PURPOSE OF POSITION:
To enhance the creation of awareness of civic responsibility and rights by the community and local government, and improved accountability between government and civil society regarding basic services through the Citizen Voice and Action (CVA) approach.
Citizen Voice and Action is a World Vision International model that aims to increase dialogue between ordinary citizens and organizations that provide services to the public. It also aims to improve accountability from the administrative and political sections of government (both national and local) in order to improve the delivery of public services. The approach aims to empower communities to influence the quality, efficiency and accountability of public services.
Educated, empowered and mobilized citizens are encouraged to assess the performance of public services which are provided in their communities. They are encouraged to compare actual services with the standards of service that their government has committed themselves to providing. Citizens, together with those providing services (service providers), government and local partners identify action to take to improve public services.
This approach is based on the view that individuals and ‘the community’ are citizens of nation states. Each citizen has the right to communicate with, and have a relationship with, their government. Active citizenship and engagement with government, helps governments to work effectively and to provide quality services.
The aim of CVA is to strengthen this relationship between citizens and government, by educating and empowering communities to talk and work with government service providers and government officials about the performance of basic services.
The DFID-funded Program Partnership Arrangement (PPA) is a multi-country initiative awarded to World Vision United Kingdom (WVUK). WVUK will use the support from DFID to strengthen in-country advocacy to improve the delivery of basic services in up to 25 countries, including South Sudan, and to address maternal and new born health and child mortality (MDGs 4 and 5). World Vision South Sudan's (WVSS) project focuses on both increased protection of vulnerable children and improved access to quality basic services through improved governance initiatives (CVA). Western Equatoria will be the first state where World Vision will pilot CVA.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Key Result Area:
- To serve as the World Vision South Sudan lead technical focal point on CVA.
- To develop an assessment report that will support the design of the three year CVA project. The assessment will include conducting a capacity assessment of government institutions to access and monitor quality services in child protection, health, and HIV/AIDS in Tambura County and Western Equatoria State. The assessment will also include a needs assessment and gap analysis in terms of accountability between government and civil society regarding basic services as well as awareness of civic responsibility and rights by the community and local government.
- To develop a three year project design in collaboration with the World Vision United Kingdom Citizen Voice Action (CVA) and DFID program advisors that aligns with the larger PPA program application but takes into consideration fragile state context.
- To oversee, manage, supervise and build the capacity of staff and partners in CVA
- To train staff at county, state, and national level on the CVA approach and to educate communities and government on accountability throughout basic services delivery.
- To facilitate effective monitoring and documentation of the CVA approach in World Vision South Sudan and document best practices to inform future program design.
- To facilitate empowerment of communities for their entitlement in protection and health in line with the government minimum standards.
- To support roll out of CVA approach in Tambura County and potential replication in other counties of Southern Sudan and To provide support to the Western Equatorial region and its projects in integrating CVA
- To initiate and help institute social accountability structures in Tambura Area Rehabilitation Program to enhance the quality and efficiency of service delivery.
- To generate community level information, through the CVA processes, to enrich WVSS protection and health national level advocacy program.
- To provide technical advising, feedback, and input into resource mobilization and development for additional CVA project design documents and budgets.
Key Responsibilities
Project Management (implementation): - Ensure quality implementation including appropriate structure, internal and external standards, staffing, resources and policies
- Ensure implementation alignment with the larger PPA program design.
- Track challenges and lessons learned for later documentation and reporting.
- Monitor the impact of the project and promote learning by documentation of best practices. Use this information to support decision making processes and follow up to make necessary adjustments
- Continuously monitor the project to ensure that the project systems and staff are working to achieve the project goal and objectives and that the project is maintaining World Vision and donor accountability standards. Ensure all grant requirements are adhered to.
Reporting: - Prepare and submit high quality progress reports in a timely manner and according to donor requirements.
- Ensure that all program related reports and data are stored systematically and copies of the same uploaded to the PIH timely
- Coordinate donor and management visits with communities, local government officials, and other stakeholders.
Monitoring and Evaluation: - In close collaboration with other sectors and DM&E, design/adjust tools for monitoring and evaluation of the project
- Monitor the project’s progress, expenditure against budget, and anticipate and make necessary adjustments
- Allocate sufficient resources, including time, budget and staff to carryout DM&E activities
- Provide full support to the DM&E staff to carryout the baseline survey and end of project evaluation
Capacity building: - Hire staff to support project deliverables.
- Build capacity of WVSS staff on the fundamentals and application of CVA
- Build capacity of communities, government staff, and other partners in the implementation of CVA
Liaison and networking: - Liaise directly with East Africa Regional CVA Technical Support Structures as well as WVUK PPA Technical Focal Points for protection, health, and CVA.
- Liaise with government officials, UN bodies and other partners wherever appropriate and required
- Establish transparent relationships with all partners, including identification of their priorities and concerns and managing expectations
- Effectively network and express ideas and concepts clearly and persuasively to donors and government representatives- act as advocate for community identified needs
- Effectively represent WVSS operations and mission to government and other partners
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES:
- Must possess a Masters in Public Policy or any development discipline.
- Must be familiar with the context and sensitivity of accountability programming and be able to lead a project team composed of both people able to mobilize communities and government figures around basic services issues that are important to them
- Should have a minimum of five years experience in community and national level advocacy
- Preference that the candidate is conversant with the CVA approach
- Preference that the candidate speaks Arabic or otherwise has knowledge of local language, Zande
- Must be skilled in networking, coalition-brokering and should have the ability to work with existing civil society networks in order to maximise impact and ensure that CVA complements existing civil society movements already at work
- Must be able to work in a team
- Unquestionable integrity
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Critical thinking
- Strategic planning
- Good public relations (PR) to facilitate smooth networking between WVSS and other stakeholders
- REQUIRED:
