Job Opportunities at African Wildlife Foundation

Description

As an international organization focused on Africa, AWF has a unique role to play supporting governments in Africa to achieve the sustainable development goals, with this AWF is expanding its partnerships with governments and key stakeholders globally. Given China has become one of the most significant influences on development in Africa, therefore, AWF has committed to engaging China to raise awareness of African wildlife and wild lands, the role China plays in the future of wildlife conservation and impacts China can have on the continent. To implement a successful engagement strategy with China, we are seeking a program assistant, China Relations, who will report to the Manager of External Relations, China and play a key role in supporting the implementation of AWF’s China engagement strategy; assist in communications planning, outreach and relationship building in China and with Chinese entities and partners in Africa; and support the establishment of the relationships with relevant African government institutions as well as Chinese government. This position will be based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Responsibilities

• Assist in conducting the research on Chinese government policy and activities that are relevant with Africa’s conservation and development.
• Support the implementation of AWF’s China strategy by working closely with the supervisor as well as with other AWF relevant departments.
• Assist with relationships building with relevant African government institutions including African embassies in China.
• Support the engagement with AWF key stakeholders in China such as government, leading zoos, academic institutions to enhance AWF’s profile and credibility in China.
• Working closely with AWF communication and marketing team to develop content regularly regarding China program, which will be updated on AWF Chinese and English website, social media.
• Support the event planning and logistic arrangement in China or Africa, such as AWF’s annual exhibition in China.
• Work closely with other AWF departments such as country directors as needed to obtain necessary support for the purpose of engagement with Chinese companies.
• Carry out any other relevant duties that may be assigned by supervisor from time to time.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree with a minimum of 1-2 years of experience working in the context of Chinese organizations that is related with public relations, communications or a closely related field.
• Knowledge of and a broad view of China, especially good understanding of China’s socio – economic and political matters.
• Candidates with knowledge on Africa conservation, wildlife and wildlands and Africa development preferred.
• Good ability to speak, write, edit in both Mandarin and English.
• Good ability in research and communications skills.
• Ability to multi-task in a fast-paced collaborative environment while prioritizing and managing multiple deadlines.

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Description

The Senior Manager, Youth Leadership Program, will manage and oversee AWF’s newly established Youth Leadership Program. Reporting to the Vice President- External Relations, the Senior Manager, Youth Leadership Program, will ensure that the Youth leadership program is designed and implemented most appropriately to the African context and meets AWF vision and strategy.

The senior program manager will work with youth networks to create a movement of young people for nature, who seek a development pathway in Africa that is sustainable, embracing conservation as fundamental and integral to Africa’s growth. In this respect, the role will facilitate a movement for nature of young people across Africa, beginning with AWF’s priority countries.

The senior program manager- will collaborate with like-minded partners to build the current and next generation of capable, principled, and dependable African leaders who champion and drive the narrative of conservation and sustainable development in their respective spheres of influence. The senior program manager will work with young African leaders towards influencing government policies and organizations consistent with sustainable development and a conservation narrative.

The senior program manager will seek to integrate and embed a youthful approach to AWF and its program delivery. The role will help ensure young people are engaged and involved in all vitalprocesses within AWF. The role will , support AWFs communications and marketing strategies, providing opportunities for powerful stories of change and voices of exemplary young people on key media platforms. The role will work closely with the policy team in facilitating spaces for young people to influence policies in ways that ensure nature thrives for future generations.

A vital function of the role will be establishing monitoring frameworks to track progress and evaluate results of program activities. To that end, the role will work closely with AWF monitoring and evaluation specialists towards quality assurance of AWF’s Youth portfolio.

The senior program manager will leverage existing relationships and create new and strategic partnerships to drive program goals. The incumbent will bring their expertise and experience to shaping of the existing youth leadership strategy and will contribute to the development of AWF leadership strategy. The role will be ultimately responsible for the development and implementation of a strong and effective youth leadership program portfolio in AWF.

Critical to this role’s success will be the ability to work across various departments within the organization, valuing tangible and intangible relationships between people to create value for the whole organization. This is an exciting and dynamic role for the right individual. Leadership, patience, the ability to listen, and a sense of humor will be critical success factors. The Senior Manager will interact with individuals at all levels of the organization, in a unique and high-profile role firmly placed at the core of AWF’s vision and culture.

