State Partnership Facilitator at Palladium Group

Project Overview and Role

• The State Partnership Facilitator is responsible for working under the direction of the State Team Leader and with other Partnership Facilitators as well as equivalent staff in PERL ARC and LEAP to ensure the front-line delivery of the programme within the state.
• This includes contributing to the development of programme strategy and priorities within the state and working closely with partners to ensure delivery in line with the programme's theory of change, results framework and work-plan. State Partnership Facilitators shall be expected to ensure the integration of their work with ECP MEL, KM, Operations and communications systems, including developing output or work-stream relevant MEL plans and effectively recording and sharing results. Maintaining close relationships with programme partners under the guidance of the STL, is essential to the role.

Authority levels
Reporting Requirements:

• The State Partnership Facilitator reports directly to the State Team Leader and is responsible for working under the direction that the STL provides. Regularly reporting to them and ensuring his/her activities fall within agreed frameworks and operating principles, as well as building an effective working relationship more broadly.

Signatory authority:

• This position has no signatory authority but will be required to work closely with other team members who do have signatory authority and provide them sound recommendations.
• They will also work as part of the team to ensure that the variance of spend against forecast remains below 2% on a monthly basis, this is achieved by good communication of spend and anticipated spend against forecast to the Finance Officer.

Relationships
Teamwork & Mentoring:

• Familiarize yourself with the work of all your team members as well as key programme management frameworks: technical, financial and administrative policies and guidelines.
• Establish a good working relationship with the state team including the State Finance officer and State Admin Officer.
• Establish working relationships with counterparts in PERL ARC and LEAP.
• Mentor other colleagues and consultants (within and outside of PERL, and across states) - direct provision of guidance and support, consistent with ECP's key values/principles. Encourage and nurture interest in programme work shown by direct reports.
• Actively contribute to Team-Building within the state team - use of shared mission, vision, values, identity/public profile, use of staff meetings, staff welfare, social events, formal and informal opportunities, etc, to reinforce teamwork.
• Actively contribute to a positive office culture within the joint Palladium office in your state (if applicable), and collaborate with other programmes to ensure operational synergies. Look out for, highlight and support resolution of internal challenges impacting on team performance.

Responsibilities
Support to development and refinement of programme strategy in the state:

• Undertaking operational research in the state, including political economy, gender and conflict analysis, as well as assessments of the media, legislatures and ICTs with advise from the Technical Advisers
• Liaising with other SPF's and the STL to identify priority issues and partnerships to support in the state
• Contributing to the development of work plans and budgets for the state and communicating these to partner organisations
• Contributing to refinements of programme priorities and approach within the state on an on-going basis through participation in processes of reflection, review and re-strategising within the team

Programme delivery:

• Deliver against the agreed work-plan including coordinating strategic planning, budgeting and implementation of assigned Work areas with the rest of the state team, ensuring synergy between Work areas, and practical compliance with Programme Operations Manual by partners.
• Ensure work is delivered in line with PERL's Theory of Change and strategic approach
• Facilitate implementation of ECP's approach by local partners, and enhance their resourcefulness and diminish their dependency on ECP.
• Diagnose constraints in partners capacities, motivations and enabling environments and identify support required to meet these needs
• Manage external support (local, state and national TA inputs, in line with guidelines in Programme Operations Manual) to meet agreed partners requirements on assigned Work areas
• Coordinate joint planning and implementation of support to partners with other pillars of PERL and other Development Partners.

Support to M&E, Reflection, Reporting, KM & Communications systems:

• Develop and implement MEL plans relating to assigned Work areas/work-streams, as well as to Outcome & Impact Level MEL as requested/delegated by the STL and in conjunction with the MEL Support Team
• Compile required information/data into state programme MEL database, activity report & replication diary summary sheets, case studies, QPRs and other reporting templates as required- whether individually or as a team, as agreed with STL.
• Actively contribute to 'bigger picture' reflection, analysis, generation of learning/new knowledge and broad re-strategizing/planning through formal and informal interactions within the state team (e.g. quarterly/monthly reflection meetings).
• Internally communicate/share learning and ideas with staff in other States and Abuja and externally communicate/share learning and ideas with other Development partners.

