Job Opportunities at Aga Khan Foundation

Position Summary:

The organization and system design specialist will play a key role in formation, engagement, strengthening and positioning for LDOs at the counties. He/ She will report to Program Director – YETU Initiative and work closely with AKF East Africa Civil Society Advisor.

Responsibilities:

• Work with the Project Director to formation, engagement, strengthening and positioning of county LDOs to effectively engage government, private sector, and other civil society actors in county development agenda
• Coordinate the development, implementation and learning around the LDO organization modelling and capacity strengthening. This includes capacity assessments, trainings, technical assistance, coaching and mentorship and providing direct capacity development support to the LDOs
• Provide support in building county level relationships with relevant stakeholders such as community leaders, government, private sector to engage them on county level development issues
• Facilitate close collaboration with other county level projects and USAID organization development partner to position LDOs and CSOs to deliver on their mandate
• Provide support to the initiative to articulate lessons learnt, challenges, and risks emerging from the initiative; and feedback into the planning and implementation processes
• Provide support in work planning and reporting processes respectively, and submission to the donor
• Support the development and maintenance of an M&E framework and system for the iniative ensuring synergies between M&E, program, and finance
• Design and deliver, or manage the design and delivery of leadership development training
• Ensure the capacity strengthening initiative has a visible profile within and beyond the counties
• Provide technical oversight, lead and motivate three County LDOs Coaches
• Any other duties assigned.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in international development, organisational development, business, or related field;
• At least 3 years’ experience with designing and implementing organizational and systems strengthening initiatives, ideally at the county-level in Kenya;
• Advanced skills in facilitation, human centred design, systems thinking, consulting, coaching, program development and management;
• Exceptional written and oral English communication skills. Ability to work in Kiswahili is an advantage;
• Knowledge of and prior experience working on USAID-funded will be an added advantage;

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Position Summary:

The Foundation is now looking for a dynamic specialist for the MERL Manager Position for the YETU initiative. Working with the different stakeholders, the MERL manager will advance the initiative’s MERL using the Collaboration Learning and Adaptation (CLA) efforts throughout the intiative. He/she will measure program results and utilizes knowledge to develop a comprehensive learning agenda and dynamic results chain to further inform program adaptation, sequencing, and collectively, influence CLA within the initiative. He/ She will report to Program Director – YETU Initiative and work closely with AKF East Africa MERL lead.

Specific responsibilities include:

• Lead the YETU initiative MERL using the CLA approach by providing a centralized point for analysis, program strategic planning, and support to improve technical implementation and effective use of resources.
• Develop and manage the Yetu’s MERL plan, learning agenda and ensure alignment between performance monitoring efforts and the strategic information needs of the initiative and the donors.
• Work directly with the initiative team and the Regional MERL Lead to plan, design, and or/manage specific CLA strategies and activities, such as supporting incorporation of technical, contextual and experiential learning into technical strategies, interventions, and processes. Assist in developing, capturing, sharing, and testing methods, models, and tools to advance these objectives.

• Leverage a mix of informational sources and research methods – project M&E data, observations from staff and partners, primary and secondary research – to;

• analyze project progress towards goals and learning objectives,

• communicate those findings externally (e.g. to donor, external partners) and internally (e.g. to initiative staff), and

• apply that learning into improved work planning and project activities.

• Provide support in capacity strengthening of LDOs to establish MERL processes that contribute to effective collaboration, learning, and adaptation systems to instill a culture of adaptive managementt for county development.

• Drive the research and learning agenda to generate evidence to inform initiative implementation.

• Coordinate the implementation of project evaluations with reputable consultants, as needed.

• Carry out quality assurance of the project activities including regular field monitoring and supervision.
• Provide remote and on-site technical support to project implementing partners to build their capacity in M&E.
• Prepare M&E progress reports for the project.
• Any other duties assigned.

Qualifications & Competencies Required

• Bachelor’s Degree in M&E, statistics, research methods or related field;
• Minimum of five (5) years of experience in progressively more senior roles in monitoring and evaluation, adaptive management, learning and knowledge management;
• Experience using collaboration, learning, and adaptation techniques, approaches is important such as Most Significant Change and outcome harvesting;
• Experience managing database management information system;
• Demonstrated knowledge and capacity to design and implement quantitative and qualitative surveys and studies for the purpose of programme management
• Demonstrated ability to build and maintain partnerships and productive working relationships with a wide variety of stakeholders;
• Demonstrated ability to train, mentor and develop the capacity of others
• Experience working on a USAID-funded program or other large, bi-lateral donor agency projects;
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English are required;