Program Director

TITLE: Program Director

TEAM/PROGRAMME: Zambia

Deputize Country Director and Senior Management Team

LOCATION: Lusaka with frequent travel to the field

CONTRACT TYPE & LENGTH: National, 2 years renewable

Safeguarding:

Save the Children does not tolerate any form of exploitation, abuse, or harassment against any person. It is the responsibility of all employees and representatives to protect all people who come in contact with our organization. Save the Children commits to applying the same standards to all its employees and subject them to the same processes regardless of their position, influence, or reputation within or outside of the organization.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Save the Children International’s Diversity Policy, aims to promote equal opportunity in employment and to ban any kind of discrimination based on sex, age, social class, disability, HIV status, religion, race and ethnicity.

ROLE PURPOSE:

As a member of the Senior Management Team (SMT), the Program Director shares in the overall responsibility for the direction and coordination of the Country Office. S/he is responsible for driving cross-functional engagement in the development and delivery of Country Strategic Plan (CSP), Strategy Plan (CSP), taking leadership in developing annual program plans and reporting on results and impact outcomes. Programmatically, s/he is responsible for ensuring development and delivery of high quality, evidence-based, locally driven, and innovative programs for children, in all contexts, that contribute to Save the Children’s global Breakthroughs: Learn, Survive, Be Protected.

As a senior leader in the Country Office s/he plays a representation role with the government, donors, partners, peer agencies, SC Members, and others. S/he supports strategic positioning with donors and partners and leads project design to ensuring that the Country Office strategy is delivered in line with child rights programming principles.

In most cases, the role holder will deputize the Country Director.

SCOPE OF ROLE:

Reports to: Country Director

Staff reporting to this post: 7 direct reports and 30+ indirect staff.

Budget Responsibilities: approx. USD7m/year

Role Dimensions:

The Program Director a member of the Senior Management staff Program Director must demonstrate the qualities of agile leadership. S/he plays a key role in defining and pursuing the strategic direction for Save the Children’s programs in Zambia, ensuring programme delivery, coherence, safety, and impact of our programs for children in all contexts. This is a challenging role requiring an individual who can work with complexity and multiple tasks at one time. It is essential that the Program Director builds and maintains strong relationships across functions within the Country Office, including with team members from Operations, Awards Management, Humanitarian, Advocacy and Finance, and s/he should lead by example in demonstrating this cross-functional collaboration. This role demands dedication to demonstrating outcomes for children, experience in integrated child rights programming and a highly motivated leader. S/he has shall be responsible for providing leadership and guidance to program teams to demonstrate thematic excellence in contributing to Save the Children’s three Breakthroughs for children: no child dies from preventable causes before their fifth birthday; all children learn from a quality basic education; and violence against children is no longer tolerated.

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

Leadership and Staff Management:

• Drive a child rights mandate internally and externally to position Save the Children as the to go-to child rights organization in Zambia.
  
• Provide leadership and support effective program management including risk identification and mitigation.
  
• Provide agile and effective leadership which attracts, develops, and retains talented staff to Save the Children.
  
• With excellence lead and motivate staff to obtain the highest levels of commitment and performance.
  
• Promote an organisational culture of program cycle management, learning and continuous improvement within the Zambia Country Office programs.
  
• Ensure that programme principles and SCI quality standards are upheld, and a robust monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) system is in place, and that reliable data is used for decision-making.
  
• Lead capacity building, mentoring and coaching of technical specialists and program managers.
  
• Provide co-leadership of the Country Office Risk Management agenda, ensuring proactive identification, mitigation, and escalation of programmatic, operational, safeguarding, and partnership risks in collaboration with the Country Director and Senior Leadership Team.
  
  Strategy, Planning and Reporting
  
• Lead the development/updating of the Child Rights Situation Analysis, including analysis of country context taking into account child rights principles, ensuring participation and buy-in from all relevant staff, partners, and other stakeholders, as necessary.
  
• Drive forward the Country Strategic Plan (CSP) in line with the global strategy, Ambition 2030, with child rights at the core of all programming and advocacy work.
  
• Provide leadership on development of the Country Annual Plan, monitoring of progress against the plan, and completion of accurate, on-time Country Annual Report of outcomes and impact for children, aligned with the Global Results Framework.
  
• Facilitate the development and pursuit of thematic and cross-cutting strategic priorities in line with the CSP, including gender equality, to guide current and future SC programming strategies.
  
• Support ownership and commitment to the Country Strategic Plan (CSP) by all staff and departments through clear communication, regular feedback on progress and engagement of all functions.
  
• Participate in global discussions and working groups to represent the Country Office, and the voice of children, in strategy design and policy development.
  
  Program Design & Development:
  
• Lead new business development initiatives including donor representation, new donor and partner engagements including new consortia formation for strong bids
  
• Play a leading role in development of concept note and designing proposals.
  
• Engage with technical specialists and program managers as needed to ensure high quality, evidence-based designs that draw on needs assessments, learning from past programs and child safeguarding principles.
  
• S/he collaborates with the partnership and program development team New Business Development team and ensures the development of high-quality design for funding proposals. Ensuring the project budget will enable the project to be delivered as designed.
  
• Oversee development of quality project documentation (detailed implementation plans, phased budgets, MEAL plans, and awards risk assessments etc.).
  
  Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, Learning (MEAL), and Knowledge management
  
• Oversee a monitoring function that provides timely and accurate project results by embedding MEAL across program implementation.
  
• Lead programme quality improvements by monitoring and improving programme KPI performance, including resourcing and conducting high-quality evaluations to demonstrate outcomes and impact.
  
• Establish and maintain accountability mechanisms across all projects, ensuring timely resolution of identified issues and escalation of critical concerns to senior management.
  
• Ensure the research and evaluation function of the Country Office contribute, generate evidence for development and improvement of SCIs Common Approaches, and influence internal and external policy
  
• Establish effective program learning and knowledge management systems to support adaptive programming and innovation that improves outcomes for children.
  
• Ensure that programme principles and SCI quality standards are upheld, and a robust monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) system is in place, and that reliable data is used for decision-making.
  
  Program Partnerships:
  
• Establish and nurture constructive strategic partnerships with relevant government, donor, civil society, academic and private sector stakeholders through effective liaison and collaboration.
  
• Ensuring that SCI is accountable for ensuring potential partners are identified through strategic, country-wide mapping by building a robust, equitable, diverse, and high-quality partnerships for both development and humanitarian , that co-create sustainable solutions to achieve the Country Office strategic goals and protect the rights of children, in line with the partnership principles and Local to Global for Impact Ambition.
  
• Identify, assess, and build capacity of the partners involved in the delivery of SCI programs with a view to increasing reach, sustainability, and local ownership, and to ensuring consistent quality and cost-effective implementation.
  
• Be the champion for driving localization agenda for CO, working with and through various layers, levels, and types of local and national partners.
  
  Program Delivery & Technical Excellence:
  
• Responsible for effective delivery and quality assurance of all program activities and outputs in Zambia, including monitoring of results and impact.
  
• Oversee delegated management of award-funded project budgets, including multi-sector and multi-location awards.
  
• Regularly review financial projections against actuals, identify deviations and remediation measures, and ensure sub-budget holders and field offices adhere to financial management systems, processes, and controls.
  
• Ensure that program staff are well-oriented on program and project goals, objectives, expected results and internal policies and standards and donor requirements.
  
• Ensure coordination and synergy between thematic sectors, and between thematic and non-thematic teams to ensure learning and efficient use of resources.
  
• Ensure humanitarian preparedness of the Zambia Country Office and ability to respond effectively to emergencies.
  
  Awards (Grants) Management:
  
• Provide leadership and oversight of the award management team, to ensure that end-to-end business development and award management effectively plans, secures, and manages resources for the Zambia Country Office.
  
