PSD (Private Sector Development) Lead at Palladium Group

Req No: 10760
Reporting: The PSD Lead will report directly to S4P Nigeria’s Team Leader

Project Overview and Role

• Global Prosperity Fund’s ‘Skills for Prosperity’ is a £75m 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, and
• 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

• S4P requires a PSD Lead with a relevant track record, and interest or experience in the private sector and skills training.
• The PSD Lead 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 PSD Lead will be responsible for the following:

• Provide strategic direction for Output 1 (‘Relevance’ component) of the programme, responsible for developing institutional framework and programmes for the active participation of organised private sector in skills development and school-to-work transition.
• Lead on the implementation of the Private Sector Engagement Strategy, providing guidance and support as necessary to the State Leads in implementing the Programme’s strategy for leveraging private sector involvement at state level.
• Provide strategic leadership and direction on the Programme’s strategy to improve job placements, apprenticeships and sector skills councils
• Drive the creation of partnerships between private, public and non-governmental actors, including attracting and incentivising the private sector to invest in traineeship, internship and apprenticeship programmes
• Design and lead access to finance and market interventions
• Develop products and campaigns to promote private sector-led Technical and Vocational Skills Development (TVSD)
• Work closely with the Skills Lead in leveraging private sector to bridge skills gap, ensuring skills training is demand-driven and of sufficient quality to meet industry requirements
• Work closely with the Equity Lead to ensure all market development interventions are socially and gender-inclusive.

Specific Deliverables:

• Provide strategic direction to Output 2 activities and deliverables, and offer practical support to State Managers as needed during implementation. This includes:
• Overseeing development and delivery of national framework and guidelines for organised private sector participation in skills.
• Improve capacity and active participation of small, medium and large enterprises (SMEs) in skills development.
• Develop innovative mechanisms or services to support and institutionalise labour market information, and employment services.
• Maintain and continue to build relationships with key actors representing the organised private sector in Nigeria throughout programme implementation, acting as the key point of contact at Federal level for private sector engagement
• Support MREL Manager as needed to generate evidence around beneficiaries (disaggregated by GSI targets) accessing traineeship and apprenticeship positions with small, medium or large enterprises.
• Work closely with Skills Lead to leverage private sector to improve skills of labour market entrants, and their school-to-work transition

Required Qualifications

• Deep understanding of local labour market economics in the target sectors across Nigeria and in the target states specifically. This includes understanding of and pre-existing relationships with key players within each sector, ICT, Creative and Agribusiness
• Understands local labour market economics leveraging local economic development through cluster approach supported by Business Development Services, mentorship, Access to Finance and Access to Markets to catalyse the informal sector and enable it for skills development
• Highly experienced and extremely well-connected across public and private sector TVET providers, and organised private sector associations, especially for job placements and apprenticeship spaces and sector skills councils
• 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
• Entrepreneurial mindset and approach
• Outstanding relationship-building and communication skills