Project Manager - Food Systems and Economic self reliance job at Danish Refugee Council (DRC)

Background information about the job or company (e.g., role context, company overview)

DRC Uganda is currently looking for a highly qualified and motivated individual to join our dynamic team as Project Manager-Food Systems and Economic Self-Reliance. This role is contingent upon the successful securing of funding for the project. The overall purpose of the role: The Project Manager will provide overall technical leadership, project management and coordination for DRC's Food Systems and Economic Self-Reliance project in West Nile, ensuring high-quality and timely delivery of interventions aimed at enhancing food and nutrition security and economic self-reliance among refugees and host communities through climate-resilient, inclusive and market oriented food systems. He/she will provide technical and managerial oversight across the project's integrated areas of climate-smart and regenerative agriculture, market systems and financial inclusion, natural resource and ecosystem management, nutrition-sensitive livelihoods, gender equality and women's empowerment. He /she will ensure that interventions build on DRC's established resilience progamming, farmer groups, delivery systems and technical approaches, while strengthening productivity, market orientation, sustainable livelihood and linkages with private-sector actors. He/she will be responsible for overall project cycle management, team leadership, MEAL, risk management, donor compliance and reporting. He/she will also lead coordination and represention with government authorities, refugee and host-community structures, private-sector actors, and other relevant stakeholders to ensure effective delivery, complementarily, sustainability and achievement of project results.

Responsibilities or duties

Project Cycle Management and project delivery

• Provide overall leadership and management of the project, ensuring timely and quality implementation in line with the approved project design, results framework, budget, workplan, DRC procedures and donor requirements.
• Lead project start-up, detailed implementation planning, periodic review and close-out processes, ensuring effective application of DRC Project Cycle Management standards.
• Develop and regularly review project implementation plans, spending plans, procurement plans and activity schedules, ensuring appropriate sequencing of interventions with agricultural seasons and project priorities.
• Monitor implementation progress against agreed outputs, outcomes, targets and milestones and lead timely corrective and adaptive management actions where required.
• Oversee project budget performance, including expenditure monitoring, forecasting and follow-up of variances, in close collaboration with Finance and relevant support functions.
• Ensure timely procurement and operational planning for agricultural inputs, equipment, services and other requirements and proactively address implementation bottlenecks.
• Maintain oversight of project risks, assumptions and contextual changes and ensure appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures are implemented.
• Ensure timely preparation and submission of high-quality internal and donor reports and other required project documentation.
• Ensure project implementation complies with DRC policies and procedures, donor requirements, safeguarding standards, accountability commitments and the DRC Code of Conduct.

Technical Leadership and Programme Quality

• Provide overall technical leadership and quality assurance across the project's food systems, food and nutrition security and economic self-reliance interventions.
• Oversee implementation of climate-smart and regenerative agriculture interventions, including block/cluster farming, Resilence Design, provision of agricultural inputs, good agronomic practices, soil and water conservation, post-harvest management and farmer learning.
• Ensure effective implementation of nutition-sensitive approaches, including kitchen gardening/permaculture, diversified household food production and nutition education, particularly for refugee households with limited access to productive land.
• Provide technical oversight to market systems interventions, including value-chain development, aggregation and collective marketing, value addition, market information and linkages between farmer groups, off-takers and other market actors.
• Guide implementation of financial inclusion approaches, including access to financial services and strengthening farmer groups towards association, cooperatives and SACCOs
• Oversee natural resource and ecosystem management interventions, including Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), agroforestry, restoration of degraded landscapes, water for production, soil and water conservation and household tree-growing approaches.
• Ensure technical quality and sustainability of regenerative and alternative livelihood interventions, including beekeeping, fish farming, small-scale solar irrigation, tree nursery enterprises, clean-energy solutions and fodder systems, as applicable.
• Ensure gender equality and women's empowerment are integrated across project interventions, including women's participation in leadership and decision-making and equitable access to land, productive resources and economic opportunities.
• Ensure youth, persons with disabilities, refugees and host communities are appropriately included across project interventions in line with agreed targeting and inclusion approaches.
• Ensure project interventions build on and strengthen existing Uganda Refugee Resilience Initiative (URRI) farmer groups, delivery systems, extension structures, local-government relationships and tested technical approaches rather than establishing parallel systems.
• Facilitate access to appropriate technical expertise from DRC Specialists, District Local Governments and other relevant actors and ensure identified technical gaps are addressed.

Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL)

• Work closely with MEAL staff to operationalise the project MEAL framework and ensure systematic monitoring of outputs, outcomes, indicators and project quality.
• Ensure timely and accurate collection, analysis and use of project data to monitor progress and inform programme and management decisions.
• Regularly review performance against the results framework and use monitoring findings, community feedback and contextual analysis to inform adaptive management.
• Ensure appropriate accountability and feedback mechanisms are accessible to refugee and host-community participants and that feedback is analysed and used to improve project delivery.
• Lead quarterly and other periodic project review and learning processes and ensure agreed actions are documented, assigned and followed through.
• Promote documentation of project results, success stories, lessons learned, innovations and good practices for learning, communication and potential replication or scale-up.
• Ensure project learning contributes to DRC's wider resilience, food security and livelihoods programming and builds on learning generated through NURI and URRI.

Team and Resource Management

• Lead and manage the multidisciplinary project team, ensuring effective collaboration across food security and agriculture, environment and natural resource management, gender, MEAL and support functions.
• Provide clear technical and managerial direction to project staff and ensure roles, responsibilities, deliverables and performance expectations are understood.
• Provide regular supervision, coaching, feedback and performance management to direct reports and identify staff capacity-development needs.
• Promote effective coordination between programme and support functions, particularly Finance, Supply Chain, HR and Administration, to ensure timely delivery of project activities.
• Ensure efficient and accountable use of project financial, human and operational resources and promote value for money.
• Foster a collaborative, inclusive and accountable working environment consistent with DRC values and Code of Conduct.

Coordination, Partnerships and Representation

• Lead project-level coordination and maintain effective working relationships with relevant government authorities, including the Office of the Prime Minister and District Local Governments across the target refugee-hosting districts.
• Coordinate closely with district technical departments and extension structures to strengthen technical quality, alignment with local priorities, government ownership and sustainability.
• Represent DRC and the project in relevant donor engagements, coordination forums, technical working groups, government meetings and other external platforms as delegated.
• Strengthen engagement with farmer groups, refugee and host-community structures, women and youth groups and other community institutions to promote meaningful participation, ownership and sustainability.
• Facilitate strategic engagement with private-sector actors, including agro-input suppliers, off-takers, millers, financial institutions and other service providers, to strengthen market access and commercially viable livelihood opportunities.
• Coordinate with other humanitarian and development actors to promote complementarity, leverage existing investments and avoid duplication.
• Lead and participate in joint field monitoring, technical supervision, learning visits and review missions with government, donor and other relevant stakeholders.
• Maintain strong linkages with URRI and other relevant DRC programmes to ensure complementarity, shared learning and efficient use of established systems and structures.

Qualifications or requirements (e.g., education, skills)

Experience needed

Any other provided details (e.g., benefits, work environment, team info, or additional notes)