• Ensure that the award management team effectively supports program delivery and quality in compliance with donor and internal standards, systems, and policies, including providing high quality reports to donors.
  
  Supply Chain:
  
• Ensure goods and services procured are cost effective and of quality through consistent implementation of relevant procurement processes.
  
• Ensure compliance with Save the Children’s internal policies, SOPs, and the ProSave procurement platform, including proper sourcing, active framework agreements, and effective contract management – particularly for construction and consultancy services.
  
• Ensure that the supply chain function effectively supports program delivery in compliance with donor and internal standards, systems, and policies.
  
• Ensure appropriate emergency supply chain preparedness arrangements enable rapid scale up
  
  BEHAVIOURS (Values in Practice)
  
  Accountability:
  
• Holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values.
  
• Holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities - giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved
  
  Ambition:
  
• Sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and their team, takes responsibility for their own personal development and encourages their team to do the same.
  
• Widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages, and motivates others.
  
• Future orientated, thinks strategically and on a global scale.
  
  Collaboration:
  
• Builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, Members, and external partners and supporters.
  
• Values diversity sees it as a source of competitive strength.
  
• Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to.
  
  Creativity:
  
• Develops and encourages new and innovative solutions.
  
• willing to take disciplined risks.
  
  Integrity:
  
• Honest, encourages openness and transparency; demonstrates highest levels of integrity
  
  QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS
  
  Essential
  
• Master's Degree in relevant social science, human rights, development studies, NGO management, equivalent fields, or experience
  
• 10-15 years progressively senior experience of program management, preferably including experience in more than one of the Save the Children’s priority sectors: education, protection, child rights, health & nutrition, and/or emergency management.
  
• Experience or understanding of fundraising (unrestricted funds) or business development (programme/restricted funding), particularly strong program development, and project management skills.
  
• Demonstrated knowledge, expertise and or commitment to Child Rights.
  
• Demonstrated ability to make collaborative contribution to a senior leadership team.
  
• Experience working with high level government agencies and academic institutions on issues related to children focused development.
  
• Excellent leadership and people management skills and ability to lead, motivate and develop staff.
  
• Strong conceptual thinking and ability to lead strategic program design processes.
  
• Credibility to advocate, influence and represent Save the Children at all levels.
  
• Experience in securing and managing grants from major institutional donors (e.g. EU, UNICEF, GPE, ECHO, FCDO).
  
• Ability to represent Save the Children and create excellent working relationships with external stakeholders (government, donors, partners, and communities).
  
• Skills such as training, capacity building, coaching, mentoring, problem-solving, and understanding of project cycle management and coordination.
  
• High level of self-awareness and commitment to growth and self-development. Flexibility and adaptability, especially in emergency situations.
  
• Fluency in written and spoken English.
  
  Desirable
  
• Recognized program/project management qualification (e.g. PMP, PRINCE2, PMDPro/PgMDPro)
  
  Additional job responsibilities
  
• The duties and responsibilities as set out above are not exhaustive and the role holder may be required to carry out additional duties within reasonableness of their level of skills and experience
  
  Equal Opportunities
  
• The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI Equal Opportunities and Diversity policies and procedures
  
  Child Safeguarding:
  
• We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse
  
  Health and Safety
  
• The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with SCI Health and Safety policies and procedures.
  
  APPLICATIONINSTRUCTIONS:
  
  
  
  QUALIFIED APPLICANTS SHOULD ONLY ATTACH A COVER LETTER AND AN UPDATED CV.
  
  
  
  The closing date for receipt of applications is Tuesday 9th December 2025. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
  
  
  
  Save the Children reserves the right to re advertise if suitable applicants are not found.
  
  
  
  Save the Children is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer that does not engage in any practices which discriminate against any person employed or seeking employment based on race, colour, religion, gender, national or ethnic origin, age, marital status and we will never ask that you pay for anything as part of the selection process or thereafter