Accountable Governance Coordinator at Oxfam

CONTEXT

• To facilitate collaborative governance and social protection processes by coordinating multi-stakeholder engagements, building capacities, and promoting inclusive planning and accountability mechanisms. This involves working with government officials, CSOs, communities, and partners to strengthen systems, enhance data-driven decision-making, and ensure responsive service delivery, ultimately empowering communities and improving governance outcomes in Kebbi State.

OBJECTIVE OF THE POSITION

• The Programme Manager, Accountable Governance, will be responsible for managing Oxfam’s overall policy and governance component of the project. He/she will be responsible for working with government to ensure policies are implemented, provide technical leadership on policy and governance issues, coordinate and plan with other donor-funded programs to facilitate favourable policies for Oxfam projects.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES  

Program Management:

• Provide technical leadership for the design, formalization, and management of innovative policy and governance initiatives in Kebbi State on the EU-SUSI project.
• Conduct management and skills gap assessments of State and LGA officials, delivering tailored training on planning, data management, and disaster preparedness, and supporting LGAs to link their data systems to the state social protection database
• Strengthen the capacity of local government (6 LGAs in Kebbi State) to develop inclusive, community-driven development plans.
• Ensuring quality and integrity of implementation, including adherence to technical guidelines, administrative systems, and established deadlines
• Conducting capacity gap assessments, delivering trainings on digital literacy, data security, and gender-sensitive analysis, and upgrading the state Social Safety Net Register (SSNR) platform for real-time, disaggregated data entry and reporting.
• Coordinating and support training on the SSNR purpose, data collection, encoding, verification, and linkage of state-LGA data, emphasizing inclusivity and national framework alignment.
• Coordinate a multi-stakeholder technical working group to review existing models, document lessons, and integrate the Household Economy Diary methodology.
• Facilitate inclusive planning processes with women, youth, persons with disabilities, CSOs, government officials
• Build and maintain relationships with key stakeholders: State Ministries, NASSCO, SOCU, LGAs, CSOs, community leaders, rights holders (women, youth, marginalized groups)
• Conducting a comprehensive review of existing systems and structures (using KIIs, FGDs), facilitating participatory problem-mapping with SOCU, LGAs, CSOs, and rights holders, and documenting findings in learning briefs.
• Establish gender-transformative community platforms for data validation, accountability, and rights-holder feedback.
• Advocate for inter-agency coordination to enhance SNR data use and reporting, linking with other states and national activities.
• Manage communication flows (updates, requests, feedback) between stakeholders, project staff, and partners.
• Support integration of community-based disaster risk reduction plans into LGA development plans.
• Evaluating the relevance and appropriateness of current and future programming in relation to policies affecting or hindering Oxfam’s projects
• Undertaking staff capacity building and trainings sessions

Team Management

• Foster collaboration between government (SOCU, MBEP, LGAs), CSOs, and communities in Kebbi state under the EU-SUSI project.
• Provide team members with information, tools, and other resources to improve performance and reach objectives.
• Implement performance planning and management systems, establish performance expectations with team members, and regularly provide constructive feedback on team members’ performance.
• Contribute to country team-building efforts, help team members identify problem-solving options and ensure the integration of all team members into relevant decision-making processes.
• Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve excellence.
• Promote accountability, communicate expectations, and provide constructive feedback via regular performance reviews.

Finance and Compliance Management:

• Monitor governance activity spending, Weekly and Monthly report and ensure alignment with budget and donor rules.
• Identify financial risks, promote transparency, escalate fraud/non-compliance.

Documentation and knowledge sharing

• Document success stories, case studies, and challenges for learning and reporting for the EU-SUSI project.
• Organize dissemination (trainings, dialogues), advocate for inter-agency coordination.
• Coordinate development/publication of Best Practices Manual for Social Protection & Safety Net Programming (including Household Economy Diary)
• Lead reviews of existing social protection systems; conduct participatory problem-mapping with SOCU, LGAs, CSOs, and rights holders.

Influence & Representation:

• Organize policy dialogues, dissemination forums, and targeted meetings with MBEP, SOCU, and humanitarian actors.
• Identify, build and manage collaborative partnerships with governments and other stakeholders.
• Communicate effectively to ensure overall project targets and donor obligations are met.
• Proactively form relationships with community members to complement Oxfam’s funding.
• Represent all Oxfam’s projects on governance issues at technical and strategic planning meetings, or as requested by the Head of Programmes and Influencing.

WHO ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

Education/Knowledge & Experience:

Education:

• Master’s Degree or its equivalent in International Relations, Development Studies, Management, Social Sciences, International Development or another relevant field.

Experience:

• Experience working in Northern Nigeria strongly preferred.
• A minimum of 7 years of progressive work experience including at least 2 years in a senior management or technical advisory role on large, education, project focused, skills building program.
• Strong understanding of compliance issues.
• Strong management skills, with good understanding of relevant cross-cultural issues in high security environment. Experience managing a multi-organizational team (international and national partners) is a plus.
• Strong written and oral communication skills in English required, including report development, writing, and editing.
• Demonstrate attention to detail, ability to follow procedures, meet deadlines and work independently and cooperatively with team members.
• Demonstrate experience working with country-level ministries and government officials.
• Ability to provide leadership, communicate effectively and build high performance teams in support of achievement of organizational objectives.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, including the ability to build relationships with colleagues at long distances in a multicultural environment.
• Solid experience in resource mobilization with a variety of donors.
• Numeracy and the ability to interpret financial data to provide management support to budgetary processes, including planning, monitoring and reporting

Desirable

• Commitment to equal opportunity, gender equality and the principles of diversity.

Competency

• Influencing: To engage with diverse stakeholders in a way that leads to increased impact for the organization. To spot opportunities to influence effectively and where there are no opportunities, to have the ability to create them in a respectful and impactful manner.
• Self-Awareness: To develop a high degree of self-awareness around your own strengths and weaknesses and your impact on others. Our self-awareness enables us to moderate and self-regulate our behaviour to control and channel our impulses for good purposes.
• Humility: To put ‘we’ before ‘me’ and place an emphasis on the power of the collective, nurture the team and play to the strengths of everyone. we are not concerned with hierarchical power, and we engage with, trust and value the knowledge and expertise of others across all levels of the organization.