• Provide overall leadership and management of the project, ensuring timely and quality implementation in line with the approved project design, results framework, budget, workplan, DRC procedures and donor requirements.
• Lead project start-up, detailed implementation planning, periodic review and close-out processes, ensuring effective application of DRC Project Cycle Management standards.
• Develop and regularly review project implementation plans, spending plans, procurement plans and activity schedules, ensuring appropriate sequencing of interventions with agricultural seasons and project priorities.
• Monitor implementation progress against agreed outputs, outcomes, targets and milestones and lead timely corrective and adaptive management actions where required.
• Oversee project budget performance, including expenditure monitoring, forecasting and follow-up of variances, in close collaboration with Finance and relevant support functions.
• Ensure timely procurement and operational planning for agricultural inputs, equipment, services and other requirements and proactively address implementation bottlenecks.
• Maintain oversight of project risks, assumptions and contextual changes and ensure appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures are implemented.
• Ensure timely preparation and submission of high-quality internal and donor reports and other required project documentation.
• Ensure project implementation complies with DRC policies and procedures, donor requirements, safeguarding standards, accountability commitments and the DRC Code of Conduct.
• Provide overall technical leadership and quality assurance across the project's food systems, food and nutrition security and economic self-reliance interventions.
• Oversee implementation of climate-smart and regenerative agriculture interventions, including block/cluster farming, Resilence Design, provision of agricultural inputs, good agronomic practices, soil and water conservation, post-harvest management and farmer learning.
• Ensure effective implementation of nutition-sensitive approaches, including kitchen gardening/permaculture, diversified household food production and nutition education, particularly for refugee households with limited access to productive land.
• Provide technical oversight to market systems interventions, including value-chain development, aggregation and collective marketing, value addition, market information and linkages between farmer groups, off-takers and other market actors.
• Guide implementation of financial inclusion approaches, including access to financial services and strengthening farmer groups towards association, cooperatives and SACCOs
• Oversee natural resource and ecosystem management interventions, including Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), agroforestry, restoration of degraded landscapes, water for production, soil and water conservation and household tree-growing approaches.
• Ensure technical quality and sustainability of regenerative and alternative livelihood interventions, including beekeeping, fish farming, small-scale solar irrigation, tree nursery enterprises, clean-energy solutions and fodder systems, as applicable.
• Ensure gender equality and women's empowerment are integrated across project interventions, including women's participation in leadership and decision-making and equitable access to land, productive resources and economic opportunities.
• Ensure youth, persons with disabilities, refugees and host communities are appropriately included across project interventions in line with agreed targeting and inclusion approaches.
• Ensure project interventions build on and strengthen existing Uganda Refugee Resilience Initiative (URRI) farmer groups, delivery systems, extension structures, local-government relationships and tested technical approaches rather than establishing parallel systems.
• Facilitate access to appropriate technical expertise from DRC Specialists, District Local Governments and other relevant actors and ensure identified technical gaps are addressed.
• Work closely with MEAL staff to operationalise the project MEAL framework and ensure systematic monitoring of outputs, outcomes, indicators and project quality.
• Ensure timely and accurate collection, analysis and use of project data to monitor progress and inform programme and management decisions.
• Regularly review performance against the results framework and use monitoring findings, community feedback and contextual analysis to inform adaptive management.
• Ensure appropriate accountability and feedback mechanisms are accessible to refugee and host-community participants and that feedback is analysed and used to improve project delivery.
• Lead quarterly and other periodic project review and learning processes and ensure agreed actions are documented, assigned and followed through.
• Promote documentation of project results, success stories, lessons learned, innovations and good practices for learning, communication and potential replication or scale-up.
• Ensure project learning contributes to DRC's wider resilience, food security and livelihoods programming and builds on learning generated through NURI and URRI.
• Lead and manage the multidisciplinary project team, ensuring effective collaboration across food security and agriculture, environment and natural resource management, gender, MEAL and support functions.
• Provide clear technical and managerial direction to project staff and ensure roles, responsibilities, deliverables and performance expectations are understood.
• Provide regular supervision, coaching, feedback and performance management to direct reports and identify staff capacity-development needs.
• Promote effective coordination between programme and support functions, particularly Finance, Supply Chain, HR and Administration, to ensure timely delivery of project activities.
• Ensure efficient and accountable use of project financial, human and operational resources and promote value for money.
• Foster a collaborative, inclusive and accountable working environment consistent with DRC values and Code of Conduct.
• Lead project-level coordination and maintain effective working relationships with relevant government authorities, including the Office of the Prime Minister and District Local Governments across the target refugee-hosting districts.
• Coordinate closely with district technical departments and extension structures to strengthen technical quality, alignment with local priorities, government ownership and sustainability.
• Represent DRC and the project in relevant donor engagements, coordination forums, technical working groups, government meetings and other external platforms as delegated.
• Strengthen engagement with farmer groups, refugee and host-community structures, women and youth groups and other community institutions to promote meaningful participation, ownership and sustainability.
• Facilitate strategic engagement with private-sector actors, including agro-input suppliers, off-takers, millers, financial institutions and other service providers, to strengthen market access and commercially viable livelihood opportunities.
• Coordinate with other humanitarian and development actors to promote complementarity, leverage existing investments and avoid duplication.
• Lead and participate in joint field monitoring, technical supervision, learning visits and review missions with government, donor and other relevant stakeholders.
• Maintain strong linkages with URRI and other relevant DRC programmes to ensure complementarity, shared learning and efficient use of established systems and structures.