Programme Manager at Tony Blair Institute for Global Change

Location: Nairobi (we may consider London as an option for the right candidate

Our Governance work supports the governments and leaders of fragile, developing, and emerging states to enhance their effectiveness. We are focused on helping governments and leaders make their vision for the development of their country a reality. We work in the centre of government and key line ministries and our work is shaped by national priorities.

TBI is entering into a partnership with the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to strengthen government capacity for agriculture transformation. In its first phase, this partnership will involve the placement of four embedded advisors in Ministries of Agriculture and/or the Presidency/Vice Presidency in Ghana, Kenya and Mozambique. The advisors will work as part of TBI’s country teams in each of those countries.

In addition, the partnership also involves TBI’s existing advisors supporting on various deliverables, notably around centre of government commitment to and coordination of the agriculture transformation agenda in the target countries.

This role will serve as the custodian of this programme and this partnership. The responsibility of the roles are three. First, to ensure the successful implementation of the partnership agreement. Second, to ensure a suitable monitoring, evaluation and learning system for the partnership. Third, to ensure a strong working relationship and feedback mechanism with AGRA on a daily basis. The role will report to the Head of Inclusive Growth and Private Sector Development, and maintain a close working relationship with relevant Regional Directors and the External Relations team. The advisors recruited under this partnership will not report directly to this role – they will report to the country heads – although it is up to the Programme Manager to ensure the key performance indicators and target milestones are being met in a timely manner, and the implementation plan is being implemented. The manager will hence also maintain a healthy working relationship with the relevant country heads.

With regards to MEL, the manager will work closely with the central TBI advisory MEL team sitting in London to ensure a suitable MEL framework for this partnership that is effective and fit for purpose. It will need to be coordinated with the MEL frameworks for the target countries and for the agriculture product offering of the institute. It is the responsibility of this manager to ensure the partnership MEL plan as per the partnership agreement is fully implemented in a timely manner.

Hence the role will involve extension coordination with country heads, advisors, the head of inclusive growth, AGRA and the TBI MEL team in London.

Specific duties include:

• Implementation of partnership agreement (approx. 50% of the role)
• Oversee and support as needed the implementation of the partnership through coordinated activities with relevant advisors and country heads.
• Provide support to country teams to ensure successful delivery of KPIs, implementation plan and results framework of the partnership agreement. Provide support on fixing bottlenecks and serve as the main communication channel between advisors and AGRA Headquarters.
• Based on inputs from country and regional advisors, prepare and manage a comprehensive overview of partnership implementation, including: annual and quarterly work plans, aggregate project “dash board”, and inputs to larger TBI and AGRA planning processes.
• Relationship management (approx. 25% of the role)
• Manage the relationship with AGRA and its key funders and stakeholders to ensure a consistently strong working relationship and a genuine partnership, centred on mutual learning.
• Reporting: ensure regular reporting to AGRA, including quarterly and annual project implementation reports, and ad-hoc reporting requests.
• Resource mobilization: ensure a strong working relationship between AGRA’s resource mobilization unit and TBI’s fundraising team such that a joint fundraising strategy is developed and implemented. Provide support as needed.
• Disbursements: ensure timely grant disbursements, through close collaboration with the Finance Department.
• Finance and administration: working with the finance department, ensure compliance with AGRA frameworks and regulations including but not limited to Invoices, Expenses, Flights, Contracts and Timesheet management.
• Audit: Ensure effective functioning of internal systems as per audit recommendations.
• Risk management: Monitor risks related to the partnership implementation and relevance and positioning.
• Overall: Ensure programmatic coherence at all levels.
• Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
• Monitoring: in line with TBI’s advisory MEL practices and approaches, monitor the overall implementation of the programme as articulated in the
• Partnership Agreement/final proposal. Regular programme implementation monitoring will be ensured, in close collaboration with country and regional advisors. Planning and follow-up of corrective actions will be facilitated. Work with advisors to analyse monitoring data, discuss findings in regular meetings and collate into reporting.
• Evaluation: work with TBI Advisory MEL team to manage evaluation process to ensure programmatic and strategic relevance. Flag risks, bottlenecks and issues to relevant decision makers.
• Theory of change: on a quarterly basis review this with related results frameworks of the programme for use as a management tool.
• Learning partnership: Foster a learning partnership with AGRA, its funders and other key agriculture and food security stakeholders. This would include:
  • Learning plan: Deliver the learning plan as per the partnership agreement. Participate in quarterly reflection and learning sessions of each country team to incorporate learnings from monitoring data into programme adaptation and theory of change. Support learning on effective MEL and contribute to refinement of MEL practices and approaches for TBI advisory.
  • Internal comms: in close coordination with both TBI’s communications team and in country advisors, ensure development and strategic implementation and management of an internal comms strategy insuring regular information flows to the wider TBI and to AGRA.
  • External comms: Ensure sufficient external communication, mainly by providing overviews, briefs, and presentations on programme implementation and related perspectives.
  • Public engagement: Present lessons learnt and success stories to internal and external audiences, in close collaboration with the AGRA, through various communication modalities.
  • Events: Participate in and help organize key learning and networking fora, such as Africa Green Revolution Forum and events with AGRA and its key funders in the agriculture and food security development space.

Additional TBI responsibilities:

• Engage with other parts of TBI by pro-actively participating in and collaborating with other TBI projects through knowledge sharing and thought leadership.
• Support the Country Head and other team members with strategy development and reporting.
• Maintain active dialogue with international donor partners, think tanks and stakeholders in the agriculture and inclusive economic growth space, building contacts to facilitate TBI programmes.

What We Look For in Our People:

• The successful candidate will be a pro-active and dynamic Programme Manager who thrives in an environment where the importance of personal initiative coupled with teamwork and driving impact is critical. Above all she/he will be strong at coordination, communication and problem solving. effective relationships, win trust, and help shape and influence change in government.
• Minimum of 3 years of programme implementation experience in an international fast paced environment
• Experience working with an agriculture or market systems development partner-funded program would be an asset.
• Experience in MEL and adaptive monitoring approaches (e.g. outcome harvesting) would be an asset.
• Exceptional listening, oral and written communication skills with a high degree of accuracy and attention to detail needed.
  Top notch administrative and organization skills, commitment, attention to detail and strong forward planning skills.
• High degree of professionalism to handle sensitive and confidential information and absolute discretion and adherence to confidentiality.
• Strong MS Office skills and ability to produce documents to a good presentational level e.g. reports.
  Ability to work under pressure and to lead and coordinate across various people sitting in different countries.
• Ability to manage shifting priorities with flexibility and accuracy.
• Hands on approach to work, with the ability to deliver on deadlines in a fast-paced and fast-changing environment, with minimal or no supervision.
• Ability to use own initiative and actively look for opportunities to have an impact rather than simply be reactive.
• Ability to build and manage effective relationships with other organisations and key stakeholders on behalf of TBI.
• Language skills in French would be an advantage.
• Experience working in Africa is preferred.
  Experience in supporting the enabling environment for business is preferable.
• Above all, we are looking for individuals with high levels of enthusiasm, resilience, a can-do attitude and ability to consistently achieve results in a fast-paced environment.

VALUES WE LOOK FOR:

• COURAGE… because to tackle global challenges, we must innovate and take smart risks
• COLLABORATION… because when we work together and with external partners, we can overcome even the largest problems
• COMPASSION … because our work is ultimately about improving people’s lives