Project Director - Strengthening Resilience 2

About Us

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We create friendly knowledge and understanding between the people of the UK and other countries. We do this by making a positive contribution to the UK and the countries we work with – changing lives by creating opportunities, building connections and engendering trust.  We work with over 100 countries across the world in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society. Each year we reach over 20 million people face-to-face and more than 500 million people online, via broadcasts and publications. Founded in 1934, we are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body.

British Council Lebanon operates from Beirut and we employ approximately 50 staff, including regional and Syria directorate colleagues based in Lebanon. Our activities are broad based, including a growing Exams business, and a sizeable portfolio of grant, partnership and externally funded English, Education, Arts and Society programmes and projects. 

In partnership with Foreign and Commonwealth Office and RICU (UK Home Office) and funded by the European Union, the British Council through the Strengthening Resilience Programme in its first phase has brought together experienced government and civil society organisations in Tunisia, Morocco and Lebanon to work together to design and deliver campaigns and other interventions that provide youth vulnerable to violent extremism with alternative pathways. The programme has adopted a problem-driven iterative approach, focussed on providing an immediate and short-term response, adapted to in country needs and generating learning on how to address the problem of radicalisation. Phase II of the programme will also explore programming opportunities in Jordan and Algeria, with an approach to be determined and agreed with EU Delegations based on analysis which will be produced during the scoping phase.

Main opportunities/challenges for this role:

• Ability to manage colleagues and consultants based off-site and or/travelling to Tripoli and the surrounding areas.
• Ability to understand and respond to the complexities and range of challenges faced by different communities in Tripoli and the surrounding areas. 
• Evening and weekend working will be required from time to time. The post is likely to require considerable travel within Lebanon, primarily to Tripoli and surrounding areas.

Main Accountabilities:

• Manage and quality assure the delivery of programme products, initiatives and activities in line with agreed contract and project plans, policies and standards. 
• Lead on the reporting of all Lebanon project activities ensuring that collection and dissemination of all technical, financial and other data are met. 
• Undertake regular monitoring activity and provide management information to relevant stakeholders in the form of activity status reports and summaries to an agreed schedule, format and quality
• Ensure the project is managed and delivered in accordance with all agreed financial and procurement standards in the head contract and British Council procedures
• Developing, maintaining and regularly updating a project risk management strategy.
• Leading the Lebanon  project team in line with British Council policies and standards; overseeing the recruitment and performance management of short term staff, experts and consultants 
• Leading local internal and external communications - appropriate liaison and engagement with key project stakeholders including national and local government, beneficiary institutions, non-state actors, third party providers and international development partners.   
• Developing local networks to promote the project and facilitate provision of strategic guidance and local insights for the Lebanon component, the Team Leader SRII and Programme SRO.

Successful Candidates: 

• Bachelor’s degree with at least 5 years of experience at a senior level 
• Work experience in managing similar donor and partner funded projects to agreed financial and non-financial targets and to client satisfaction.
• Experience of managing project budgets and using corporate financial management systems and controls.
• Internal and donor reporting both financial and non-financial
• Working with Lebanon state and civil society institutions.
• Representational activity with internal and external stakeholders.
• Fluency in English and Arabic – written and spoken

If you are interested in applying and feel that you are suitable for the role, please apply before Monday 6 November  2017 (23:59 Lebanon Time).Please read the Role Profile carefully, check definitions of the behaviours and Core skills, and complete the application form using the ‘Guidance notes for completing application form section’ for assistance (This is found in the application form). Completed applications should be emailed to: Job.Vacancy@lb.britishcouncil.org specifying the job title in the subject line. We do not accept copies of CVs, no applications will be accepted after the closing date, and only shortlisted candidates will be notified. 

Equality Statement

Valuing diversity is essential to the British Council’s work. We aim to abide by and promote equality legislation by following both the letter and the spirit of it to try and avoid unjustified discrimination, recognising discrimination as a barrier to equality of opportunity, inclusion and human rights. 

All staff worldwide are required to ensure their behaviour is consistent with our policies.

Child Protection

The British Council is a full member of Keeping Children Safe (KCS) and has achieved level 1 child safe certification. We believe that all children have the right to be protected from all forms of abuse as set out in article 19, UNCRC, 1989 and that every child matters - everywhere in the world. In line with the British Council's Child Protection policy, any appointment is contingent on thorough checks including criminal record checks, in line with legal requirements.