BACKGROUND

Government of Sindh under its Sindh Enhancing Response for Reduction of Stunting Project, aims to contribute to a significant improvement in nutrition in the province, by increasing and expanding coverage of multi-sectoral interventions. It comprises objectives and expected outcomes related to the underlying causes (by sectors) of stunting: health, population, sanitation and hygiene, agriculture, social protection and education.

A pilot nutrition-focused Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme in targeted districts and is being led by the newly-established Social Protection Strategy Unity (SPSU) in the Chief Minister’s Secretariat.  The pilot aims to increase the uptake of existing health and nutrition services focused on the first 1000 days of life including ante-natal check-ups, safe deliveries, post-natal care, growth monitoring and immunization of children through the provision of a regular and predictable cash transfer at various trigger points.  The pilot will help to develop the nascent capacity of the SPSU and offer lessons for scaling up.  Key mandates and functions of the SPSU include project design, social protection operations such as social mobilization, communication, enrolment, compliance verification, payment, and grievance redress through the provincial Social Registry, as well as monitoring, evaluation and lesson-learning and planning for scaling up.

PROFILE OF THE POSITION

The Senior MIS Specialist will lead the design and oversee the operation of SPSU’s MIS with the support of internal and external technical resources.S/he will prepare an MIS strategy and plan in accordance with the immediate and long-term MIS requirements of SPSU operational requirements and priorities, as described in project documents and in consultation with Coordinator to CM for SP and the Project Director.  S/he will ensure placement and operation of an efficient MIS system for connectivity of the nutrition-focused CCT as well as other programmes functioning under SPSU. S/he will lead an in-house MIS team, mentor and build in-house MIS capacity, and will be responsible for liaison with external consultants and other stakeholders on all technical matters relating to the MIS requirements of SPSU.  The Senior MIS Specialist will report to the Coordinator to CM for SP through Project Director.

RESPONSIBILITIES

The specific responsibilities of the Senior MIS Specialist include:

• Develop an overarching MIS Strategy and Plan for addressing SPSU requirements and priorities in the immediate and long-term, including the nutrition-focused CCT, in line with project documents and in consultation with the Coordinator and PD.
• Develop an MIS framework to monitor the implementation of all institutional and programmatic activities through internal and external partners/entities.
• Work efficiently (extract, transform, clean) with large volumes of data that may be extracted from multiple systems into a central repository.
• Create a backup and recovery plan consistent with industry best practices.
• Create a system that minimizes the risk of security breaches and follows up effectively in case a breach does occur
• Development and Implementationof financial MIS that includes:
• Monitors and recordsthe transactionsin multiple LCY, FCY accountsoperated within SPSU.
• Electronic Procurement System within SPSU that fulfils the necessary pre-procurement requirements for relevant sections of SPSU, integratedwith FMIS for swift and transparent operations.
• Electronic Archiving System for record keeping of Financial and Procurement activities of SPSU.
• Providing Technical Support to the Finance Section for complete reconciliation of different operational accounts within SPU during end of every FY (Financial Year).
• Liaison with various audit stakeholders (e.g. AG Sindh, donors) on Data and  Electronically archived  records, reports of procurement and different LCY/FCY accounts for audit requirements if and when needed.
• Lead the MIS team of SPSU and supervise the development and implementation of MIS systems.Lead the MIS operations with the technical support of MIS team to ensure all SPSU sections have the necessary technical support available for efficient delivery of the tasks and information management.
• Development and Implementationof Single-page progress dashboard that links with above designed systems, the dashboard will provide all necessary information such as finance (different accounts and their heads with balance status), procurement detail and relevant data to SPSU management for effective decision making.
• Liaise with the key stakeholders on data sharing and on database related issues and solutions.
• Other MIS related tasks identified.

QUALIFICATION AND EXPERIENCE

• Masters degree in ManagementInformation System or equivalent.
• Minimum 10 years’ Experienceincluding 05Years’ Experiencein a lead MIS role in the public and/or private sector handling large volume client data.
• Certification in GIS/MIS (Management Information System) and (Geographic Information System) from an international organization will also be preferred.
• Should have sound experience of development and implementation of MIS and ERPSystemsin large volume client data environments such as large social sector programmes, commercial banking operations, public utilities and Telcos,with interfaces with data verification systems such as NADRA.
• Hands-on knowledge of MSSQL (on Windows) and PostGres/GIS databases on Ubuntu strong knowledge of complex viewswill be preferred.
• Should have excellent working command on ASP (Active Server Pages) and PHP (Hyper Text Processor) with MSSQL and PostGres/GIS integration on single system.
• Proven ability to work in a collaborative, multi-tier team environment; and Good communication, team management, and intra-personal skills.
• Written and oral fluency in Urdu and English.