Background to the role

Zambia currently faces a number of challenges, with weak transmission of economic growth into living standards and poverty reduction.  Climate change is reducing agricultural production and, along with rising inflation, exacerbating persistently high levels of poverty (60% in 2022) and food insecurity: while debt burden and currency depreciation limits the Government’s policy space.

The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s (FCDO) Zambia programme supports the Government’s ambition to reduce extreme poverty, helping it to deliver the objectives of the eighth National Development Plan. FCDO works directly to improve the services that reach the most vulnerable communities through nutrition, social protection, health, and education; tackles gender inequality; and supports measures to improve economic development and public revenues in order to deliver broad-based growth and poverty reduction.

As part of the its development programme in Zambia, the FCDO is looking to launch a new, flagship Zambia Poverty Reduction Programme (ZPRP). Key elements of this programme are likely to include:

• Strengthening social protection delivery systems
• Building resilience to shocks and preparing shock-responsive Government systems and services
• Effective coordination of service delivery to poor and vulnerable household, especially nutrition, education, and sexual and reproductive health
• Transformation of local service delivery systems through local governance strengthening and linkages to economic development opportunities
• Improving the use of evidence for policy and implementation effectiveness.

Position Summary

The Team Leader will be responsible for the overall management of the project, providing clear strategic direction and ensuring delivery of ZPRP’s objectives. The role is particularly focused on three functions:

• Strategic vision The project will involve a number of different but inter-related workstreams. The Team Leader must ensure that ZPRP represents more than the sum of its parts, by ensuring coherence between workstreams and encouraging synergies wherever possible. Understanding the wider vision for the project and ensuring that vision is understood by the programme team is a central part of the TL role.

• Leadership and delivery. The Team Leader will work to get the best out of the ZPRP team, which will involve a mix of Zambia- and overseas-based staff and short-term consultants. They will understand the needs of each team member and ensure they deliver their goals effectively.

• Relationship management. The Team Leader will be the primary point of contact with FCDO Zambia and other programme stakeholders and programme partners.  They will work closely with FCDO to keep the SRO and wider Zambia country office informed of progress, facilitate their oversight of the programme, and seek opportunities for coordination and complementarity between ZPRP and other FCDO activities in Zambia (including policy engagement and other economic and social development programming). The Team Leader will be expected to liaise with the Government and other stakeholders, such as civil society, UN agencies and other bilateral development partners, to ensure that activities are well coordinated and delivering maximum impact.

The Team Leader reports to the Programme Director, a UK-based role with corporate responsibility for the programme.   As a Team Leader at OPM day to day responsibilities will include but are not limited to:

Theme

Responsibilities

Strategic vision and technical delivery

• Provide technical vision, leading and overseeing the strategic direction of ZPRP
• Ensure delivery of the programme’s workplan of high quality activities and outputs that lead to realization of long-term outcome and impact level objectives;
• Identify and communicate to team members the inter-dependencies between ZPRP objectives and workstreams, plus any external dependencies and how they will be managed;
• Work closely with FCDO, the Government, the programme director and the team to develop and adapt the overall workplan as needed over the life of the project, identifying new opportunities as they emerge and closing activities that may not be yielding results;
• Manage and quality assure outputs;
• In collaboration with FCDO and the Programme Director, refine and update the programme Theory of Change as required and ensure it is effectively communicated to the team and used to guide effort and achieve results;
• Chair meetings as required for the effective delivery of the project;
• Ensure pro-active regular co-ordination of project plans and activities with other actors working in relevant areas, including Government partners, other national actors, and other development partners;

Client and stakeholder management

• Lead the project team’s day-to-day relationship with the FCDO SRO on technical matters, including regular liaison and reporting;
• Develop and maintain a pro-active, responsive and productive relationship with all relevant stakeholders;
• Represent ZPRP at meetings, workshops and conferences;
• Provide FCDO and others with regular updates on programme performance and progress against agreed milestones;
• Lead the programme’s involvement in relevant sector coordination groups;
• Ensures that visibility is given to FCDO, beneficiaries and other partners in all project communications and publications;

Programme leadership and management

• Develop and deliver appropriate approaches for achieving  the objectives of the programme, maximising the impact of appropriate high quality technical expertise;
• Provide day to day management of the programme team, including line management;
• Monitor and respond to developments or risks that might jeopardise delivery if activities and results, or create new opportunities;
• Regular liaison with the ZPRP Leadership Team (i.e. Programme Director, DTL and Programme Manager);

Other

• In collaboration with the Programme Manager, ensure that policies on personnel safety are in place, communicated, and followed.

• Support the Programme Director to deliver the programme on time and on budget;
• Provide oversight of programme compliance and financial management
• Approve programme related expenditures within prescribed limits.

• Ensure adherence to any operational procedures and/or guidelines that may be provided by OPM and/or FCDO during implementation;
• Implement the programme Duty of Care policy;
• Represent the programme and OPM in a professional manner at all times.

Key qualifications and experienceWe would like to hear from anyone who meets the below requirements:

• Graduate degree or equivalent in economics or social sciences, development studies, international development, sustainable development, public policy, or a related field
• Minimum of ten years in international development with relevant technical experience in poverty reduction, governance, social protection, or a related field
• Experience as leading multi-functional, cross-sectoral teams in delivering large donor-funded development and social protection programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Demonstrable experience in creating annual workplans and leading teams in the delivery of technical activities
• Managerial experience, including direct report supervision and mentoring
• Excellent written and oral communications skills in English (required)
• Proven excellence in stakeholder relationship, including with national government, civil society organisations, donors, and programme partners
• Experience working in Zambia a significant advantage

Our Offer

• We enable colleagues’ capacity to grow professionally through enhanced learning resources, opportunities to work cross functionally, and space to engage with a range of internal and external industry events.
• Our non-hierarchical culture values support, collaboration, intellectual curiosity, and a rich diversity of perspectives.
• We provide an exceptionally generous annual leave entitlement and a hybrid working model to encourage and enable healthy work/life balance.
• Wellbeing resources including a global Employee Assistance Programme and access to the UnMind app.
• Competitive salary and contributory pension scheme.

We are strengthened by the diversity of colleagues across our global business and are committed to being an equal opportunities employer, promoting a diverse and inclusive workplace for all.  Our recruitment practices reflect our ambition to make the international development sector more inclusive and firm belief that our work delivers the best outcomes when we actively include a diversity of perspectives and experiences.

Application

If you share our vision for fair public policy that benefits both people and planet, we would love to hear from you.  We review and interview applicants on a rolling basis and encourage you to apply by way of CV via our careers site at the earliest.  We may close this advertisement before the published closing date, should a suitable candidate be identified.

Unfortunately, we are unable to provide visa sponsorship for this role and candidates must have a pre-existing right to work in Zambia for their application to be considered.

Oxford Policy Management is committed to promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion at every level of the business.  Should you require adjustments to make the application process more accessible please contact us via: recruitment@opml.co.uk