Team Leader at Options Consultancy Services

Short introduction

The Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Programme aims to reduce adolescent deaths and injury from unsafe abortion in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. The programme will ensure girls are able to access quality comprehensive sexual and reproductive services and will support community based organisations to shift social norms and build girls’ agency though ICT platforms and interpersonal networks.

Summary purpose and objective of role

The Team Leader will provide inspirational, strategic, technical and managerial oversight to the programme in order to build a local ecosystem to prevent and reduce unsafe abortion in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. The Team Leader is accountable for the overall delivery of the programme and leading the various partner implementing teams. The main areas of work include

• Providing strategic and technical leadership of the programme
• Overseeing and managing relations with client, government, counterparts and in country partners
• Providing efficient and cost-effective delivery of a high quality programme that produces results
• Leading planning and budgeting of the programme and monitoring performance against plans
• Providing oversight of financial, due diligence, security and risk management

Person specification

The Team Leader has strong technical expertise in sexual and reproductive health and rights (or a closely related area such as child rights), and social and behaviour change in relation to sensitive issues. They demonstrate outstanding leadership and engagement skills for building consensus and inspiring motivation and commitments among diverse stakeholders. They have a track record of transformational change in challenging environments and relating to complex and sensitive issues. They will have significant experience of senior level management in international development and have experience of implementing health programmes. Experience in programmes aiming to reduce unsafe abortion is desirable.

About Options/ Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Programme

Options Consultancy Services Limited was established in 1992 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Marie Stopes International. We are a consultancy organisation providing technical and management expertise in the health and social sectors to governments and international development partners to transform the health of women and children. We provide information, expertise and influence to governments, health workers, NGOs and businesses to catalyse change so that health services can be accessed by the people who need them most.

The Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Programme aims to reduce adolescent deaths and injury from unsafe abortion in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. Options Consultancy Services is the consortium lead for the programme, working in partnership with consortium members and local civil society organisations. Taking a User Centred Design approach, the programme will:

• Ensure girls are able to access quality comprehensive sexual and reproductive services, including through referral networks and support to community based organisations.
• Foster and support a community based movement to shift social norms and build girls’ agency, though mobilising both ICT platforms and interpersonal networks.
• Build the capacity of local organisations to reduce unsafe abortion and facilitate south-south learning.
• The programme will start with in-depth research and analysis, followed by an intense period of prototyping and testing potential approaches. From Year Two, successful concepts will be scaled up

Other information

• Options is an equal opportunities employer
• Applicants must have the right to live and to work in Kenya
• This position is subject to confirmation of programme contract with the funder. Precise details of timelines and tasks are subject to change prior to programme start-up