Program Consultant at Mastercard Foundation

THE OPPORTUNITY

Reporting to the Program Lead, Education and Skills, the Program Consultant will be responsible for development and implementation for a portfolio of skilling and training programs targeting young people not in the formal education system, also called Not in employment, Education, or Training (NEETS). This is aligned with Foundation’s Young Africa Works priorities. S/he will provide expertise and interacts with senior levels of partner organizations and ecosystem stakeholders to advance the development and delivery of the Foundation’s country strategy.

This consultant contract will last 1 year renewable.

WAYS YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE

• Lead the development and co-creation of education and skilling /NEETS interventions.
• Engage with mandated stakeholders and young people to co-create opportunities linking/ enabling young people completing skilling /NEETS programs access to dignified and fulfilling work. 
• Integrate impact considerations to ensure the needs of young women and young people in general are addressed within the program design.
• Collaborate with Country Program team in development of strategies relevant to Young Africa Works and their interlinkages to skilling NEETS. 
• Lead implementation of portfolio of skilling NEETS interventions. 
• Extract, capture and communicate details to elaborate progress and learnings from programs.
• Collaborate with Country Program team to leverage synergistic opportunities to enhance Impact/outcomes of Young Africa Works programs.
• Provide NEETs skilling expertise to support Foundation colleagues leading programming across the relevant economic sectors and value chains. 
• Represent the Foundation’s interest in program governance activities to provide oversight or elevate and leverage learnings. 
• Work with implementation partners and beneficiaries to contribute towards systematic learning and reflection processes to enable continuous adaptive management of the program. 
• Collaborate and guide implementation partners in identifying and overcoming barriers to team effectiveness by sharing knowledge and learnings and offering insights and solutions to challenges.
• Provide perspective and expertise on emerging issues and trends in NEETs Skilling and keep abreast of developments.
• Identify challenges and opportunities in the NEETs Skilling space relevant to all relevant economic sectors in Kenya. 
• Build and maintain relationships with key stakeholders at country and global-level, communities of practice.
• Lead matrixed/cross functional team in myriad of activities related to co-design and implementation phase. 
• Supervise colleagues and/junior staff experts by providing coaching and necessary support for success.

WHO YOU ARE

• Bachelor’s degree in education, social sciences, or a youth development or related field and a relevant professional qualification.
• Member of a relevant professional body.
• Minimum of ten (10) years’ relevant experience in a similar organization with three (3) at supervisory level.
• Strong understanding of issues, challenges, and trends in and design and implementation of NEETS in Kenya. 
• Program development and execution in the non-profit or public sectors with a focus on NEETS and workforce development training. 
• Skills or workforce development program development and execution, focused on low-income youth. 
• Demonstrated ability to lead diagnostic and analytic work as well as project design, partner identification and implementation. 
• Experience working with or in partnership with non-profit, private, or public sectors, particularly in a role relating to skills development in Kenya.
• Command of quantitative and qualitative skilling and labour market analysis techniques. 
• Excellent project management skills, including multi-stakeholder projects with community centres, county governments, senior levels of government and the private sector. 
• Knowledge of skills and workforce development aligned with one or more growth sectors (e.g., agri-food systems, Digitally Enabled work, hospitality, manufacturing, construction, creative industries) would be an asset. 
• Knowledge in skills and workforce development financing approaches is an added advantage. 
• Solid experience and knowledge in skills development issues surrounding vulnerable groups (e.g., rural young women, refugee or displaced youth, youth with disabilities etc.). 
• Flexible, adaptable, and able to execute a range of job duties and changing priorities.
• Possess excellent verbal, written, and presentation skills with the ability to articulate information to a variety of constituents across cultures.
• Possess professional maturity, sensitivity with different cultures, and impeccable integrity that exemplify the Foundation’s values.
• Demonstrate a commitment to Mastercard Foundation’s values and vision.