Liaison with key programme partners:

• Lead on liaising with implementing partners in civil society, Media, Private Sector, SHoAs, MDAs as delegated by the STL
• Maintain a close working relationship with the SPFs or their equivalent for PERL ARC, as well those in the sectoral and other programmes.
• Liaise with STLs, SFOs, SAOs, FOs or equivalent staff of Other Programme's serving as implementing partners on work areas/ sub-work areas handled by the SPO, with oversight of the STL.
• Liaise with the National as required through the STL.
• Liaise with key high-level partners (DFID, leadership of State Govt & SHoA, etc) as requested/delegated by the STL.

Compliance Policies

• Agree that performance will be assessed based on these Terms of References.
• Understand that you will be expected to undertake any reasonable task as requested by the Line Manager.
• Maintain and actively promote the implementation of Palladium's Code of conduct, Diversity and Inclusion, Whistle-blowing and Child Protection, Safeguarding and Respectful Workplace policies
• It is the responsibility of the staff to constantly check for updates for this courses, instructions and briefs as they may arise. There is zero tolerance on defaulters.
• Ensure familiarity with all DFID and Palladium policies & procedures and check the ECP SharePoint regularly to ensure that any updates are also being implemented in a timely manner.
• Adhere to all stipulated PERL-ECP communications protocols regarding use of official email, Box, SharePoint/MIS, Twitter, Facebook, etc. accounts.
• Ensure all labor and finances relating to this role is accurately reported (using correct codes, inserting adequate comments) in timesheets, expense claims and cashbooks.
• Ensure cost of all activities completed falls within that forecasted to ensure monthly variances of reimbursable income to DFID are kept below 2%.
• Work to place the programme's core values/principles, approach, ethos and priorities above private interests while delivering to this role.

Information Management:

• Ensure familiarity with all DFID and Palladium Policies and procedures and check SharePoint regularly to ensure that any updates are also being implemented in a timely manner.
• Ensure that all work is completed in an accountable and transparent manner, this includes the use of official emails for work purposes. Use of personal emails will not be permitted. All work must be saved to the agreed cloud or central server storage systems and not individual desktops or hard-drives.

Requirements
Minimum education and experience required:

• Educated to university degree level or above
• At least 5 years' experience in voice and accountability, civil society, private sector, or media in Nigeria. Experience working in a donor (preferably DFID) funded programme is an advantage
• Experience working in political economy analysis with wider social analysis (with in-depth local context)

Key competencies and professional expertise required:

• Ability to engage a broad range of stakeholders, including civil society, legislature, private sector, government and the media and broker relationships between them
• Strong understanding of state and civil society dynamics in the region, particularly at the state level at it relates to high fragile, Donor driven and complex service delivery space.
• Demonstrable skills in ICT, MEL, advocacy and work planning
• Strong skills in using systems for the delivery of development programmes, including work planning, monitoring and evaluation and knowledge management.
• Ability to work effectively as part of a complex team, has demonstrable experience and ability to support Programme development, implementation/ monitoring of work plan and Budget
• Experience working on key service delivery-related areas such as health, education, agriculture and water etc

Key Behaviors in Engaged Citizens:

• Accountability - Accountability entails being open and transparent in all our work, action and behavior.
• Sustainability - Keeping the process going or continuous is key.
• Respectfulness & Inclusiveness - Sensitivity to people, context and environment; everybody counts.
• Learning & Sharing - Everyone knows something and shares something.
• Teamwork - Recognizing everyone's value and encouraging effective work in teams.
• Adaptive and Iterative - being politically smart and how well our systems and processes respond to changes is key.