Private Sector and Equity Specialist at Palladium Group

Ref No: req11205

Reporting: The Private Sector and Equity Specialist will report directly to State Team Leader.

Project Overview and Role
Global Prosperity Fund’s ‘Skills for Prosperity’ is a FCDO programme, which seeks to improve the cost-effectiveness, access, quality, relevance and equity of skills through innovative approaches in 9 Middle-Income Countries around the world, including Nigeria. In Nigeria, the Skills for Prosperity (S4P) country programme will work in three targeted states to:

• Improve access to quality Higher Education and TVET for youth and young women, with a focus on improving access to and the quality of apprenticeships, and supporting training institutions to deliver demand-driven, competency-based training,
• Strengthen education-to-employment linkages.
• Build the capacity of training institutions to improve outcomes for vulnerable women and people with disabilities.
• Apprenticeships, training, and capacity building interventions will focus on identified high growth sectors of the economy (Agriculture/Agribusiness/agro-allied industries; Creative and Entertainment, and Information and Communications Technology sectors).
• S4P aims to directly benefit youth, vulnerable women and People with Disabilities (PwD) in targeted states of Kaduna in the north, Benue in the central belt, and Lagos in the south.
• It will also establish learning and peer sharing mechanisms across other states, including Kano, Enugu and Edo.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities
Background

• S4P requires an Private Sector and Equity Specialist with a relevant track record, and interest or experience in the private sector and skills training.
• The Private Sector and Equity Specialist should have the drive to tackle new and complex challenges and work with us to learn, adapt and deliver sustainable benefits for Nigeria.

Responsibilities
The Private Sector and Equity Specialist will be expected to deliver the following:

• Engage with private sector organisations to develop relationships that result in training beneficiaries in industries and job opportunities and identify areas of support for enterprise growth.
• Support MSE growth through training and capacity building of key partners. Develop and lead access to finance and market interventions.
• Strengthen partnerships between private, public, and non-governmental actors, including attracting and incentivising the private sector to participate in traineeship and apprenticeship programmes.
• Work closely with the State Leads, PSD, SDS and Equity Leads to support transformative MSEs to create employment opportunities for S4P supported youth.
• The MSE component includes the formulation and implementation of state policies and strategies for MSE support and job creation, and provision of relevant, quality business development services and access to finance to S4P beneficiaries.
• Support the development of products and campaigns to promote private sector-led Technical and Vocational Skills Development (TVSD) in states.
• Work closely with the SDS and Equity Lead to ensure all the Access, Quality and Equity components and market development interventions are socially and gender inclusive
• Monitor trainings of S4P beneficiaries in Industries and quality assure trainings provided. Develop and cultivate good relationships with all relevant stakeholders.
• Drive gender equity and social inclusion within the programme, both from a technical and management perspective, to ensure an increased participation of women and vulnerable groups in all skilling programmes in close consultation with the Skills Development Specialist(SDS).
• Support the delivery of skills development interventions to vulnerable women, youth and persons with Disabilities (PwDs) in each state in collaboration with state Government.
• Provide technical support and capacity building to responsible state institutions for the development of enrolment and safeguarding framework and guidelines for vulnerable women, youth and PwDs participating in vocational empowerment programmes.
• Participate and drive stakeholder engagement activities, roundtable discussions, information dissemination workshops and virtual sessions in states.
• Provide continuous feedback incorporation and learning from programme implementation.

Specific Deliverables:

• Support the programme delivery, this will include facilitating capacity building and training to identified institutions at state level, improving their ability to deliver positive TVET results for marginalised groups, improving TVET curricula and training materials, and overseeing the implementation of pilot and scaled TVET interventions.
• Support MREL specialist in states as needed to generate evidence around beneficiaries (disaggregated by GSI targets) accessing traineeship and apprenticeship positions with small, medium or large enterprises.
• Support the Communications Team to ensure effective communication are captured as appropriate in all programme related studies.
• Support the timely delivery of MSE & Equity quarterly milestones including contributing to written reports and monitoring of activities.
• Participate in the delivery and implementation of cross cutting GESI strategy, working closely with the State and Thematic Leads.
• Coordinate and ensure effective reporting and communications for all MSE and Equity interventions.
• Support other intervention units as required to provide ongoing support and strengthen the interventions through links to MSE &Equity activities.
• Any other task assigned by State lead.

Role Requirements

• Highly experienced and extremely well-connected across public and private sector TVET providers, and organised private sector associations and organisation’s.
• Previous experience working with private business actors across value chains of the three target sectors: Agriculture/Agribusiness/Agro-allied; Creative and Entertainment; and Information and Communications Technology (ICT).
• Excellent relationship-building, influencing, communication skills and demonstrable ability to deliver effective training to multi-stakeholder audiences.
• Experience in promoting and improving GESI in TVET and skills development programmes, preferably in Nigeria.
• Previous experience working with vulnerable groups and good understanding of cultural nuances and biases.
• Support the implementation of the programme-wide GESI and Equity Strategies in States including working with the MREL team to monitor GESI and Equity indicators and interventions.
• Support the piloting and scaling of Equity interventions in states contribute towards activities to ensure an increased participation of women and vulnerable groups.
• Knowledge, experience and expertise in implementing interventions with a gender and/or equity components. 
• Experience working with state governments/policy makers, private sector, and civil society,
• Ability to work with partners with diverse interests and needs.

Required Qualifications

• Ability to speak one local language of communication within the state.
• Degree in Social Science, Business, or other relevant disciplines.
• At least 5 years experience working with MSE development.
• Experience working with private sector organisations is desirable.
• Excellent communication with a diverse group of stakeholders.
• Previous experience of working with vulnerable groups including women and PWDs (desirable).
• Proven experience in working on gender equality and social inclusion.
• Previous work experience in implementing skills, education, MSE support and livelihood programmes in Nigeria (desirable).