Background Information - UNOPS

UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian, and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve sustainable development.

UNOPS areas of expertise cover infrastructure, procurement, project management, financial management, and human resources.

Working with us

UNOPS offers short- and long-term work opportunities in diverse and challenging environments across the globe. We are looking for creative, results-focused professionals with skills in a range of disciplines.

Diversity

With over 4,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,000 personnel recruited on behalf of UNOPS partners spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a wide range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced, diverse workforce — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs, and continually strive to improve our gender balance through initiatives and policies that encourage the recruitment of qualified female candidates.

Work-life harmonization

UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands.

Background Information - Pakistan

UNOPS Pakistan (Project Office) is part of the Bangladesh Multi-Country Office in the Asia Region. UNOPS commenced operations in Pakistan in 1999 and significantly up-scaled activities from 2005 onwards to support populations affected by and vulnerable to earthquakes. In 2010, UNOPS opened a permanent office in Islamabad to support the Government of Pakistan and other partners to undertake humanitarian and reconstruction services, following the most devastating flood in the nation’s history.

UNOPS Pakistan has been implementing projects in the areas of early recovery and reconstruction of community infrastructure, project management, monitoring and evaluation, community development, fund management, human resources management, procurement and infrastructure design and implementation.

Supported strategically by a regional operational hub and UNOPS headquarters in Copenhagen and within the overarching framework of the ONE UN Programme, UNOPS Pakistan continues to deliver projects across the country under its core delivery practices of sustainable infrastructure, sustainable procurement, and sustainable project management. 

With a steady growth of the project portfolio in recent years and a new strategic direction, UUNOPS in Pakistan is currently implementing projects in the following thematic areas: Green and Clean energy; Rule of Law; Health Procurement; and HR services.

 Background Information - Job-specific

The Project is due to start in September 2021 and over a period of five years, it aims to improve access to clean and safe water, hygiene and sanitation and increase the resilience of targeted communities affected by the 2010 floods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh provinces in Pakistan. The project has been designed as a program and includes three components that must be integrated in a holistic, complementary, and coordinated manner to maximize the project's impact. The three objectives are:

Improved quality and reach of water supply services and increased access to community and household sanitation (WASH-related infrastructure)

More effective, gender-responsive, and transparent WATSAN services through enhanced capacity of government entities and communities (capacity enhancement)

Reduced waterborne diseases and improved resilience of communities through improved community and household hygiene practices (community awareness and behavioral change)

The project team will include a Senior Project Manager (whom the Deputy Project Manager will work-shadow), various field and site engineers, a capacity building expert and an M&E expert, as well as a number of project support staff.

The Deputy Project Manager will be responsible for providing overall technical and programmatic support for the planning, implementation, management, and monitoring of project activities and will be assisting the Senior Project Manager in the day-to-day running and operations of all field locations and project activities. S/he will be responsible to abide by the administrative instructions, plans, procedures, and security policies of UNOPS and the UN Security Management System.

The Deputy Project Manager will work-shadow the Senior Project Manager and will deputise when the Senior Project Manager is on leave or absent. The Deputy Project Manager will assist the Senior Project Manager to ensure that the project outputs are delivered within the specified project tolerances of time, cost, quality, scope, risk and benefits. He/she is expected to meet the organization’s performance and delivery goals. 

The Deputy Project Manager will assist the Senior Project Manager in creating the Implementation Plan, using the Project Initiation Document (PID) and the Legal Agreement and keeping in mind of the terms, conditions, and the respective roles and responsibilities of the partners/stakeholders, in order to ensure the project outputs are capable of meeting the business cases for both UNOPS and the partners. 

The Deputy Project Manager role will be based in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. There will be frequent visits to the project field locations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh provinces, as well as to the capital in Islamabad.

 Functional Responsibilities

Functions / Key Results Expected

1. Project Delivery and Performance 

Assist the Senior Project Manager with the following tasks:

• Develop, complete and update implementation plans. 

• Implement the approved plan (including the establishment of milestones) within tolerances set by the Project Board. 

• Embed sustainability dimensions including social and gender inclusion/mainstreaming, environmental and economic aspects into a project life span. 

• Manage the production of the required outputs, taking responsibility for overall progress and use of resources, and initiating corrective action where necessary.

• Ensure that the quality of work packages and deliverables complies with the quality requirements defined in the Implementation Plan.

• Liaise with any external suppliers or account managers

• Manage acceptance and delivery of work packages

• Monitor project progress ensuring that work packages are being executed properly

• Control project and work packages changes

• Accept goods, services or works delivered by suppliers. 

• Lead contract management duties including supplier performance evaluation. 

• Act as the Employer’s Representative within the FIDIC works contracts. 

• Identify, and anticipate in a timely manner, potential risks and issues and advises mitigating measures to senior management/ Project Board so that maximum benefit to partner(s) and other stakeholders is achieved

• Identify and report to the supervisor potential business opportunities for UNOPS

2. Procedures 

Assist the Senior Project Manager with the following tasks: 

• Comply with all organizational policy and specifically the Project Management Manual

• Prepare/adapt all relevant plans for approval by the Project Board.

