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BRAC’s Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI) seeks to hire a Program Director to spearhead BRAC UPGI’s work in the Philippines. The role will offer strategic leadership to UPGI’s country team in the Philippines in their partnerships with governments and other key partners involved in the design and implementation of government led graduation programme(s). Currently, BRAC UPGI has developed key partnerships with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the Department of Management and Budget (DMB) and the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).
We are looking for candidates with substantial knowledge and experience working with governments, who are interested in thinking outside the box, and who are excited to explore how the current model of graduation can be adapted and scaled by the Government of the Philippines.
The graduation approach has been piloted twice in the Philippines (through partnerships between BRAC Philippines, Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). These pilots have proven that the graduation approach can help to catalyse transformative change for people living in poverty in the Philippines. However, to date, neither pilots have been taken to scale. It is clear that evidence that the graduation approach works to reduce extreme poverty is necessary, but not sufficient to persuade and enable large scale Government led graduation programmes; that more is needed to understand how this multi-faceted approach can be adapted and implemented at scale, within the Government’s available human and financial resources and still deliver meaningful and lasting impact on the lives of participants.
This position would be a member of UPGI’s Senior Leadership Team, and report to UPGI’s Executive Leadership Team. The Program Director for the Philippines will lead and manage BRAC UPGI’s country strategy – engaging partners, including governments, multilateral and bilateral institutions on issues of extreme poverty; supporting the co-design of high quality government led graduation programmes, and ensuring government partners are able to access and leverage support and technical assistance from BRAC and other civil society organizations and development actors.
This role will have the opportunity to be creative in delivering on this strategy, including but not limited to building new partnerships and strategic scaling opportunities, and will be supported with BRAC UPGI’s global support units (Operations, Policy and Partnerships, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning, and Program Design and Impact).
This position will be based in Manila and will work closely with BRAC UPGI team members based in the US, Europe, Asia, and Africa.