Program Technical Manager

VSO is the world’s leading international organisation working through volunteers to create a fair world for everyone. We focus on people who are marginalised or excluded, including those living in poverty, people with disabilities or illness, and those facing discrimination, violence, disasters, disease, and conflict.

VSO places these individuals at the centre of its work as primary actors and agents of change. We work with communities to identify their priorities, opportunities, and solutions, supporting locally led and sustainable change.

Our Approach

VSO’s Volunteering for Development (VfD) approach supports vulnerable and marginalised people to claim their rights and drive lasting change. It addresses the root causes of vulnerability and marginalisation through three core approaches: social inclusion and gender, social accountability, and resilience. These approaches underpin our work in inclusive education, health, resilient livelihoods and peace building.

About the Job

VSO is a lead implementer of the Internship Opportunities for Young Women program (iWork), financed by the Mastercard Foundation. The program will be implemented in Ethiopia across Amhara, Oromia, and Harari regional states, as well as the Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa city administrations. iWork aims to create internship opportunities for 24,000 financially disadvantaged young people, with a primary focus on young women. The program also promotes inclusion by reaching persons with disabilities, refugees, internally displaced people, and returnees. Through internships, iWork aims to help young women build the skills and experience they need to access dignified and fulfilling work, contributing to poverty reduction and an improved quality of life.

VSO Ethiopia is recruiting Program Technical Manager for iWork program.

Role Purpose:

Drive the technical vision and quality standards of the i-Work Program, ensuring delivery is gender-transformative, disability-inclusive, and aligned with youth-centered principles. focuses on strengthening programme coherence, innovation, and evidence-based interventions to help marginalized youth—including women, youth with disabilities, refugees, and internally displaced persons—access internships, build agency, enhance employability, and transition successfully into work.

Collaborate closely with the Program Manager, Cluster Coordinators, MEARL team, to integrate best practices and ensure high-quality implementation that delivers sustainable impact.

Tasks Responsibilities

 Technical Leadership and Quality Assurance

• Lead the development and integration of technical standards, models, and quality frameworks for i-Work interventions.
• Provide high-level guidance to programme teams and partners on youth employability, workforce development, gender-transformative approaches, and social inclusion.
• Ensure alignment of project activities with Mastercard Foundation priorities and VSO’s global programme principles.
• Identify and promote innovative, evidence-driven strategies for improving work readiness, skills development, and successful labour market transition.
• Facilitate opportunities for young women through Internship (i-Work) project implementation plan from inception to closure and transition phase in collaboration with different project partners including implementing partners, and stakeholders. Revisit and update the plan in response to the changing context.

 Programme Design and Adaptation

• Support Program Manager in adaptive management, ensuring interventions respond to emerging evidence, risk assessments, and contextual changes.
• Review technical components of cluster-level plans to guarantee adherence to quality standards and inclusive practices.
• Guide integration of cross-cutting themes such as safeguarding, disability inclusion, conflict sensitivity, and resilience throughout programme cycles.

Evidence, Learning, and Advocacy

• Partner with the MEARL team to generate robust evidence on programme effectiveness and drive learning agendas.
• Facilitate reflection and knowledge-sharing sessions with cluster teams and partners to strengthen practice and promote continuous improvement.
• Contribute to thought leadership and advocacy on youth employability and inclusive workforce development.
• Work closely with Program Manager, and global teams on youth employment, gender, and disability inclusion for integrated delivery.
• Collaborate with MEARL, People, Safeguarding, Security, Communications to strengthen quality delivery
• Engage relevant global teams on youth engagement, partnership, volunteer leadership
• Facilitate learning, good practice sharing and networks across cluster teams, partners and relevant stakeholders to inform delivery, system strengthening and future programme development.

Capacity Strengthening

Build technical capacity of cluster teams, and partners on inclusive programming, market systems approaches, and gender-transformative practices.

Coordinators and supports effective collaboration among MEL Officers, Project Facilitation Officers, host enterprises, SME, TVET institutions, government bodies, and private sector partners.

Provide technical insights, toolkits, and guidance documents.

• Engage with project stakeholders, consortium partners, local government, TVETs, private sector, universities and training providers, ensuring internship, employability and workplace readiness activities are coordinated and followed up at cluster level.
• Coordinate VSO’s contribution within the consortium, working with partners to align cluster-level planning, delivery, reporting, risk management, learning and stakeholder engagement with agreed consortium workplans, standards and timelines.
• Participate in the relevant technical coordination meetings, partnership forums, workshops and learning events at the regional / cluster-level.

 

Work Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with frequent field travels to cluster offices and project locations

 

Required Qualification

Education

• Master’s degree or equivalent knowledge and skills in technical leadership or advisory roles on youth economic empowerment, employability pathways, TVET/Livelihood interventions, private sector engagement.

Experience:

• Relevant experience in technical leadership or advisory roles on youth economic empowerment, employability pathways, internship programs, workforce development, transition-to-work readiness, inclusive workplace practices, work-based mentoring, women and youth economic empowerment, TVET/livelihood interventions, and private sector engagement.
• Proven track record in integrating gender-transformative and disability-inclusive programming.
• Experience engaging with policy and influencing systems of change for youth employment.
• Expertise workforce development, transition-to-work models, and market-driven interventions.
• Ability to provide technical coordination with multiple teams, partners and locations and accompaniment across clusters, applying gender-transformative, disability-inclusive, youth-centered approaches.
• Experience in project management including multi field-level implementation management and
• Experience and working with Mastercard Foundation funded grants would be an advantage.
• Proficient skills in partnership and engagement with ability to coordinate relationships with different partners, including government, private sector, host enterprise, education and training institutions, civil society, OPDs, youth networks and local communities.
• Strong familiarity with safeguarding frameworks and do-no-harm principles.
• Proficient skills in people management, coaching and mentoring with effective team management and ability to facilitate learnings and support collaborative teamwork, staff wellbeing and performance across field-based teams.
• Sound knowledge of participatory M&E and community-level learning facilitation.
• Effective communication and digital skills, working with English proficiency and including Amharic/local language.
• Sound understanding of locally led development, systems strengthening, integrated programming, rights-based participatory approaches
• Understanding of volunteering for development approach with commitment and demonstrable ability to apply people-first principles, and global volunteer standards in programming
• Strategic thinking, collaboration, innovation, and cultural sensitivity.
• Demonstrated VSO behavioral competencies.

Role Specific Competencies:

Programme operations management, project cycle Management (PCM), youth employment and workforce development, internship programme management, planning and coordination, risk Management

Travel Requirement

Ability to travel to project field locations and work away from the home base for up to 40% of time, both within the country and occasionally internationally.

Equal Opportunities

VSO promotes equal opportunities and values a diverse workforce.

VSO is committed to a fair, transparent and merit-based recruitment. VSO does not charge any application, processing, training, interviewing, testing or other fee in connection with the application or recruitment process.