Program Officer at Agile and Harmonized Assistance for Devolved Institutions

Position Summary: The Program Officer – DFID 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 Program Officer – DFID 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 report directly to the DFID Team Lead and work closely with the Programs, Grants and Monitoring and Evaluation and Learning teams.

She/he will support the Chief of Party and the respective members of the Senior Management Team and Program Team Leads in the timely, quality performance and delivery of the overall AHADI Program.

Reports to: Program Lead – DFID

Key Responsibilities

The incumbent will report to the AHADI Program Lead.

S/he will:

• Assist the DFID Program Team Lead and team members to initiate and build relationships with government officials (National, Intergovernmental and County entities).
• Ensure that the Team Lead is well apprised on changes in the operating context so that in turn, the TL can consider adjustment to programming and in turn can appraise the SMT for the necessary appraisal of the project donor’s changes to respond.
• 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 preparation and implementation of the AHADI DFID (and USAID) work plan, monitoring and evaluation and reporting against the DFID results framework and preparing consolidating for submissions for briefing and reporting to DFID (and USAID as necessary) as well as to beneficiaries.
• 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 report on activities, track results and harvest outcomes; and prepare reports, document and 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 DFID, USAID and other development partners, for Inter-Governmental sharing, and for collaboration with other civil society.
• Monitor the Program Management System and 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

Personal Specifications:

Essential

• Advanced degree (Masters,) in a governance-related field,
• At least 5 – 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 DFID and USAID-funded programs (preferably governance 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 Government of Kenya 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.

Languages: English language fluency required.

Skills and Abilities

• Diplomacy and negotiation when working with community and Government representatives.
• Ability to work in a multi-cultural environment.
• Ability to identify institutional needs e.g. capacity gaps and design appropriate interventions
• Project cycle management.
• Strong interpersonal communication skills i.e. ability to build strong relationships with partner counties.
• Good management skills.