Over the last decade, Bangladesh has experienced remarkable economic growth and human development. Despite progress, fragile employment and the growing frequency and intensity of disasters and climate hazards are impeding progress. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequality and forced millions of people into poverty in Bangladesh. Women are facing the burden of these complicated issues, and the pandemic primarily had gendered consequences, slowing or even reversing much of the progress made toward gender equality.

SWAPNO (Strengthening Women’s Ability for Productive New Opportunities) is a gender-based social security project that aims to lift poverty-stricken rural women (divorced/widowed/separated/having disabled husbands) out of economic insecurity by providing them with productive and sustainable livelihood opportunities. In addition to self-employment, SWAPNO also helps place women in local Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and private sector companies in the formal and informal sectors.

Since its inception, SWAPNO has benefited 12,492 beneficiaries in five districts. Among them, SWAPNO II has covered 3564 in Jamalpur, Lalmonirhat and Gaibandha districts. The project has aided economically disadvantaged women in developing their talents, linking them to services and the local market, and ensuring their financial inclusion. This has ensured their survival, improved their resilience to shocks, and provided them more power.

Based on the success of the project and the experience gained, SWAPNO II aspires to implement the project across the 10 poorest districts of Bangladesh – Gaibandha, Rangpur, Lalmonirhat, Nilphamary, Jamalpur, Sherpur, Gopalgonj, Bagerhat, Pirojpur, Patuakhali, Chandpur, Cumilla and Cox’s Bazar. SWAPNO will specifically target youth women groups (18 to 28) and women groups up to 45 to ensure employability and sustainability of project outcomes. The project will maximize the possibilities for financial inclusion while also emphasizing future employability by improving industry skills for job placements in the formal sector and local SMEs. Additionally, SWAPNO will aim to attract investors for social enterprises that offer commercially viable solutions for social problems, encourage environment-friendly business, create employment, and collaborate with the private sector. The project will put further emphasis on the importance of disaster resilience and climate change adaptation and train women to develop their life and soft skills.

In this backdrop, this Implementation Plan outlines SWAPNO’s strategy to support women’s access to decent employment, ensure a discrimination-free environment in public workplaces, develop adaptive livelihoods, establish localized Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), access to financial services for sustainable graduation from extreme poverty, and develop local government capacity to implement pro-poor projects. This IP project will contribute to achieve the following results:

• Outcome 1: Increased Income and Assets engaging Local Economy and Skill Development
• Outcome 2: Strengthened Human Capabilities and Resilience Capacity
• Outcome 3: Strengthen institutional capacity for sustaining SWAPNO benefits.

The National Project Manager (NPM) will ensure national ownership of the programme equality convenient for national and local government counterparts. The NPM will work under the leadership of the Assistant Resident Representative (ARR) of and be the leader of the programme implementation and management team. The NPM will liaise with National Project Director (NPD), national institutions and local administrations involved in the programme to guarantee their active participation. All the staffs of the SWAPNO-IP project will directly report to this post.

Key Functions:

• Direct and manage the complex project operations and ensure achievement of the programme results and outputs.
• Provide technical and managerial oversight as part of the Project senior management team and ensure efficient delivery.
• Build new partnerships and increase resource mobilization.
• Knowledge Services

The following section describe the functions under each of these categories with expected results:

Direct and manage the complex project operations and ensure achievement of the programme results and outputs:

• Facilitate the day-to-day functioning of the programme team, Manage the Human and Financial resources, in consultation with management, for achieving results in line with the outputs and activities outlined in the programme document.
• Manage the financial resources with accountability to the programme Board and UNDP’s management for achieving results in line with the outputs and activities outlined in the programme document.
• Lead and oversee the programme team located in field as well as head office in Dhaka through planning, implementation, managing and monitoring the delivery of policies, reports, knowledge products and annual results-based work plans and result framework as endorsed by the management.
• Ensure an enabling working environment for all staff so that no workplace harassment, sexual harassment or abuse of authority take place.
• Oversee the monitoring, evaluation and communication framework including overseeing preparation and implementation of a monitoring and communication plan and responsibility for the quality of monthly and quarterly progress reports and reviews.
• Responsible for ensuring that GoB staff acquire the ownership, knowledge and capacity to contribute to the project outputs and provide overall operational management for successful execution and implementation of the programme in line with the execution policies and procedures of the project.
• Establish strategic rapport and strong relationship with government stakeholders (LGD, DDLGs, UNOs etc.) together with other pertinent government entities for facilitating the sustainable scaling up nationally as well as institutional mainstreaming of the project into relevant government training institutes.

Policy and Programme Oversight and Delivery:

• As National Project Manager and as surge support, will play advisory role on Programme Implementation and Management Team. S/he will liaise with national institutions and local administrations involved in the programme to guarantee their active participation.
• Promote convergence between the different development interventions in the relevant area and also with the work of the different development agencies.
• Maintain continuous strategic relationship with relevant government counterpart and various government institutions for project success.
• Lead and manage the analytical and policy development work of the team and ensure high quality policy of knowledge products. Promote the substantive quality of all knowledge products reports and services, and ensure effective integration and compatibility with other practice areas;
• Design, introduce and continuously develop feedback mechanisms and open communication channels to ensure that the changing needs and expectations of the public are fully taken into account when reviewing annual and quarterly work plans.

Build new partnerships and increase mobilization:

• Lead and facilitate the preparatory work on the follow-on phase that includes undertaking different assessments, consultation with different stakeholders. Implementation of the annual results-based work plans and result frameworks in close consultation with the Components, national/international experts and relevant UNDP sub-cluster.
• Mobilize and Network with the experts of national and regional offices of the UN system, International development organizations, sub-regional and regional associations, affiliations and bodies (inter-governmental, non-government, or private sector) and prominent private sector organizations;
• Prepare proposals for mobilization of human, technical or financial resources from international development organizations and the private sector.
• Plan, strategize and manage the scaling up the project to a national level with closer guidance from NPD and coordination of UNDP.

Knowledge Services:

• Lead and manage the inputs of the consultants and national/international advisers and undertake knowledge capture at national, regional and global levels in the subject area and the production of knowledge-based products.
• Lead the process of knowledge creation and dissemination related to national, regional and global know-how in the subject area. In this context, partner with practitioners and members of the National think tanks, UNDP global networks, leadership of the practice and sub practice teams in RBAP, BDP and other related Bureaux on knowledge management services.
• Manage the establishment of internal and external networks or communities of practice covering prominent experts in government, non-government, private companies, international development organizations and the UN system.
• Ensure the project results are captured and recorded in knowledge products to communicate project results and impact.

The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization