Africa - Programme Associate at Tony Blair Institute for Global Change

Job Description

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­The Africa Programme Associate is a new role created to support our Africa Executive Committee and Regional Directors to deliver TBI’s objectives across the continent.

The postholder will support coordination across the division’s matrixed structure including technical sector teams and geographic/regional structures.

You will work closely with Country Teams (including Country Heads and sector experts). The role provides a broad insight into TBI’s governance work in Africa and will focus on the analysis of geopolitical trends, project results and providing insight into how TBI can increase its impact across the region, scoping support to regional structures and policy initiatives. 

Although, country teams will stand-up implementation and delivery teams, you will guide and support teams to track progress and provide surge support as needed bringing familiarity of country programmes, objectives and key results, and regional knowledge.

This is an initial two-year fixed term role. The postholder can be based in either Accra, Nairobi or Ouagadougou.

Key Responsibilities

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­The key responsibilities of this role will include:

Programme management support in oversight of TBI’s portfolio of Africa projects

• Support regular country project budget, planning and strategy exercises, by providing quality assurance and conducting first reviews
• Provide direct inputs into dashboards to ensure timely management of the regional portfolio
• Review management accounts to track expenditure against budget
• Anticipate, identify and elevate challenges/roadblocks to Africa ExCo and internal stakeholders (e.g. Country Heads), proposing courses of action for consideration ​
• Input to strategic projects (including new initiatives and regional collaborations between country projects)
• Contribute to the development and iteration of the Africa-wide systems and processes and guide teams in their adoption

Delivery support to country projects on priority initiatives

• Support Country Heads and their teams in the completion of project design analyses from initial scoping through to project start-up, including support to work-planning
• Play a hands-on role in facilitating opportunity scoping and relationship building to enable the expansion of TBI to new geographies in Africa, including developing presentations for new country clients and senior government officials
• Support new projects in their inception phase and gap-fill to support implementation as in-country teams are put in place​

Support country project resource mobilisation through fundraising and people processes

• Review and contribute to country project fundraising and partnership proposals and track regional funding opportunities and progress
• Review recruitment proposals and ensure recruitment notices reach appropriate global networks
• Support the induction process of new joiners arriving in the region

Develop analyses and written inputs to briefs and presentations

• Provide political-economic monitoring and analysis of regional trends and events
• Contribute to and develop written briefs—including written briefing for our Executive Chairman—ahead of trips to the region or as part of regular project updates

Person Specification

The successful candidate should demonstrate the majority of the following:

• At least three years’ experience as an advisor or project manager in a consulting firm, foundation/NGO, or private sector organization supervising and executing across multiple workstreams simultaneously
• Experience with international development, public sector, and technology for development programming is highly desired
• Demonstratable strength in project management, structured problem solving, top-down communication, and portfolio thinking
• Excellent communication skills, from executive office level through to technical level, and who is adept at speaking to senior leadership, knows how to navigate ambiguous environments and is comfortable at managing up and beyond hierarchy  
• Experience developing executive and senior level briefings for internal and external audiences
• Experience in maintaining dashboards to facilitate nimble performance tracking and coordination
• Insatiable curiosity; great taste in data, with a proven ability to process and triangulate it; attention to detail
• Direct experience working in LMICs is highly desired
• Experience in working in entrepreneurial and matrixed environments and comfort working in ambiguity while closely collaborating with global functional and geographic teams
• Commitment to business objectives and pulling out the stops to make sure they are always met 
• Relevant language skills for the region highly desired

Candidates must have the right to work in either Accra, Nairobi or Ouagadougou.

About The Institute

The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) is a mission-driven not for profit organisation. We exist to equip political leaders and governments to build open, inclusive and prosperous societies. We work hard, every day, to make a difference. When governments work well they are able to create economic and social change in a way that promotes fairness, social justice and opportunity. We work relentlessly to support leader and governments with the challenges they face. Giving them practical solutions and actionable insights, that once implemented, can be transformative for their people  

We do this within two connected divisions: 

 Government Advisory 

Our Advisory Practice works directly with political leaders and governments around the world to implement reforms that improve the lives of their citizens. It has both non-profit partners and a client base and its outputs cover a range of disciplines and projects across countries in Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and South Asia. We are currently in a rapid expansion phase from c. 18 countries at present, to 30 by December 2022.

 Policy Futures 

Our Policy Futures work encompasses three broad areas: 

• Renewing the Centre: developing a bold and innovative domestic policy programme to help renew the centre ground of British politics; 
• Tech and Public Policy: exploring the policy challenges and opportunities presented by the technological revolution; and 
• Extremism Policy Unit: creating solutions designed to tackle the threat of extremist ideologies in the UK and around the world. 

As an organisation, the core beliefs we all embrace are: 

• Open and Progressive: you’ll believe in the value of teamwork 
• Bold and Pragmatic: you’ll approach everything you do with integrity and authenticity 
• Optimistic Changemaker: you’ll be focused on results 

TBI believes embracing diversity and inclusion make us a better place to work. It’s our goal to reflect everyone in society and we actively welcome applications from individuals and groups who are under-represented in the workplace. We celebrate difference be it ethnicity, religion, age, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation or disability. We will only ever assess you on your abilities and fit for a role. We’re happy to discuss any adjustments you need to ensure a level playing field during recruitment and, if you\'re successful, discuss any adjustments you might need to thrive in your role.