Job Description
R4D seeks a Program Officer with excellent program management skills, and a strong understanding of the innovation scaling process and innovation/entrepreneurship ecosystems.
This position is based in West Africa within the R4D’s Ghana Office, and reports to the Senior Program Officer leading on Innovation Ecosystem Strengthening.
With many of the scaling initiatives within our portfolio at an exciting stage of their development / implementation, we are very keen to find someone who is preferably able to start immediately upon hire and as a result we will be interviewing candidates on a rolling basis as we receive strong applications.
Responsibilities
- As a Program Officer, you will provide technical leadership for and program management of new and ongoing projects.
- As part of this work, you will manage existing stakeholder relationships and cultivate new partnerships at both the country and global levels that aim to communicate our impact and expand it in a creative way.
- We are seeking an entrepreneurial, strategic, and highly organized individual to help us take this work forward.
- Previous experience managing projects and programs and building relationships with innovation and / or public sector actors is required for this role.
- Knowledge and experience working with innovation (including supporting innovations to scale) is also essential for this role.
Collaboration Manager for the Collaboration Grants program
- Develop and manage budgets and program plans
- Develop and refine ToRs with a portfolio of collaborators, understanding their TA needs and supporting them to progress their projects
- Ongoing engagement with collaborators – e.g. checking on progress, project
- management support, making connections to experts
- Reviewing collaboration deliverables
- Identifying peer connections / communities
- Implementation of learning approach across each collaboration grant (including data collection)
- Reporting
- Engagement with funder team and other program stakeholders
Program and project management for other Innovation Practice initiatives as required
Coordination of a Working Group on Emerging Technologies in International Development:
- Coordinate regular working group meetings
- Plan, organise and facilitate workshops relevant to the work plan
- Co-create and write high quality outputs on behalf of the working group including; use cases, reports, concept notes, summary records and other outputs
- Run consultation(s) with a range of stakeholders, including facilitating interviews, coding interviews and conducting an analysis of the results to inform future work
- Plan and facilitate participation in external conferences and other events
Build relationships with innovation ecosystem actors and facilitate opportunities for partnerships and learning
- Identify and build relationships with different innovation ecosystem actors and supporters within the local, regional and international innovation ecosystem (including actors from local and national government, private sector, accelerators / incubators, chambers of commerce, academic institutions and donors / international organizations).
- Support ecosystem-strengthening initiatives and partnerships emerging from our Scaling Innovation portfolio, including conducting research / interviews with key actors to understand their role in the ecosystem, barriers to scaling-up innovations and potential collaboration opportunities.
- Coordinate partnerships and collaborative work with diverse groups of actors, which may include facilitating meetings/workshops among actors to analyze and assess gaps in the ecosystem, identifying needs and priorities among partners in order to strengthen the innovation ecosystem and facilitate innovation scaling.
- Facilitate and support opportunities for knowledge sharing and networking between different actors involved in the scaling process or ecosystem strengthening.
Qualifications
Essential
To be successful in this role, the candidate will have:
- BA/BS with 6+ years of experience or master’s degree with 4+ years of experience
- BA (or MA) in global development, public health/administration, business/management, or relevant field.
- Experience in global development, beneficial with experience working cross-sector (public, private or non-profit).
- Knowledge of the innovation and scaling process and innovation ecosystems.
- Demonstrated experience working with innovators/entrepreneurs and/or other innovation ecosystem actors.
- Familiarity with emerging technologies – trends and issues.
- Experience in program/project management, specifically:
- managing competing priorities and working in a highly adaptable way.
- working with complexity and handling ambiguity.
- working with partners across the globe.
- Impeccable writing, communication and presentation (e.g. in-person/virtual presentations, meeting facilitation, email, etc.)
- Highly collaborative, adaptable and approachable team member who is enthusiastic about doing what it takes to support the team, mentoring junior staff and working closely with others at R4D.
- Very strong interpersonal and relationship building skills.
- Ability to work both independently and as part of a team, especially with distributed team members and partners across various time zones and cultures.
Desirable
The ideal candidate for this role will have:
- Strong innovation networks (either country or regional).
- Sectoral experience in R4D’s priority areas of health, education or nutrition preferred. Experience with a range of project management methodologies (including both agile and waterfall approaches).
- Experience delivering innovation / cutting edge products and services – including adopting user centered design and adaptive learning approaches and methodologies.
- Experience or understanding of systems change / change management.
Results for Development is an EOE/M/F/Vet/Disabled/Affirmative Action Employer committed to fostering and nurturing an energetic, collaborative and diverse workforce.
R4D provides market-competitive salaries and comprehensive employee benefits.
APPLICATION PROCESS
CLOSING DATE: Ongoing
About the Company
Results for Development (R4D) is a leading non-profit global development partner
We collaborate with change agents around the world — government officials, civil society leaders and social innovators — to create strong systems that support healthy, educated people.
We help our partners move from knowing their goal to knowing how to reach it. We combine global expertise in health, education and nutrition with analytic rigor, practical support for decision-making and implementation and access to peer problem-solving networks.
Together with our partners, we build self-sustaining systems that serve everyone and deliver lasting results. Then we share what we learn so others can achieve results for development, too.
We have a unique and vibrant culture at R4D. Diversity, equity and inclusion are at the heart of our work environment and help advance our mission.
Diversity—of ideas, identities, perspectives and backgrounds—is vital to who we are and what we do. We seek people who embrace these values and will help reinforce them.