Senior Program Officer, Sub-saharan Africa, Global

1 week ago

Johannesburg, South Africa Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Full time

**The Foundation**

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: that people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. By building a global and cultural workplace that supports greater diversity, equity, and inclusion — of voices, ideas, and approaches — together with our employees and partners, we can help all people improve their lives from poverty and health to education. As an organization we offer full healthcare premiums coverage, generous paid time off, contribution to your retirement fund, several employee communities, and a commitment to embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion into everything we do.

**The Team**

The foundation’s Global Education (Global Ed) team works to improve reading and math outcomes - also referred to as foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) - for primary school aged children in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The learning crisis is dire, and latest data from the World Bank indicates that the learning poverty rate (the proportion of children who are unable to read a simple passage with comprehension by age 10) in low
- and middle
- income countries is an estimated 70%. This figure is estimated to be 89% and 70% in sub-Saharan Africa and India respectively. Our focus is to strengthen education quality for children in lower primary (typically Grades 1-3), and our emphasis is on identifying, advocating for, and funding evidence driven, cost-effective, and scalable interventions that improve learning outcomes at scale within government systems.

**Your Role**:
Evidence-based approaches exist to improve foundational learning in low-income countries, namely structured pedagogy, teaching at the level of the child, and remediation. However, implementation of these programs at-scale remains rare, particularly in SSA, with several delivery challenges unsolved by our partners. We are looking for a **Senior Program Officer, Sub-Saharan Africa**, Global Education** to support our partners to design and lead evidence driven interventions to strengthen FLN in sub-Saharan Africa.

The postholder will be based at the foundation’s office in **Johannesburg, South Africa**, and report to the Director, Global Education, based in Addis Ababa.

**What You’ll Do**:

- Lead strategy development and implementation of FLN programming in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in response to learning loss.
- Design and lead portfolio of investments to strengthen delivery of education interventions in SSA, including innovative mechanisms to leverage and support policymakers, partners and donors.
- Use internal processes to ensure operational efficiency and effective management of investments.
- Lead and serve as a thought partner in strategic discussions and leadership engagement within the Global Education team and the foundation.
- Engage directly with African education leaders and partner organizations to focus on improving learning outcomes at the system level.
- Prepare written analyses and communications at all levels of the organization.
- Effectively collaborate with Global Education colleagues, a geographically dispersed team working closely together in a remote environment

**Your Experience**:

- Master’s degree in education or related field with 8+ years of experience, or equivalent.
- Strong understanding of the evidence base on improving foundational literacy and numeracy in the primary grades in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Experience in developing and managing strong and equitable partnerships and relationships with senior decision makers, education partners, and implementation partners in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Demonstrated ability in using soft skills, managing conflicts, and building consensus.
- Excellent interpersonal skills and a demonstrated ability to build and sustain collaborative relationships.
- Demonstrated ability to solve complex problems with little oversight, high creativity, high energy, and a positive attitude.
- Outstanding project and team leadership skills including ability to lead strategy development, develop shared goals and execution plans, prioritize, facilitate meetings, manage budgets, develop consensus, and work both autonomously and collaboratively.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, able to effectively synthesize information to reach diverse audiences and build consensus.
- Experience managing a donor funded portfolio either as a grantee or grantmaker, receiving and reporting on performance, with direct responsibility for management.
- Experience working in an environment with ambiguity while helping teams adapt to change.
- Ability to work with flexibility and a high level of rigor, collaboration, and diplomacy, both individually and as part of a complex team effort.
- High standards of personal integrity.
- Ability to speak an African language is preferred.

**Other Attributes**
- Willingness

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