County Delivery Strategic Advisor at Tony Blair Institute for Global Change

Key Responsibilities

Accountability:

Set and report on the strategic direction of the Kenya Project at county level

• Develop the strategic direction for county delivery support based on TBI’s mission and approach within the Kenyan context.
• Look at how the wider TBI model can be applied at the county level and test and learn quickly to meet devolved governance needs.
• Contribute to the annual strategy setting process for delivery support at the county level and the quarterly review process.

Fundraising

• Understand fundraising and business development market requirements by mapping donor opportunities amongst a wide group of devolution stakeholders.
• Build and maintain relationships with development partners concerned with devolution and county service delivery to inform workstream to ultimately to secure project funding.

Relationship Management:

Create/maintain/grow relationships with principal stakeholders based on trust and high-quality delivery

• Build relationships with Governors, Deputy Governors, County Secretaries, and other civil servants within devolved government administrations to identify county specific priorities
• Deploy resources outside of the team – to wider TBI colleaguesthe TBI delivery practices from a devolved perspective and strategic partnerships within TBI’s network etc. – to support the Project where appropriate. (needs to be reworded)

Provide strategic delivery advisory to Governors and other senior officials within county governance structures on key technical issues

• Support Governors and devolved governance administrations on resource mobilization efforts to plug resource gaps within the County Development Agenda.
• Strengthen the offices of Governors to ensure effective management of their time, information flow and directives
• Support the county level financial, administrative and logistical functions to strengthen public-private partnerships in line with the delivery of the Devolved Development Agenda.

Strong delivery through your team

• Ensure strong teamwork across delivery advisors who may be onboarded to provide sector specific delivery support to the 47 county governments, and provide support as needed to team members.
• Contribute to the planning and evaluation cycle that regularly assesses whether the strategy is ‘working’, and adapt rapidly in response to new challenges and opportunities.
• Be the interface between the county level team and the rest of the Kenya Project by representing the team’s views and communicating issues and priorities from the rest of the Organisation to the team.

Person Specification

We are looking for an outstanding individual with a proven track record of leadership and delivery in the public or private sectors. All candidates will be required to have significant experience in a leadership role, managing small to medium teams and project budgets.

The requirements are:

• Experience working with African governments, particularly Kenya; prior experience engaging with leaders at the devolved level would be an advantage.
• The ability to work and interact at the highest levels of political decision-making structures; strong political acumen, judgement and discretion.
• Experience in liaising with the private sector, and key stakeholders (e.g. donors) to deliver the requirements of the role, including a realistic fundraising strategy for the county workstream.
• An ability to work independently, think strategically and translate strategies into concrete and implementable plans; strong attention to detail with excellent analytical, organisational, and communication skills.
• Strong sense of ethics and resilience, inter-personal skills and proven ability and experience leading and managing people.
• Strong familiarity with project development and project management and the principles of delivery in a government context, and in devolved systems of governance.
• Experience of living and working in developing countries highly desirable.
• Willingness to travel in-country, sometimes at short notice.
• Fluency in English is required. Swahili would be advantageous.
• Right to live and work in Kenya required.