Senior Programme Advisor

Reporting to: Kenya Country Representative

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

Type of position: L5S7

Application closing: 21st November 2023.

Background

Interpeace is an international organization for peacebuilding. With over 25 years of experience, it has implemented a broad range of peacebuilding programmes in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Interpeace tailors its approach to each society and ensures that its work is locally designed and driven. Through local partners and its own local teams, it jointly develops peacebuilding programmes based on extensive consultation and research. Interpeace helps establish processes of change that promote sustainable peace, social cohesion, and resilience. The organization’s work is designed to connect and promote understanding between local communities, civil society, governments, and the international community.

Interpeace also assists the international community – especially the United Nations – to play a more effective role in peacebuilding, based on Interpeace’s expertise in field-based work at grassroots level. Interpeace achieves this primarily by contributing innovative thought leadership and fresh insights to contemporary peacebuilding policy. It also assists the international community through ‘peace responsiveness’ work, in which Interpeace provides advice and practical support to other international organizations (especially those in the security, development, and humanitarian aid sectors), enabling them to adapt their work systemically to simultaneously address conflict dynamics and strengthen peace dynamics. Interpeace is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has offices around the world. For more information about Interpeace, please visit www.interpeace.org

Position within the Organization

The Senior Programme Advisor is a member of the Programme Management Unit which manages and implements Interpeace’s active and ongoing programmes around the world. The Senior Programme Advisor reports to the Kenya Country Representative and liaises at a strategic level with colleagues at global operations, programme development and innovation, strategic partners and communication and policy, IPAT and learning.

The Senior Programme Advisor has four main areas of responsibility:

1. Business Development: Building the Kenya Programme portfolio through production of funding proposals for the programme, for East/Horn of Africa cross-border programming, and leading fundraising actions for sustainability of programmes. In addition building relationships with donors, other peacebuilding organisations, and development, humanitarian and human rights organisations to explore programming around the HDP and conflict/human rights nexus.
2. Programme Innovation: helping the Kenya programme to innovate into new thematic areas, including, but not limited to peace responsiveness, climate change, mental health and psycho-social support (MHPSS). This includes conducting background research, providing and sourcing training and technical assistance for our programmes, assisting programme design, etc.
3. Research: Lead and coordinate Interpeace’s Kenya research products. In coordination with the Programme Manager and the programme team capacity build the field teams on doing research, participating in research processes, leading the procurement of research services, helping in the production of research outputs, and participating in the validation and dissemination of research.
4. Design, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning: helping the programme in project and strategy design, improving monitoring frameworks and ensuring that the programme collects strong evidence, and ensuring that the programme has a very strong learning element.

Duties and responsibilities

Business Development:

• Lead inclusive design workshops for new programme development initiatives and ensure that there are strong processes of co-creation with all programme staff and partners.
• Lead on the production of funding proposals, which includes close collaboration with the senior regional representative, country representative, the head of programme development, global DMEL manager, regional heads of comms and Operations team.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with donors and ensure that Interpeace is considered as a key partner to the large development partners.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with important peacebuilding, development, humanitarian and human rights actors, including multilaterals, INGOs, for profits, CSOs, think tanks, governmental and intergovernmental agencies.
• Contribute to organisational processes to strengthen coherence and collaboration between programme management and programme development.

Programme Innovation

• Support the integration of Peace Responsiveness with the Kenya and regional programmes, including through the provision of background research and information sharing of developments within the peace responsiveness field, technical advisory support, provision and sourcing of professional development for teams, coordination with relevant actors in this space, production of learning/position papers, etc.
• Support the integration of resilience for climate change within our peacebuilding programmes through the provision of background research and information sharing of developments within the peace responsiveness field, technical advisory support, provision and sourcing of professional development for teams, coordination with relevant actors in this space, production of learning/position papers etc.
• Support the integration of mental health and psycho-social support through the provision of background research and information sharing of developments within the peace responsiveness field, technical advisory support, provision and sourcing of professional development for teams, coordination with relevant actors in this space, production of learning/position papers etc.
• Support the Kenya programme to better integrate cross-cutting priorities, including gender equality, youth inclusion, human rights.
• Contribute to organisational processes to strengthen coherence and collaboration between programme management and policy.

Research

• Support the team in the early development stages of new research projects, including decisions on the objectives, audience, delivery format, division of labour (who does what), setting time-lines, etc.
• Support the teams and consultants with research design, including development of research questions and methodology.
• Provision of training for field teams on research processes, including research ethics, facilitating KIIs and FDGs, development of topic guides / questionnaires, how to probe, data analysis.
• Providing oversight and quality assurance for all the research products.
• Liaising with comms teams on visibility, copy edit, research design, etc.
• Assisting the team in research validation processes.
• Provide research dissemination strategy, ensuring that we maximize the impact of research and that we consciously work towards achieving the primary research objectives.
• Contribute to organisational processes to strengthen coherence and collaboration between programme management and the communication department.

Design, monitoring, evaluation and learning

• In close collaboration with the country representative and programme manager, help to strengthen the M&E systems.
• Assist the teams in the production of strong evidence that we can utilize in our programme design.
• Assist the programme with the production of learning products, and ensuring that learning products are integrated with the professional development goals of staff and field teams.
• Assist in the identification of learning needs and opportunity and explore these.
• Lead the design and participate in the dissemination of Interpeace’s learning products to external audiences, including through the participation in conferences, in coordination meetings, donor meetings and other relevant platforms to disseminate our learning.
• Contribute to organisational processes to strengthen coherence and collaboration between programme management and the DMEL department.

Qualifications:

Candidates with relevant qualifications, experience, a tertiary degree, and fluency in English are invited to apply.

Relevant experience and qualifications may include:

Education

• Advanced or a Master’s Degree degree in international relations, political science, development, management, or relevant field

Experience

• Fifteen years years of relevant experience in peacebuilding, political and/or developmental work with increasing management responsibility.
• Five years of relevant field experience desired.
• Experience working in Kenya and in the region is essential.
• Ability to demonstrate record of business development history in the recent work is required. Demonstrated effectiveness and substantial experience with short and long-term planning; financial, personnel and program management in cross-cultural, international organizations
• Demonstrated experience in conflict resolution/peacebuilding, advocacy, partnership management, proposal writing and programme management.
• Very strong proven track-record in conflict analysis, proposal development – strong writing and analytical skills are quintessential.
• Proven record of recent published research work.
• Preferably proven experience in any of the following thematic areas: peace responsiveness, climate change, MHPSS, gender, WPS/YPS, human rights, security sector reform and rethinking stabilisation.

Competencies

• Demonstrates effectiveness and strong experience with short and long-term planning; financial, personnel and program management.
• Advanced knowledge and experience of project cycle management including using project planning and management tools
• Knowledge of current thinking on peacebuilding issues and methods; and demonstrable ability to anticipate emerging needs and integrate them swiftly into priority programme setting
• Developed ability of raising the profile of an organization, strategically networking with government agencies, donors and other international agencies, and using the media to generate profile
• Proven ability to communicate, negotiate and work with high level executives and government officials.
• Ability to work in a multicultural environment successfully and to demonstrate gender responsive and non-discriminatory behavior and attitudes.
• Excellent ability to interact with people respectfully and with tact
• Strong writing and communications skills in English is required. Knowledge of local language is an advantage.

Interpeace Competencies

• Collaboration and Weaving
• Communication
• Drive for results
• Adaptability and Continuous Learning
• Respect for Diversity

Success factors

• Identifies with and is committed to Interpeace’s core values and working principles
• Commitment to inclusiveness
• An innovative, critical thinker with extensive problem-solving skills
• A strategic thinker who is accountable, leads by example, mentors and empowers a team and works to create work-life balance

Interpeace values diversity among its staff and aims to achieve gender equality both through gender parity at all levels of the organisation and the promotion of a gender dimension in all its work. We welcome applications from women and men, and those with disabilities.