Position: Senior Program Manager, DISHA Project
iSocial is inviting a qualified professional for the position of Senior Program Manager to lead the implementation of the project titled DISHA (Designing Inclusive Services through Human-centered Approaches). The goal of the project is to ‘strengthen inclusive, citizen-centered, and accountable public and CSO service delivery through mainstreaming the integration of Human Centered Design (HCD), co-creation, and a structured participation approach’.
Specific objectives of the project are:
- Strengthening capacities of CSOs and government actors in Human-Centered Design.
- Enabling stakeholders to jointly design and test solutions to real service challenges at local level.
- Developing inclusive, citizen-centered service solutions and participation formats.
- Fostering sustainable collaboration between CSOs, citizens, and government actors.
- Collaborating with ecosystem actors for reinforcing second generation public service delivery for citizens by government institutions and CSOs/NGOs
- Creating a network of HCD facilitators to apply and replicate the approach.
This project is going to be implemented jointly by Nagorik Uddyog and iSocial, where Nagorik Uddyog is the representative organization under NAGORIKOTA Civic Engagement Fund, funded by Switzerland, Canada and the European Union. The project is under the new Call for Proposals (CfP) VII.1 (Co-creation and Service Innovation), essentially complements and addresses needs from the ongoing CfPs I-VI, creates space for innovation and testing of new approaches, and enables practical collaboration between CSOs, citizens, and government.
Position Summary
The Senior Program Manager will lead the project to reach its goals and objectives by driving the team and engaging all project stakeholders throughout the project period. The role includes strategic planning, project design, adaptation to learning in the process of project implementation, operationalizing teamwork, stakeholder coordination, quality assurance, and supervision of operational teams.
Job Description
- Lead the project team to achieve the project goals and objectives.
- Coordinate with the representative organization and steer both the teams towards a successful outcome of the project
- Operationalize the project design through development of standard operating procedures (SoPs) and adapt the design based on the ongoing learning form the project implementation.
- Build and maintain relationship with all project stakeholders including government stakeholders and ensure their engagement with the project activities as per the project design.
- Ensure that the project is implemented following all compliance requirements at the national and local levels.
- Build relationships with the strategic partners, representative organizations and consortium partners at the national and local level for appropriate engagement for adopting Human Centred-Design (HCD) principles in their work.
- Build a roster of HCD mentors/facilitators through scouting from the industry and CSOs, following the procedures, and engage them for developing HCD Facilitators within project partner CSOs and selected local government institutions (LGIs) and communities.
- Facilitate the Service design teams for application of HCD within CSOs and LGIs and address the project objectives of creating an example of the effectiveness of the co-creation model in public service delivery.
- Lead the capturing of learning and create a repository of knowledge for mainstreaming HCD among CSOs and LGIs.
- Lead the process of community education and engagement through various activities as per project design.
- Facilitate the representative organization reporting to the fund management agency and development partners as per requirements.
- Build partnerships with private sector and academia for their engagement in collaborative value creation.
- Manage relationship with leadership of LGIs for creating space for collaboration and co-creation.
- Identify collaboration partners, build partnership to leverage mutual strengths for spreading HCD in public and Ngo service delivery.
- Identify implementation risks and mitigation measures and applying the measures.
- Guide and facilitate the MEAL and communication team to capture data, produce knowledge products reports and communication products for promoting HCD in the mainstream development discourse.
- Build the team and steer the team towards result-oriented implementation with KPI.
Educational Requirements
Master’s Degree in any discipline from a reputed educational institution in Bangladesh or abroad. Candidate with a Bachelor’s degree may also apply; however, the educational requirement may be relaxed for highly experienced and competent candidates.
Experience Requirements
- Minimum 15 years of experience in product/service/program design for citizens, program management applying systems thinking and design thinking methodology.
- Experience in developing partnerships with national government, local government institutions and CSOs/NGOs at the national level and local level.
- Experience in developing partnerships with private actors and academia.
- Experience working with international development partners and understanding of meeting project requirements.
Required Competencies
- Fluent in professional oral and written communication in English and Bangla.
- Proven project management skills and experience.
- Proven leadership and teamwork skills
- Systems thinking and skills of developing product/service/program applying HCD methods and tools.
- International exposure to HCD will be an advantage.
- Expertise in conducting training, workshops, and capacity building programs applying modern methods and tools.
- Expertise in digital tools for application in project management, project design, project implementation, and communication.
- Advanced knowledge in compliance for projects with international funding and in national compliance requirements.
Employment Type: Full-time
Duration of appointment: Two (2) years
Duty Station: Dhaka with frequent field travel
Salary: BDT 200,000 – 250,000 monthly (based on experience and competency)
Reporting Relationship: The Senior Project Manager will report to the Technical Advisor and work in close collaboration with the project Coordinator.
Deadline: 12 September 2026 (Thursday, 11:59 PM)
APPLICATION PROCEDURE
- Interested individuals can send their CV/Resume to hr@isocial.com.bd
- Please keep the email subject: “Senior Program Manager, DISHA Project”
