Program Manager | LifeTree Bangladesh – Sundarbans

Job Description

Title: Program Manager | LifeTree Bangladesh – Sundarbans

Company Name: The Earth

Vacancy: 1

Age: Na

Job Location: Dhaka

Salary: Negotiable

Experience: --

Published: 2026-08-19

Application Deadline: 2026-08-24

Education:

Requirements: --

Skills Required:

Additional Requirements:

Responsibilities & Context:

The Earth Society (TES) is a youth-centric NGO working on climate action, green skills development, sustainable entrepreneurship, and advocacy in Bangladesh. Through its programmes, TES weaves together capacity building, ecosystem restoration, and livelihood development to nurture an inclusive ecosystem of resilience and regeneration.

Project Description

LifeTree Bangladesh – Sundarbans is a regenerative agroforestry and reforestation initiative implemented by The Earth Society, in partnership with Sundori Agro and Mother Trees, and funded by Ecosia. The project facilitates the plantation of climate-resilient trees through homestead agroforestry, live fencing, and social forestry across the coastal districts of Khulna and Bagerhat, along the ecological buffer zone of the Sundarbans

— helping restore degraded landscapes, strengthen climate resilience, and build sustainable livelihoods for coastal communities.

Job Purpose

The Program Manager provides overall leadership, coordination, and management of the LifeTree Bangladesh – Sundarbans project, ensuring that reforestation, agroforestry, and social forestry targets across Khulna and Bagerhat districts are achieved on time, within budget, and to a high quality standard.

The Program Manager oversees the project's technical implementation through the Technical Specialist (who in turn leads the Technical Officers and Field Technicians), leads collaboration with local stakeholders, work planning and budget management, coordinates closely with funding and implementing partners, and represents the LifeTree Bangladesh – Sundarbans program, on behalf of The Earth Society.

Key Responsibilities

Program Leadership and Implementation

• Lead overall implementation of the LifeTree Bangladesh – Sundarbans project, ensuring homestead agroforestry, mangrove restoration and social forestry activities are delivered on time, within budget, and to a high quality standard.

• Play a key leadership role in team building, work planning, implementation management, and reporting for the project.

• Ensure activities outlined in project work plans and implementation schedules (e.g., the project Gantt chart) are completed according to timeline, budget, and quality benchmarks.

• Provide overall management oversight and support to the Technical Specialist, the Technical Officers, and Field Technicians and coordinate closely with institutional staff, such as HR, procurement, etc.

• Identify and proactively address bottlenecks impacting the speed or quality of program delivery, escalating to TES leadership and Mother Trees as appropriate.

• Participate in regular management calls with Mother Trees, presenting program progress, key challenges, and proposed solutions.

Partner and Stakeholder Coordination

• Coordinate closely with funding and implementing partners, including Mother Trees and Sundori Agro, to ensure alignment of project goals, timelines, and reporting requirements.

• Represent The Earth Society and the LifeTree Sundarbans project with relevant government bodies and other stakeholders and lead high-level visits with donors and partner representatives.

• Lead local collaboration efforts to ensure smooth implementation of mangrove restoration and social forestry component.

• Facilitate effective coordination among the project team and partners to ensure shared understanding of activities, expectations, and compliance with work plans.

Budget and Grant Management

• Oversee project budget planning, tracking, and expenditure against the approved budget, flagging variances and reallocation needs to TES leadership.

• Review and approve monthly financial summaries prepared by TES finance team before submission to Mother Trees COO; provide a brief narrative explanation of any budget variances exceeding 10% and proposed corrective actions.

• Monitor budget health throughout the program period and proactively identify savings that can be reprogrammed toward additional program activities, in coordination with Mother Trees.

• Ensure compliance with donor agreements, grant requirements, and TES's financial and administrative policies.

• Support procurement and financial planning for major project inputs (e.g., seedlings, nursery materials, training, and field activities).

Monitoring, Reporting, and Quality Assurance

• Oversee the project's monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEAL) framework, ensuring quality data collection and reporting across the technical and field teams.

• Analize LifeTree badge assessment data across enrolled farmers, ensuring results are used to target additional support and inform adaptive management decisions.

• Review and consolidate technical and progress inputs from the Technical Specialist and project team to prepare timely donor and management reports.

• Conduct regular coordination and review meetings with the project team to review progress, address problems, and take corrective measures as needed.

• Document lessons learned and support the project's contribution to organizational learning and future proposal development.

Team Leadership and People Management

• Provide overall leadership, mentorship, and performance management for the project team, ensuring capacity building and skills strengthening to continually improve program implementation and maintain staff morale.

• Facilitate a learning environment, supporting pause and reflection opportunities with staff and participants to understand what is working and what is not, and use data to ensure adaptive management reflects the needs of the program.

• Foster a collaborative, safe, and accountable working environment across the technical and field teams.

As per project policy