Senior Private Sector Engagement Officer

Description

Program / Department Summary

Girls Improving Resilience through Livelihoods and Health (GIRL-H) is a three-year, 10-million-dollar program to be implemented in Kenya, Uganda and Haiti that seeks to improve the well-being of adolescent girls and young women (AGYW+boys) by increasing their access to skills and knowledge, health resources, formal education and economic opportunities. GIRL-H also fosters an enabling environment by working with communities to transform unhealthy social norms and create opportunities for girls to access education and economic opportunities. Key to GIRL-H is a robust learning and research agenda that reaches across three countries to contribute to the evidence base on what works to secure access to opportunities for adolescent girls within the most marginalized communities and to better understand their contribution to household resilience. This evidence and learning will be shared to elevate Mercy Corps’ influence in the adolescent girl space and to bolster fundraising efforts to scale the model. In coordination with APOLOU Gender & Youth, Adolescents, Economic Empowerment, Financial Inclusion, and Partnerships teams, the Senior PSE Officer will support the Program Manager in establishing and nurturing private and public engagements with various sectors for buy-in and sustainability of adolescents programming in Karamoja and beyond.  The Senior PSE Officer will lead the development, structuring and delivery of PSE projects that draw on commercial and noncommercial financing across all sectors, as well as regional and national cooperation initiatives with PSE components. S/he will work directly with the government, private sector investors and financial institutions within a framework of general policies, principles and goals.

General Position Summary

Under the Program Manager’s direct supervision, the Senior Private Sector Engagement (PSE) Officer will respond to the needs of communities and adolescent girls through public-private sector engagement.  The Senior PSE Officer will work with APOLOU’s Adolescent, Gender & Youth teams to promote public-private sector engagement.  In coordination with GoU and GIRL-H program implementation team, s/he will identify private sector actors both regionally and nationally to support adolescents’ programs in Karamoja.  S/he will build and maintain essential relationships with relevant community stakeholders, and public/private actors.  S/he will facilitate the development of partnership MOUs and protocols for both, public and private sectors.  S/he will ensure that these processes are transparent and in the best interest of the adolescents – skills building, apprenticeships, employment and funding opportunities.

 

Essential Job Responsibilities

Program Implementation

• Lead in formulating strategies and operational guidelines for private sector engagement in the development and PPP promotion within APOLOU Activity & GIRL Program
• Work closely with the programme manager and the broader programme team to undertake a labour market assessment to understand the labour dynamics in the focus areas and map potential opportunities for private sector partnerships
• Conduct scoping analysis for government and private sector institutions/companies to determine partnership opportunities aimed at achieving the programme objectives
• Identify and develop a database of regional and national private institutions/companies for skills building, livelihood improvement and other economic opportunities for transitioning adolescent girls
• Working closely with the programme manager, develop and take-to-market private sector collaboration concepts targeting private sector partners, aimed at achieving the programme objectives for the GIRL-H programme
• Spearhead the outreach and engagement of selected private sector companies for potential business development with the goal of initiating propose concepts
• Spearhead the review, selection and engagement of private sector partners through preparation of requests for proposals, review of potential candidates and co-designing of interventions with selected partners
• Working closely with the Senior Governance Advisor and Governance Team, participate in the preparation of District and National level Partnership Strategies and annual business plans to highlight and incorporate private sector collaboration opportunities
• Contribute to the development of fundraising strategies and products for diverse fundraising activities that serve to promote private sector engagement for adolescent girls’ programs

 

Monitoring and Evaluation

• Ensure timely and consistent submission of reports, success stories and other relevant data to MEL Officer and the Program Manager (monthly, quarterly, and annual reports)
• With the support of MEL, maintain an updated database of private actors with CSR budgets/commitments, signed MOU’s for PSE, prospective PSE opportunities and commitments
• Create a monitoring system for adolescents who transition into empowerment interventions under PSE, follow up and document success stories

 

Influence and Representation

• Ensure close coordination and sharing of information with relevant stakeholders such as private sector companies, local government departments, and other stakeholders as guided by the programme manager.
• Support and coordinate field learning visits from sub-county, district and national government, partners and external visitors, and private actors particularly on issues around PSE
• Build capacity of APOLOU Activity /GIRL-H program teams to understand PSE model and its relevance to GIRL-H program, APOLOU and MC Uganda
• Establish and maintain a productive working relationship with the local Government and Sub Counties, the private sector partners

 

Ethics and Integrity

All Mercy Corps staff are expected to behave ethically and demonstrate highest integrity in their professional and personal life. Mercy Corps has zero tolerance to any form of fraud, corruption, abuse, harassment or exploitation. Any breach of our policies or misconduct will lead to disciplinary action or may lead to termination.

 

Security

Ensure data protection policies are adhered to, establishing security controls for software, hardware and archive beneficiary databases.

 

Organization Learning

As part of our commitment to organizational learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve, we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Mercy Corps as well as themselves.

Accountability to Beneficiaries

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

Supervisory Responsibility: None

Reports Directly To: GIRL-H Program Manager

Works Directly With: Apolou Field Team (Program, MEL, Finance, HR, Operations), District Implementation Team Leads and the global GIRL technical team.

Knowledge and Experience

• Minimum Bachelor’s degree in Agribusiness, Agriculture Economics, Project Planning and Management, Public Policy and Administration, Business Administration or any other business-related fields.
• 5 years of demonstratable experience with market facilitation, supporting systemic change and promoting business or market/economic development, private sector or related industry is preferred. At least 2 -3 will have been with a private sector organization in Uganda
• Demonstrated skills in building partnerships between the private sector and development actors. Experience of undertaking such work in the Karamoja region will be an added advantage
• Proven Experience in leading partnerships with the private sector through Co-Creation, Innovation and go-to-Market Prospecting including business cases, concepts and proposal’s
• Proven ability to develop, drive and support the end-to-end business development processes including partner selection, concept creation, co-designing interventions, execution, M&E, etc.
• Knowledge and understanding of youth/gender empowerment challenges
• Demonstrated skills in data collection, verification and documentation
• Proven skills in networking, team building, community consultations and organizational development
• Excellent reporting, communication and presentation skills
• Willingness to consider new perspectives, promote gender equality and engage in advanced gender training

Success Factors

The ability to communicate effectively, respectfully and enthusiastically with community structures will be one of the position’s three success factors. The second will be the degree to which the PPP Officer drives results (identifies and nurtures opportunities for public-private sector engagement to sustained funding of GIRL activities), producing scheduled outputs at the deadline and to expected quality. The third success factor will be the degree to which the officer effectively gathers activity monitoring and evaluation data and utilizes data to inform activity implementation and program learning.

This position is based in Moroto.

Application closes on 14th October.

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