Key responsibilities

Program Development

• Develop a 5-year youth Strategy and implementation plan aligned to AWF strategic plan.
• Develop, implement and oversee a portfolio of Youth leadership Program activities and ensure that services are delivered on time, on budget, and in compliance with donor regulations
• Ensure that the Youth Leadership program is implemented in ways responsive to communities, partners, and AWF’s principles, values, and strategic plan and compliant with AWF’s procedures
• Work with the staff to develop work-plans and follow up with team members regularly to ensure that activities are on track
• Monitor program progress against both programmatic and budgetary targets, making adjustments to program design as necessary
• Work with the policy units (Africa, China, Europe, US) to develop the next generation of leaders and to align and identify appropriate platforms to position the voice of African youth
• Work with the communications and marketing team to create a movement of young people for nature on the continent
• Work with the conservation strategy team to integrate a youth-led approach within program delivery and to identify appropriate future partners for implementation of the Youth Program
• Collaborate with the human resource department to ensure the Youth agenda is embedded within AWF policies and an enabling environment is in place to support young people

Partnership and Capacity

• Establish creative and innovative partnerships to deliver the youth leadership program
• Leveraging existing partner platforms for sharing, learning, and promotion of initiatives
• Support partnership modality by ensuring partner organizations are active members/participants in all operations cycle
• Conduct periodic review of annual plans to identify bottlenecks and the ways those bottlenecks could be addressed
• Support the development of capacity building plans for Youth program partners
• Provide regular coaching on technical and program management skills to field staff and other patters as needed
• Provide mentoring and role modelling for staff and partners on youth issues

Monitoring and Evaluation

• Actively monitor Youth leadership program activities, ensuring quality of AWF program
• In collaboration with the Knowledge management department, develop appropriate and additional institutional metrics and indicators as necessary to track Youth leadership Program progress
• Ensure appropriate, timely, and accurate data collection against agreed indicators to enable both internal and external reporting
• Support design and organization required for assessments, baselines, and evaluations, particularly in regards to communicating needs to the Youth Leadership Programs partners team, and participate where possible
• Make a relevant business intelligence analysis and adopt best practice and examples of well-executed projects, especially in the field of sustainability, which managed to mobilize massive youth engagement and capacity building and analyses success factors and opportunities

Fundraising. Marketing and Communications

• Collaborate with the communications and marketing teams in generating ideas for products and initiatives that tell and communicate the powerful stories of young people
• In collaboration with Policy Units, Program Design, Field Programs, Corporate Communications, develop proposals to fund the youth leadership program initiative
• Identify partnerships that can support AWF Youth Leadership Program

Requirements

• Advanced degree in (or bachelor’s degree and equivalent experience) in social sciences, international development, or other relevant fields;
• At least 8 + years of experience with Youth or Youth-Leadership centered programs.
• A good strong experience with leadership programs
• A strong understanding of the African context
• Strong organizing, facilitation, and networking capacities
• Strong ability for public speaking,representation and engagement
• Strong ability for networking, mobilizing and leading groups
• Ability to analyze information, evaluate options and to think and plan strategically
• Ability to write clear and well-argued assessment and project reports
• A team player who can work collaboratively and with people of diverse backgrounds
• Excellent writing, editing, and analytical skills. Written and spoken fluency in English required. French a plus
• Cultural sensitivity with strong interpersonal skills
• Understanding of basic financial principles, budgeting, and cost analysis;
• Strong leadership capacity including management of team resources (both financial and human), providing guidance and mentorship to junior staff and ensuring team’s delivery of goals
• Patience, listening skills, diplomacy, and a sense of humor
• Willingness to travel, sometimes to remote locations within Africa and
• Demonstrated commitment to conservation of wildlife and wild lands

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Description

This is a learning opportunity and the holder will work as part of the AWF HQ, Conservation Strategy, Knowledge Management and Impact team of the African Wildlife Foundation to support a culture and practice of reliable planning, monitoring, evaluation and reporting (M&E) in AWF.

Under the supervision and guidance of the Senior Manager: Knowledge Management, this position will, be updating the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) component of the AWF Project Management System, support the development of tools for building the capacity of AWF staff and partners in M&E, and promoting M&E knowledge transfer internally and externally to AWF. This is an exciting and dynamic short-term role for the right individual who is eager to learn and ensure that M&E concepts and capacity building effectively serve AWF staff, partners & the intern by adhering to AWF guidelines and policies.

Key duties and responsibilities:

Under the guidance and tutorage of the Senior Manager: Knowledge the intern will perform the following tasks

Contribute to setting up the Project Management System

• Maintain an up-to-date inventory of reliable, secondary data sources of key statistics to contribute to MEL, and to reduce the use of time and resources in primary data collection, as well as the negative impact (assessment fatigue).
• Support the Senior Officer: MEL to develop a plan for project-related capacity-building on project/program design, monitoring and evaluation concepts, skills and tools and any computer-based solutions that may be required within AWF landscapes.
• Collaborate with the teams to troubleshoot the operationalization of the MEL system and to ensure that it is timely updated.
• Ensure that the project management information system is fully up-to-date and alerts teams on any gaps.
• Conduct desktop Research, abstracting, and encoding to update MEL documents for internal learning;

Provide administrative support to the MEL team’s knowledge development needs.

Support implementation of Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability & Learning

• Work with Senior Manager: Knowledge Management to routinely perform quality assurance and control checks of MEAL component of the PM System,
• Maintain an up to date MEAL calendar for the team with clear dates of MEAL events within AWF,
• Send invitations to AWF staff for learning events such as the BAOBAB Baraza, Communities of Practice (CoPs) meetings and any other meetings within the unit and update with respect to all presenters and prepare all learning reports/ notes.
• Support the preparation, implementation and reporting of field monitoring activities for tracking of program implementation, feedbacking and/or validation of technical reports
• Play an important role in the review of progress reports and ensure they are evidence based.
• Champion the utilization of the collaborative, learning and adaptation approach to continually assess project performances to inform project management for decision-making.
• Ensure that mechanisms to ensure the accuracy of monitoring reports (from data gathering, monitoring and reporting templates and forms, analysis and reporting) are used by the end-users
• Work with Senior Manager: Knowledge Management to compile and communicate to AWF teams on lessons learned from landscape program/project M&E to improve quality of programming. This includes liaison with internal and external organizations to identify and distribute good M&E practices in M&E and contribute to knowledge sharing.

Communication of MEAL Outcomes

• Apply MEAL guidelines to document innovative MEAL practices;
• Assist with review and dissemination of these best practices to relevant audiences;
• Work with the field communications manager to design and compile digital stories for learning
• Participate in quality control for various reports: validation of data in reports against the data before compilation by teams
• Assist in data quality control check on routine monitoring data within the AWF Project Management System.

Research, Assessments, Surveys and Evaluation

• Assist in conducting initial desk research, data gathering, and analysis for strategy performance;
• Contributing inputs to design and methodology selection for various ad hoc studies;
• Participating in, and helping organize, consultations with stakeholders including documentation

Requirements

• Bachelors’ Degree in a social science, including Monitoring & Evaluation, Community Development, Economics, Development Studies, Statistics, Economics, Natural Resource management or any related field.
• Basic competency and experience in the design and implementation of MEAL in development/ conservation organizations.
• Knowledge and proficient use of Microsoft Office productivity tools.
• Experience in designing research tools and strategies for data collection, analysis, and production of reports; database management.
• Experience learning in a conservation setting is an advantage.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Very good people skills, flexible, organized and systematic, resourceful and creative, attention to details, team player, can work with minimum supervision and self-driven
• Above average presentation, facilitation and training skills.
• Interest and motivation in working in an international NGO;
• Good analytical skills in gathering and consolidating data and research for practical implementation;
• Outgoing and initiative-taking person with a goal-oriented mind-set;
• Communicates effectively when working in teams and independently;
• Good in organizing and structuring various tasks and responsibilities;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Responds positively to feedback and differing points of view;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude.