Temporary Support Officer-Global Initiative

Location: Global (Remote)

Department: Global Impact

Grade: UK Grade C or equivalent according to location / type

of contract

HelpAge and Strategy 2030 – delivering real impact for older people

HelpAge International works with partners and a diverse global network of more than 150 organizations across 85 countries, supporting millions of older people to live safe, dignified, and healthy lives. Through our partnership and collaborations, we work to ensure the inclusion of older people across society and strive to deliver a just and fair world for everyone, whatever their age. Our work is driven by our desire to deliver real impact for older people, to be inclusive, to work in partnership and to learn from our shared experience.

Our 2030 strategy Ageing in a Just World sets out how we will work together to shape the future we all share. By working together, we aim to help inspire a movement for change and through ensuring all our work promotes older people’s wellbeing, dignity, and voice, we can transform the lives of older people now and in the future.

Since the launch of our strategy in January 2020, the world has changed in profound ways. We are still experiencing the impacts and consequences. Recognizing and anticipating these important and fundamental shifts, HelpAge International has evolved and transformed itself to be relevant, impactful, and viable. As a result, we reconfigured our organizational design and resources to embrace locally led programming and give primacy to local agents for change through partner led programming. Through this change, we are delivering our work through agile teams and a global operating model, with regional roots. As such, we will focus on impact and maintain the relationships at the national level to help build collaborations and support others to set their own agenda. This allows us to create value and bring impact in collaborating across boundaries and by bringing different perspectives, skills, and talent together.

How you can make a difference

At HelpAge International, we offer a unique and exceptional career experience to bring positive and lasting change in the lives of older persons. As countries prepare for and adapt to population ageing, you can make a difference at a critical juncture to how societies, economies and institutions adapt to this change. Guided by our commitment to our values of impact, learning, partnership, and inclusion (see values), you will work with talent like yourself and partner with other agents for change to bring systemic change and impact at scale. By acting as a supporter, convener and thought leader, together, we can make an impact that matters for older persons and their communities. HelpAge International offers you an inclusive, collaborative workplace and innovative environment.

We are looking for exceptional individuals who will explore new opportunities to create value, to find new avenues, unique ways and novel partnership and collaborations to reach our shared goals. We are looking for talent which thrives in collaborating with others (inside HelpAge International and beyond) and who can work in agile ways and across boundaries. We are seeking individuals, with an entrepreneurial mindset, who can work across diverse areas of our work, who can leverage both their unique expertise and deploy a wider range of experiences and competencies.

What you will do

The role is situated in the Global Impact Team: –

Department info

The Global Impact Department contributes to the 2030 Strategy as follows –

• To achieve positive impact on well-being, dignity, and the voice of older people by inspiring a movement for change, through implementing the strategic approach of support, convene and thought leadership.
• Leading, advocating and partnering on initiatives that support and transform systems, challenge attitudes and social norms, and influence laws, policies, and practice at national, regional, and global level.

Global Initiatives

HelpAge International has launched a series of global initiatives to deliver on our external global priorities. Global Initiatives represent a key external area where there is an urgency to have impact at a global level that will resonate to a national and regional level.

The work of the Global Initiatives represents an area of coordinated action across the organisation to step up in our capacity, scale, and effectiveness to work with our network and partners, to have an even greater impact in the lives of older people.

We have therefore confirmed 4 priority areas in where the whole organisation can work together to have a significant impact for older people over a 2– 3-year period. We will prioritize the first two in 2022-2023.

We will invest dedicated time and resources over 2-3 years, to have significant impact externally in line with our 2030 strategy. We believe in doing so, it will also enable us to galvanise as an organisation, to bring onboard Network Members and partners, build the profile and credibility of the organisation, and get funders to join us in the journey.

We now seek a Temporary Program Support Officer to support the roll out of the Global Initiatives for a period of 6 months.

Key areas for impact/influence and responsibilities

These outline the broad areas of responsibility in the role, but in collaboration with your colleagues you will be able to creatively shape and design specific activities to deliver impact and respond to relevant opportunities.

With your colleagues you will develop your team workplan to drive initiatives, develop ideas, and ensure that there is space for cross organisational working and short-term tasks. From this you will devise your individual workplan that will form the basis of your day-to-day activities and your performance reviews.

As a Temporary Support Officer, you will: –

• Provide administrative and logistical support to the Lead, Global Initiatives in the operationalization of the Global Initiatives that will include: –
  • Participation in the development and implementation of frameworks including concepts, budgets, methodology, results framework, and other relevant materials and documents.
  • Work with HR to ensure proper coordination of work in relation to new contracts for consultants and other service providers as may be required from time to time.
  • Budget monitoring and preparation of the reports on the expenditure of the investment budget
  • Technical input in fundraising and business development including proposal development.
• Support the monitoring, documentation and learning around the Global Initiatives including: –
  • Identification of information needs on the Global Initiatives; scheduling, and coordination of learning and information sessions on Global Initiatives in HelpAge learning platforms including Drop-In sessions, Global Team Meeting.
  • In collaboration with the Communications Team document the progress, achievements, and lessons of the Global Initiatives with appropriate framing for internal and external audiences including Network members, Supporting Members, HelpAge Staff, and external stakeholders.
  • Tracking budget expenditures in line with the Global Initiatives investment plan.
  • Maintain documentation of consultants and other stakeholders engaging with the Global Initiatives for easy referencing and access.
• Administrative support to the Cross Organizational Working Group and the related Task Teams including scheduling of meetings, recording, and documenting the meetings and any other administrative support that might arise from time to time for the effective functioning of the COWG and the Task Teams.
• Support the research and analysis in the focus areas including constantly monitoring the external environment, preparing trends analysis , concepts and reports as may be required from time to time.
• Any other suitable administrative activities as required from time to time.
• Report to the Lead, Global Initiatives & Regional Representative Africa.

Let’s talk about you

You will be someone with:

• A degree in Law, Humanities, Social Sciences, International Relations or in any development field. A master’s degree will be an added advantage
• At least 5 years work experience in human rights programming, development, or humanitarian programming.
• Demonstrable understanding, knowledge, skill and/or experience in global rights, development, and humanitarian issues. Knowledge and experience in ageing, inclusion, gender and or diversity issues will be an added advantage.
• Experience in coordinating high impact multistakeholder initiatives at a national, regional or global level.
• Strong conceptual and analytical skills.
• Ability to work independently, think innovatively and strategically and work effectively within a team through collaboration that encourages experimentation, learning and agency.
• Excellent communication skills with demonstrable experience in the use of communication for impact through various means including advocacy.
• Strong financial/budget management skills required
• Reasonable capacity to work in English.
• Knowledge of and/or skills in advocacy is desirable
• Knowledge of Microsoft packages – Word, Excel, Email including the platforms for collaboration.

At HelpAge International, we believe in the importance of empowering our people to be change makers and leaders at all levels. We expect our people to embrace and live our values, challenging themselves every day to identify issues that are most important to older persons and their communities, and to make an impact that matters.

In addition, as an HelpAge employee you are expected to:

• Work collaboratively, building mutual trust and respect, with external organisations and partners to achieve our strategic aims and objectives; being accountable for the work you do together
• Adapt to new directions or opportunities arising within the organization and in your work area; being flexible in your role, constantly using the feedback to learn more and evolve further.
• Lead behavioural and cultural change through embracing a supportive, collaborative and highly inclusive environment where everybody feels supported, respected, and engaged
• Extend HelpAge’s reach and impact, by creating and identifying new business development opportunities and building relationships with new partners.
• Lead and promote a culture of including the voices of older people across our support, convening, and thought leadership roles, in a way that is transformative, empowering and highly inclusive of those marginalized by gender, economic status, disability and other factors of discrimination.

Safeguarding

HelpAge International is committed to safeguarding the communities with which we work, our partners, staff, and any others who we come into contact with.

Therefore, you will also be responsible for:

• Preventing harm and abuse from our people, operations, and programmes to anyone that encounters our work.
• Reporting all safeguarding incidents you see, hear, hear about or suspect, using our internal reporting mechanism.
• Complying with all safeguarding framework policies and practices.

Completing mandatory training courses relating to our safeguarding policy framework and complying with HR vetting procedures.