Position: Senior Program Officer
Background
Information: The Agile and Harmonized Assistance
for Devolved Institutions (AHADI) is a five year USAID program implemented by
the State University of New York’s (SUNY) Center for International Development
(CID).
AHADI
is funded by both USAID and DFID. The program is designed to support Kenya’s
vision and agenda for achieving the promise of devolution.
AHADI
has three main objectives;
1.
Targeted counties provide higher
quality services through improved governance
2.
Improved representation of citizen
interests and oversight of targeted county government performance
3.
Functionality and effectiveness of
the devolved system increased through intra-government engagement and
cooperation.
AHADI
is primarily a Democracy Rights and Governance (DRG) program focused on improving
the governance of Kenya’s new decentralized system.
It
is an integrated governance program that uses sector entry points to achieve
both governance and sector outcomes. These sectors include but are not limited
to good governance, resilience and economic growth, education, climate change
and disaster risk reduction.
The
program is currently seeking a skilled, diplomatic, effective, and highly
motivated Senior Program officer
Position
Summary: The Senior Program Officer for AHADI conceptualizes, designs,
and coordinates a range of interventions to build the capacity of Kenyan
institutions at the county and national level, including but not limited to:
the Council of Governors; the County Executives; the County Assemblies, the
County Assemblies Forum and diverse governmental and non-state actors.
Since
many of AHADI’s interventions will be implemented through its grants facility,
the Senior Program Officer will contribute to the drafting and design of grant
proposals and contribute to in-kind grants and other supports to governmental
and quasi-governmental organizations, developing synergies and constructive
engagement between AHADI and Kenya’s devolved institutions.
She/he
will also support the Chief of Party and Senior Grants Manager in the technical
support of grantees in respect to timely, quality performance.
Reports
to: Chief of Party
Interrelationships: COP; DCOP, Program Officer, Sector Heads, Procurement Manager;
Senior Grants Manager, M&E specialist, Communication Specialist; other
program staff as necessary.
Qualifications:
·
Advanced degree (Masters, ) in a
governance-related field,
·
At least 7 years of experience in
progressively responsible experience in designing, implementing and managing
governance programs in Kenya
·
Demonstrated experience managing
successful teams comprised of experienced professionals
·
Demonstrated results based program
management, strategic planning, and problem solving skills working on complex
projects in a highly sensitive environment are required.
·
Experience with USAID-funded programs
·
Ability to work effectively with a
broad range of Kenyan elected officials, technocrats and leaders from civil
society.
·
Ability to work both independently
and in a team environment to achieve consensus on strategies, activities and
administrative matters is a must.
·
Demonstrated outstanding oral
communication skills, tact and diplomacy in establishing and sustaining working
relationships with high-level GoK officials and building a high level of trust
with public/private organizations.
·
Demonstrated oral communication
skills in negotiating activity plans and resolving activity implementation
issues with AHADI partners, government counterparts, and team members
·
Excellent written communication
skills are required to contribute to consultants’ Terms of Reference, regular
and ad hoc project reports, snapshots, lessons learned and briefing notes.
·
Excellent computer skills (MS Word,
Excel, Power Point, and Outlook)
·
Training and or experience in an
education-related field is an added advantage.
Responsibilities:
The
incumbent will report to the AHADI Chief of Party.
S/he
will:
·
Assist the AHADI COP and staff
members to initiate and build relationships with government officials
(National, Parastatal, and County).
·
Collaborate with senior staff of
AHADI and implementing partners, to coordinate activities and to identify
appropriate interventions. This includes ensuring that AHADI is aware of all
devolution activities that the partners are implementing,
·
Contributes to the development of
grants strategies and negotiates technical scopes of work for grants; and
coordinates support to governmental and other partners.
·
Prepare regular brief activity
reports and updates, and contribute to activities under his/her purview to
AHADI progress reporting and activity/M&E
·
Support the implementation of the
AHADI work plan, including consolidating for submission to USAID, tracking, and
updating.
·
Maintain and ensure the ongoing
development of an appropriate framework for partner activity coordination
·
Maintaining regular communication
with AHADI Partners
·
Maintain regular communication with
other development partners, Government entities (National, Non-State Actors,
and County).
·
Coordinate with the M&E team to
ensure that lessons learned are used to adjust activity implementation
·
Monitor and advise on the program
learning tools and websites, internally for AHADI team, for collaboration with
USAID and other development partners, for inter-governmental sharing, and for
collaboration with other civil society.
·
Monitor the Activity Database to
ensure that all information is being captured and that the M&E team and
communications team are accessing the information.
·
Any other task as assigned by COP or
DCOP
Location: The Senior Program Officer will be based in the AHADI Nairobi
office.
Travel: Travel in country is expected. Transportation, accommodations
and per diem will be provided by the project in accordance with AHADI and USAID
regulations.
It
is anticipated that in the travel will be between 40%-50%.
If
you possess the skills and qualifications as contained in the respective
position descriptions, please send
(1)
a Cover letter
(2)
CV and
(3)
References from three Professional Referees, one referee should be previous or
current supervisor
to
hr@ahadi-devolution.org
Closing
date: 18th November 2016.
Please
note only short listed candidates will be contacted.
Kindly
put the subject line for the position you are applying for.
Applications
without the subject line will not be evaluated.
SUNY-AHADI
is an equal opportunities employer.