Government Engagement Lead at Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA)

Job Description

The Market Strengthening team’s mission is to foster the development of a pipeline of sustainable, scalable, and investable clean cooking businesses that are able to attract capital to scale and replicate, accelerating the transition to cleaner cooking technologies that meet consumers’ needs. The three areas of interventions of the Market Strengthening team include the Venture Catalyst, the Market Catalyst, and the Demand Catalyst. The Venture Catalyst focuses on improving the pipeline of investment-ready businesses through business-level interventions; the Market Catalyst focuses on improving the enabling environment that helps such businesses succeed through market-level interventions; and the Demand Catalyst focuses on understanding consumers and driving demand through interventions targeted at consumers. Gender is a core and cross-cutting theme of the three Catalysts. The Government Engagement Lead will join the Market Strengthening team to contribute to the identification, design, and implementations of interventions that seek to improve country-level enabling institutional and policy environments for strong and sustainable clean cooking markets in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Government Engagement Lead will be expected to work heavily through partnerships so as to leverage other institutions and efforts and scale the reach and depth of CCA’s work. Partners might include country level clean cooking associations, trade, manufacturing and other industry bodies, civil society organizations, enterprises, advocacy organizations, and international organizations.

The Government Engagement Lead will also work closely with the Strategy and Development team, the Evidence and Impact team as well as with the Chief of Staff on strategic cross-cutting CCA government-related initiatives relevant to the work of the Market Strengthening team.

Location

This is a contract position based in Kenya.

Essential Functions

Country-level interventions

1. Assessing gaps and needs for national policy environments that support dynamic clean cooking markets in collaboration with the Evidence and Impact team, in Sub-Saharan Africa
2. Designing and implementating of CCA’s Government Engagement strategies for awareness-raising, policy reforms, institutional development, governance and programmatic public interventions around clean cooking market development in specific countries, in collaboration with the Evidence and Impact team, in Sub-Saharan Africa
3. Engaging with and supporting the mobilization of civil society and private sector actors and institutions around clean cooking policy issues in collaboration with the Evidence and Impact team, in Sub-Saharan Africa
4. Supporting the Country Director and government engagement team of CCA’s Haiti Cookstoves and Clean Energy Markets project

Multi-country Sub-Saharan Africa interventions

1. Identifying, scoping and designing opportunities for new national policy initiatives for the Market Strengthening team and for cross-cutting CCA areas
2. Playing an important role in the development, roll-out and implementation of a Clean Cooking Delivery Units Network. The locally run delivery units will coordinate across relevant ministries, organize and oversee funding, engage industry and private sector, establish policies and regulations related to clean cooking, and represent national interests in global events and dialogue.
3. Developing public resources for clean cooking market development for policymakers, such as tools, platforms, databases, knowledge briefs and networks as well as contributing to and acting as the main touchpoint and driver of the User Insights Lab for policymakers in close collaboration with the Evidence and Impact team.

General

1. Developing a strategy for the Market Strengthening team’s support to Sub-Saharan Africa governments, in line with the Clean Cooking Sector Strategy
2. Monitoring national clean cooking policy developments and government action and acting as an internal and external go-to point, knowledge disseminator, and thought leader in this area
3. Developing partnerships for engaging with national policymakers around clean cooking
4. Designing and facilitating workshops with key stakeholders for the purpose of multi-stakeholder coordination, multi-stakeholder problem-solving, and co-creation
5. Translating evidence into policy insights and recommendations through various means
6. Supporting the work of the Clean Cooking Evidence and Action Hub, including by providing insights on policymaker needs
7. Support the implementation of the Clean Cooking System Strategy in the Market Strengthening Team
8. Other duties as assigned

Selection Criteria

1. Graduate degree and at least 10 years of related professional experience required
2. Practical work experience with market development / industrial development / private sector development policies and programs in Sub-Saharan Africa
3. Practical experience with the mechanics of policy transformation processes, including policy prioritization, policy design, and policy implementation
4. Practical experience navigating complex policy-making and policy implementation environments in Sub-Saharan Africa
5. Experience providing policy advice to and interfacting with mid- and high-level government officials (e.g. Minster level), particularly in areas of energy, health and/or industrial development
6. Experience with the facilitation of multi-stakeholder collaboration and co-creation processes involving government, the private sector and civil society
7. Ability to cultivate effective working relationships with people, internally and externally, from a wide variety of types of organizations, cultural backgrounds, and areas of expertise
8. Ability to translate technical reports and academic papers into concise policy implications and guidance
9. Demonstrated project management skills, including managing teams and budgets on a tight timeline
10. Experience in low and middle income countries, that conveys credibility amongst stakeholders including senior management teams of companies, investors, government officials, and other ecosystem professionals, particularly among those working towards social and environmental impact
11. Demonstrated interest in the social and environmental impact dimensions of the products and business models that CCA supports, and the ability to liaise and collaborate with other colleagues within CCA and those in the sector at large
12. Energetic and positive attitude
13. Experience using data to drive policy recommendation and action
14. Solutions-oriented and able to manage and advance multiple task and responsibilities in a dynamic, fast-paced environment
15. Strategic thinking
16. Attention to detail and strong organizational skills
17. Problem-solver with a proactive, no-task-is-too-small nature who takes initiative
18. Team-oriented, supportive work style, and able to work independently
19. Excellent communicator, able to synthesize and convey complex information clearly in written an oral forms, in particular development of visual assets to present design findings
20. Excellent judgment and creative problem-solving skills, including negotiation and conflict resolution skills
21. Ability to work under pressure and handle stress
22. High ethical standards and ability to maintain confidentiality and discretion with sensitive information
23. A track record of designing tools for policymakers
24. Experience with design thinking preferred
25. Experience working on market development, public health, policy development, energy access, clean cooking fuels, and cookstoves in low and middle income countries preferred
26. Experience working in a government agency and as a policy entrepreneur preferred
27. Experience with public sector innovation preferred
28. Entrepreneurial experience in the private or non-profit sectors preferred
29. Ability to work in French preferred but not required