Senior Policy Specialist at TechnoServe Kenya

Key Roles & Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership – Food Systems Policy Influencing:

• With guidance from the Chief of Party (COP), DCOP and Senior Food Systems Manager, provide strategic guidance, leadership, management, and general technical oversight of policy influencing activities in the LFS’s zone of influence.
• Support initial market assessment and strategy development, including serving as the primary liaison for policy and governance short-term technical experts
• Generate innovative ideas, and effectively manage partnerships especially with public sector actors to drive program success at the national level and within the regions.
• Build and implement capacity building interventions and institutional strengthening for national-level private sector organizations to assess, participate in or advocate for enabling policy environments.
• Continuously assess the current state of policy imperatives affecting local food system(s), relevant value chains, and market dynamics and identify new strategic opportunities to expand the impact of the project through policy influence.

Strategic Leadership – Stakeholder engagement and capacity building:

• Develop and maintain relationships with national and county level public and private sector stakeholders in agriculture and health sectors etc. relevant to the Kenyan food system.
• Work with stakeholders to co-create policy interventions that strengthen the production, processing, distribution, and access components of the regional food systems
• Facilitate public-private dialogue between county governments and private agribusinesses
• Develop, adapt, and oversee implementation of governance self-assessment and participatory tools
• Build capacity of county governments to make productive investments in agriculture and utilize data to drive decision-making;
• Provide ongoing support to government counterparts to implement action plans and evaluate investments; Organize cross-county learning and exposure visits.
• Independently and with the regional implementation teams, to support the development and relationship management of county and inter-county level partnerships
• Facilitate multi-stakeholder coordination, joint planning, and collaborative problem-solving
• Engage with external stakeholders to build essential partnerships, as determined by the COP, DCOP and the Senior Food Systems Manager

Program Management:

• Support the development (at the technical integration team) and coordination (at the regional team level) and implementation of policy-related activities in the execution of project work plans, and budgets,
• Work closely with the CLA Unit and Finance and Admin units to ensure alignment of resources, activities, and key performance indicators related to policy engagement.
• Support the development schedules, tools, and processes for deploying a robust policy engagement strategy;
• Develop, design and oversee grant activities that support policy influencing or strengthening;
• Identify issues and risks related to implementation promptly, suggesting appropriate program adjustments
• Lead, or in supporting role, manage, contribute to, and provide quality control to data analysis and report writing at technical national integration team level.

Capacity Building and Support:

• Support sub-awards and grantees in intervention design and operational management.
• Collaborate with the National Integration Team to provide Food and market systems coaching and guidance to program staff and partners

Monitoring and Evaluation and Reporting:

• Work with the Monitoring and Evaluation, and CLA unit to document and disseminate lessons learned, best practices, and project impacts to inform future initiatives
• Collaborate with the M&E team to monitor and evaluate program progress.
• Support or contribute to knowledge management activities including writing articles on project developments, learning or opinion pieces.

Innovation and Best Practices:

• Develop innovative approaches to enhance TechnoServe's work and share these innovations to promote the adoption of best practices within the organization.

Representation and Networking:

• Represent the program at networking events with private and public sector actors, as per the guidance of the COP and DCOP

Miscellaneous

• Perform other related duties as required to contribute to the program's success.

Desired Qualifications and Experience

• Minimum Masters degree in agricultural economics, agribusiness, business administration, agriculture, international development or relevant field, or equivalent work experience.
• 5-7 years of experience in policy influence and advocacy preferably within US government funded activities, project management, food systems development, market systems, and/or community resilience programming, preferably in a rural, developing context
• Strong background in agricultural/livestock value chains, natural resource management, climate change adaptation, and/or social protection
• Demonstrated track record of building and managing strong client and stakeholder relationships, including with government, civil society and private sector
• Strong gender leadership, supervisory, problem-solving, communication, and coordination skills required.
• Demonstrated commitment to advancing gender equality.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and problem-solving skills
• Willingness to travel extensively within LFS Eastern Kenya zone of influence,
• Proven ability to develop strategies and conduct analysis on complex commercial questions
• Experience in authoring concise and well-written reports and presentations
• Demonstrated competency in program and staff management, coaching, and team leadership
• Experience working on donor-funded projects is preferred.
• Strategic and analytical thinking skills
• Exceptional interpersonal and cross-cultural skills
• Fluent user of MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint