Job Opportunities at Aga Khan Foundation

The position

Opportunity to work with a dynamic team

Are you a dynamic, pragmatic, and agile personality, able to think on your feet as you analyse complex situations on the fly, and looking for an exciting opportunity? Are you cut out to be team player, able to balance engagements with diverse partner organisations, interventions, across multiple geographies, and targeting the most marginalised communities in Eastern Africa? If yes, then apply for this position at Aga Khan Foundation, East Africa (AKF EA) to be based in Nairobi and reporting to the Senior Regional Awards Manager, while collaborating with a team of technical advisors, programme specialists, and consultants.

Overall Objectives
The Partnerships Coordinator will support the development of concept notes and proposals, grants management, implementation of projects to meet organisation and donor compliance requirements and progress reporting.

Main Duties and Responsibilities
 

Resource Mobilization (50%)

• Support in identifying and following up of funding leads and analyze resource mobilization trends in AKF East Africa.
• Identify funding needs/programmatic intervention opportunities (through regular interaction with AKF EA program staff) and update resource mobilization priorities accordingly.
• Support the maintenance and updating of resource mobilisation tools and tracking systems.  
• Support in development of concept notes and proposals through close collaboration with management and technical teams. 
• Lead application of project opportunity vetting and verify theme-specific opportunities, geographic alignment, and AKF EA strategic focus.
• Conduct due diligence of implementing partners in coordination with AKF EA finance and program teams.
• Contribute to partnership documentation including positioning pieces and communication materials (e.g., presentations, narrative overviews, donor visit briefs, etc.) designed to enable regular and effective engagement with various donors and partners.
• Prepare donor briefs and talking points for donor meetings, referencing latest donor strategies, field-level discussions and possible donor/AKDN matches to consider positioning during meetings.
• Coordinate weekly, monthly, and quarterly conference calls, organising the resource mobilisation tracker and relevant documents for specific units to support pipeline and grants management processes.
• Carry out any other duties as assigned by the Senior Regional Awards Manager

Grants Management and Compliance (50%)

• Support grant inception meetings to ensure donor and AKF compliance requirements including reporting deadlines, implementation period, amendments timing/ procedures, procurement, risk management, safeguarding, audit and other policies are well understood, and a plan is in place to ensure they are met.
• Coordinate the technical review of donor reports (quarterly, semi-annually, annually) and technical papers to ensure the highest quality possible in conformity to organizational and donor requirements on time and at a high standard.
• Work closely with programme and finance teams to strengthen overall grant management systems and processes.
• Support the roll out the Awards Management Information System (AIMS), and other systems, which allow for the centralized, online management of grants and pipelines, as well as the generation of a live dashboards for reporting, and senior management oversight.
• Support the effective dissemination of grant information so that all key contributing staff have a clear understanding of requirements and expectations throughout the life cycle of a grant (opportunity identification to project close out).
• Undertake coordination and administrative tasks related to grants, including collecting and forwarding information to different staff and country offices and any necessary follow up tasks specified.
• Support the maintenance and updating of grant management tools and tracking systems.

The requirements

• Minimum Bachelor’s Degree in international development, development studies, or other relevant fields.
• 3-5 years’ experience in international development, humanitarian assistance, or within a donor context.
• Demonstration of knowledge of program design; grant acquisition and management; and cross-functional coordination.
• Experience in developing and writing proposals, budget plans, concept papers, briefs, and executive summaries, and coordinating multiple inputs from a variety of sources, simultaneously managing a variety of relationships.
• Technical competency in compiling and editing compliance reports, and presentations. Exceptionally strong communication skills in English, both written and oral.
• High analytical skills and the ability to assimilate and process information on a wide range of issues, excellent writing, communication, and financial analysis skills. Agile thinker and able to work within and through systems.
• Respectful of diversity; sensitive toward others in their context, situation, and challenges; pluralistic, open, and understanding toward other people’s cultures, values, autonomy, and faiths; demonstrates compassion and empathy; is courteous to others with respect for their background, religion, ethnic, social, cultural, gender, and age
• Team player, collaborates effectively to create a culture of knowledge sharing and team learning to strengthen business performance
• Committed to acting ethically and upholding safeguarding standards towards all staff, volunteers, and beneficiaries of the organisation.
• Strong IT skills, including Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, Word, Outlook, SharePoint, Databases, etc).

go to method of application »

The position

About AKF’s Education Programme
As an international development agency, AKF work in partnership with a global network of local government schools, government education actors and systems, and civil society actors within education systems to co-develop and test affordable and scalable evidence-based models about how best to create quality, equitable learning environments and improve holistic learning outcomes for the most marginalised children. In Kenya, AKF delivers the Education Improvement Programme in the Coast Region. In partnership with a global consortium of private foundations, AKF is implementing Schools2030, a 10-year (2020-2030) programme aimed at improving learning outcomes. The ten-year initiative is a participatory action research programme in 1000 government schools across the ten countries. Using the principles of Human-Centred Design (HCD) and focusing on the key transition years, Schools2030 seeks to catalyse locally rooted education solutions that can inform systems-level approaches for improving holistic learning outcomes. In Kenya, AKF will partner with 100 schools in Coast Region to drive classroom innovations to enable teacher to generate solutions and inform ‘what works in education’.   

Purpose of the position
AKF is seeking a dynamic, enthusiastic, and self-motivated individual to ensure data is effectively collected and used to improve quality of programming and influence for AKF education programming, including Schools2030. Working under the direct supervision of the Programme Manager Coast Region, the Data Management Officer will be responsible for ensuring data quality, conducting real-time data analysis, and providing real-time feedback to diverse stakeholders engaged in AKF education programmes. The Data Management Officer will ensure that data is used by teams to improve programme implementation as well as supporting teachers and educational leaders to improve their understanding on the use of data to drive pedagogical and education system improvements. This role will demand the person to work within a dynamic, fast-paced environment and work closely with the broader Coast Region and East African education, programme, and monitoring and evaluation teams as well as the global Schools2030 team.
 

The requirements

Duties and responsibilities
In 2021, the position will focus on Schools2030.

• Manage real-time data collection, analysis, and feedback to multiple education stakeholders.
• Provide school-based support to enable teachers and school leaders to effectively use PROMISE3 to collect, analyse, and so use data to improve pedagogical practice and schools.
• Collaborate with the Learning and Assessment partners to track the programme activities and design processes in schools and maintain a database on the outputs for each phase of the process
• Lead internal professional development of staff to enable PROMISE3 to be implemented across all AKF education programmes.
• Work closely with the AKF education team in making meaning of the data and findings coming through for programme iteration.
• Provide project information and feedback to communicate progress, challenges, learning, and upcoming priorities and workplans to the Schools2030 Coordinator and AKF education team.
• Propose, develop and/or adapt data maintenance software and resources for use.
• Ensure all project funds are fully accounted for and liquidation is done in a timely manner to enable timely reporting.

• Engage and coordinate key partners, including the County Statistics department, at County level on data needs to ensure effective collection and management of data.
• Ensure project learning is effectively communicated through the internal and external feedback loops and that key partners have access to and understand the learning.
• Effectively engage AKF teams on learning opportunities to develop professional and technical understanding of data in education and Human Centred Design.
• Any other duties as requested by the Programme Manager Coast.

Key qualifications and experience

• Relevant undergraduate qualification including, Statistics, Economics, Social studies, Computer Science, Demography, Geography.
• Minimum 3 years of experience of working in ICT enabled data management systems to drive organisational and system learning.
• Ability to design Result Measurement Frameworks, Data Collection Tools, Sampling Methods and Quantitative/Qualitative Data Analysis is required.
• Knowledge of online and offline, open-source data collection tools and approaches and or database environment and/or project management software.
• Relevant experience working in education programming and international development an added advantage.

• Excellent communication and inter-personal skills.
• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with a diverse range of stakeholders.
• Ability to work independently and under pressure.