project, to produce knowledge and learning products for knowledge sharing, aiming to communicate with government, donor, partners, development agencies and civil society
• Preparing meeting notes, draft articles, speeches, briefings, presentations, reports, documents and collated information as and when required.
d. Support in Stakeholder and Partnership Management
• Support Program lead in maintain excellent relationships and 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.
• Support program lead in partnerships management by required report & meeting preparations.
• Engage in liaisoning with project stakeholders at different project locations.
e. Donor management and compliance
• Submit the progress reports to and attend briefing meetings and discussions with the donor representatives
• Support in quality and timely completion of final deliverables
• Assist the donor-facing presentation and high-level dissemination of all final products
f. Other responsibilities
• 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 7 years of experience in working with government and international donors and expertise in one or more of the following domains:
o rural livelihoods,
o small and micro enterprise promotion,
o financial inclusion,
o skilling and
o 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.
Skills and Attributes:
• Excellent knowledge & skills to work on MS office.
• Knowledge and experience with gender approaches
• Knowledge of principles of negotiation, research & market analysis techniques
• Good analytical and problem-solving skills
• Demonstrated ability to provide leadership in a highly motivated team
• Excellent oral and written English skills
• 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 Manager – 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