Job Title : Programme Manager, Mental Health, Pakistan
Location: Karachi, Pakistan
Reporting to : Country Director Pakistan
ABOUT THE BRITISH ASIAN TRUST
The British Asian Trust is a diaspora-led international development organisation, delivering high quality programmes in South Asia. Since our formation, we have impacted the lives of over 13 million people across South Asia with high-impact interventions to address the subcontinent’s critical unmet needs in areas of livelihoods, mental health, education, child protection and conservation. We believe that traditional approaches to development cannot alone defeat poverty and inequality. We are passionate about innovation and disruption, and we are global pioneers in using social finance products to drive positive change. Our focus, at all times, is on outcomes and impact. Our portfolio of work has grown significantly in the past few years, but we still see several opportunities to have even more impact. This position will be key to effectively deliver on some of our existing programmes and ensure we build the capacity to design and deliver future programmes.
Our work spans five areas.
- Education: We focus on improving education systems, working with partners to train teachers and develop teaching tools. We use technology and new solutions to ensure children are not just in school but are learning.
- Livelihoods: We focus on disadvantaged women and young people, developing their skills, investing in entrepreneurship and increasing access to markets.
- Child Protection: There are thousands of children in India who are out of school and at risk of exploitation. We support Government initiatives to address these challenges and are working with local partners on a range of programmes throughout the country.
- Mental Health: We are lifting the silence on mental health issues and raising awareness in communities. By opening up the conversation and developing services, we are ensuring that people can find and receive the support they need.
Conservation: We have expanded our conservation work through our merger with Elephant Family which allows us to build an ambitious conservation strategy in South Asia.
JOB PURPOSE
This job contributes to the British Asian’s Trusts success by providing programme management to the Mental Health Pakistan Programme.
The role includes:
- Ensuring strong programme and project management including monitoring and evaluation of the Mental Health programme. Working with fundraising teams for timely and effective reporting to donors as well as contributing to internal BAT KPIs.
- Supporting the design and development of new projects and related partnerships, within the Mental Health Programme, guided by the Pakistan Mental Health Strategy.
- Working closely with the Fundraising teams to meet fundraising goals. Provide leadership and represent the BAT mental health programme on the Pakistan Mental Health Coalition (PMHC).
- Manage a small mental health team, providing leadership and guidance to them to fulfil their roles.
Key Responsibilities:
Programme Management
- Lead the planning, execution, and evaluation of the programme to ensure they achieve desired outcomes and impact.
- Oversee the day-to-day operations of the Mental Health programme, ensuring effective project management and adherence to timelines and budgets.
- Monitor and evaluate programme performance, including setting key performance indicators and making data-driven decisions for continuous improvement. Ensure that relevant programme performance data is being captured effectively and robustly verified.
- Identify and manage relevant programme risks.
- Work with the Country team and Central Programmes team to ensure that programmes are run in adherence with relevant processes outlined in the organisation’s programme management manual, e.g., ensuring that due diligence of partners take place at prescribed intervals and to the desired quality.
- Develop a framework to evaluate partner performance and help develop partner capabilities as needed to ensure delivery of programme objectives and within budgetary constraints.
- Ensure programmes comply with relevant regulations, standards, and best practices. In particular, ensure a strong focus on Safeguarding in compliance with British Asian Trust policies.
Manage the design and development of the Mental Health Programme and related partnerships.
- Drive and lead programme strategy and design for areas of responsibility in alignment with the mental health theory of change and the Pakistan Mental Health Strategy.
- Identify new partners and opportunities and follow up on opportunities, supporting the fundraising team to put together proposals.
- Lead the strategic direction for MEL across the mental health programme. Ensure that all indicators and reports contribute to a cohesive set of data that informs high-level strategic goals. Champion the use of MEL as a critical tool for organisational learning, decision-making, and demonstrating impact to stakeholders.
- Ensure a robust safeguarding and risk matrix is in place and regularly updated.
- Develop and deliver on stakeholder engagement, including planning and managing events and raising programme profile.
- Play a strong secretarial role for the Pakistan Mental Health Coalition, driving the strategic and operational systems behind it alongside Taskeen; as well as manage the subcommittees BAT leads on.
- Promote BATs advocacy and ecosystem strengthening agendas through the network.
Team Leadership
- Lead, mentor, and support the mental health team and staff, fostering a collaborative and high-performance culture.
- Provide guidance and professional development opportunities to team members to enhance their skills and effectiveness.
- Collaborate with the central programmes team and the wider programmes leadership to ensure that programmes in Pakistan are not only aligned to the wider British Asian Trust approach and Theory of Change but are also constantly improved as needed in terms of programme strategy, design and execution.
- Work in collaboration with the Social Finance to identify and help execute on opportunities for Social Finance projects in Mental Health.
- Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation and continuous learning.
Partnerships and Stakeholder Engagement
- Cultivate and maintain relationships with key stakeholders, including implementing partners, funders, government agencies, community organisations, external sectoral experts and other partners.
- Represent the organisation at conferences, meetings, and public events to promote our programmes and build strategic alliances.
- Manage critical external stakeholders including relevant trustees and advisors to enable their inputs and collaboration in programme strategy as appropriate.
- Build strong relationships with relevant government stakeholders and ensure that their views are taken into account in programme design and delivery.
- Manage existing relationships through the PMHC, Milkar and beyond—including our in-country stakeholders, diaspora, ambassadors and more.
Development and Funding
- Work with the fundraising team to identify and pursue funding opportunities, including grants, donations, and sponsorships, to support programme sustainability and growth.
- Ensure preparation of programme proposals, reports, and budgets to stakeholders and potential funders.
- Participate in discussions with potentials funders as needed to ensure effective representation of the programmes.
- Work with the fundraising team to modify programme design and measurement as needed to ensure that programmes are as exciting as possible to funders and that the impact of programmes is clearly evident to funders.
In addition to your normal duties, you may occasionally be required to undertake other reasonable duties as necessary to meet the needs of the organisation.
KEY RELATIONSHIPS
Internal:
Pakistan SMT and team, Global Programmes, Fundraising, Social Finance, Communications and Marketing teams
External:
Relevant programme partners and stakeholders, government, advisors and sector experts.
JOB RELATED KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
Knowledge and experience
- Experience: Demonstrable relevant experience in program development, management, and leadership, with a focus on mental health.
- Leadership: Demonstrable experience in leading and managing teams, showcasing strong leadership and interpersonal skills. Skilled at driving change within both internal and external teams while fostering collaboration and team alignment.
- Technical knowledge: A strong understanding of the mental health & health sector in Pakistan and globally, with a presence within the mental health sector in Pakistan.
Skills
- Sharp analytical, influencing and negotiation skills.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, including language skills that reflect partner organisations’ preferences.
- Strong writing skills and experience in putting together proposals, reports etc.
- Proven ability to work at pace, often in an ambiguous environment.
- Attention to detail / commitment to technical accuracy.
- Ability to work independently, with conflicting demands, in a high-pressure environment.
- Understanding of financial planning and budgeting.
- Upholds the highest ethical standards and leads organisational safeguarding strategies.
Personal qualities and attributes
- Ambitious, innovative, target driven and self-motivated.
- Demonstrates acute awareness of personal presence and its influence, adeptly modulating communication style and approach to resonate with diverse audiences and achieve desired outcomes.
- Standard setter of a collaborative working culture which encourages transparency and open communication.
- Trustworthy, patient, yet flexible and agile.
- Strong relationship builder and enjoys working as part of a team. Excellent at managing relationships to achieve organisational goals.
- Open to new ways of working, learning new tasks and skills as required.
- Passionate about the development sector and commitment to the values and ethos of the British Asian Trust.
- Deep commitment to the mission of British Asian Trust and the organisation’s goals.
Able to anticipate and address complex problems with innovative solutions