• Manage the reporting obligations defined in the Legal Agreement(s) and in the Implementation Plan

• Draft the requirements definitions for procurement processes. Approving requisitions and requests for non-purchase order payments; Evaluating submissions received, if appointed to the evaluation team. 

• Ensure maintenance of the project files and lessons learned are recorded

• Manage budgets, cash flow and obligations to ensure that deliverables are met and payments to contractors and personnel are received on time.

• Understand and manage UNOPS overheads, allocable charges, and related corporate charges as they apply to the project

• Understand the unique structures of the UN and budget appropriately for personnel

• Manage expenditures against the budget (based on accurate financial reports)

• For project closure purposes, provide a formal handover of the project to the closure manager

• Support project audit activities, including planning, preparation and coordination during the audits and follow up on audit observations/recommendations

3. Monitoring and reporting

Assist the Senior Project Manager with the following tasks:

• Prepare and issue regular project and/or financial reports in accordance with Partner and UNOPS requirements for reporting.

• Regularly review project status, evaluating performance criteria (scope, cost, schedule and quality).

• Maintain diaries and progress reports as required by the organization’s standard procedures.

• Provide routine oversight and analysis of delivery data within the dashboard system.

• Ensure all project team members track and regularly update milestones and targets for the duration of projects' life span

4. Stakeholder engagement

Assist the Senior Project Manager with the following tasks:

• Develop stakeholder profiles and facilitate the formulation of stakeholder engagement strategies

• Establish solid working relationships with the Project Board (Executive, Senior Users and Senior Suppliers), client and key stakeholders

• Enable the formulation of project communications plans. Coordinate internal project communications. Monitor the effectiveness of project communications

• Coordinate stakeholder engagement and communication, ensuring effective timing and interdependency management of communications. Ensure stakeholders are aware of project activities, progress, exceptions and are in a position to accept handover outputs

5. Quality assurance

Assist the Senior Project Manager with the following tasks:

• Work with internal stakeholders to ensure projects comply with audit requirements

• Work with procurement/purchasing staff to ensure effective interface with suppliers' quality systems

• Coordinate quality reviews of project documents and deliverables

• Provide quality control for management outputs (project documents, reports, etc.)

6. Knowledge management and innovation

Assist the Senior Project Manager with the following tasks:

• Encourage routine and effective capacity-building activities are conducted in order to build the long-term and sustainable capacity of staff.

• Actively interact with other Project Managers and the wider PM community to share case studies, lessons learned and best practices 

• Contribute to the oversight of lessons learned procedures, ensuring that lessons learned are shared in a timely and appropriate manner. 

• Participate in the relevant Communities of Practice

• Identify and log of lessons learned  in the project management system OneUNOPS Projects 

• throughout the project life span.

• Provide feedback to Practice Groups on policy, supporting guidance with an aim towards continuous improvement of UNOPS policies

7. Personnel Management   

Assist the Senior Project Manager with the following tasks:

• Lead and motivate the project team

• Ensure that behavioural expectations of team members are established 

• Ensure that performance reviews are conducted fairly, accurately and timely

• Select, recruit and train the team and take into account gender parity and diversity objectives.

• Monitor safety and security for all project personnel and comply with UNDSS standards

• Create, foster and role model a culture of respect and zero tolerance for discrimination, abuse of authority, harassment, sexual harassment, and sexual exploitation and abuse. 

• Ensure accountability for actions and perform duties in accordance with action plans, as expected by UNOPS policies, standards, and commitments.

Impact of Results 

The Deputy Project Manager directly impacts on the achievement of project results by adhering to project management methods and strategies, reducing risks, cutting costs, and improving success rates.  This consequently reinforces the visibility and image of  UNOPS as an effective service provider in project services and management and strengthens its competitive position as a partner of choice in sustainable development and project services.

Education/Experience/Language requirements

Education:

• A Master’s degree or advanced degree in Engineering or relevant field is required.

• Bachelor degree in Engineering or relevant field with additional 5 years of relevant experience may be accepted in lieu of the Master’s degree

Experience:

• 3 years of engineering-related project management is preferred but not essential

• 2 years of practical experience managing WASH/WATSAN projects in a humanitarian or development context is preferred

• Experience with Government, UN agencies, and NGOs is an asset

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English is essential

• Fluency in Urdu is essential

 Contract type, level, and duration

• Contract type: Individual Contract Agreement Agreement (ICA)

• Contract level: Local ICA Specialist (L-ICA 10)

• Contract duration: Open-ended, subject to organizational requirements, availability of funds and satisfactory performance

For more details about the ICA contractual modality, please follow this link:

https://www.unops.org/english/Opportunities/job-opportunities/what-we-offer/Pages/Individual-Contractor-Agreements.aspx 

 Additional Considerations

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time

• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.

• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.

• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.

• Work-life harmonization - UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. This policy applies to UNOPS personnel on all contract types

• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post

• For retainer contracts, you must complete a few Mandatory Courses (around 4 hours) in your own time, before providing services to UNOPS.

• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans, and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.  

• It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns.

• Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.