Principal Programme Development Specialist

Lead the origination, structuring, and development of strategic infrastructure programmes and projects. The role provides deep technical, legal, or financial expertise to unlock bankable projects and support DBSA’s investment pipeline. It also contributes to innovative programme design, stakeholder engagement, and institutional capacity-building to accelerate infrastructure delivery and investment readiness.

**Key Responsibilities**:
**KEY PERFORMANCE AREAS**

1. Strategic Planning

- Contribute to the development and refinement of DBSA’s infrastructure strategy.
- Align programme initiatives with national priorities and DBSA’s investment objectives.
- Identify risks and opportunities to inform strategic direction.
- Support long-term planning and institutional positioning.
- Contribute to the design of sector-specific programme frameworks.
- Support the development of investment policies and programme governance models.

2. Lead Programme Origination and Structuring

- Identify and structure complex infrastructure programmes and projects.
- Lead feasibility assessments, risk analysis, and stakeholder alignment.
- Support negotiations, governance approvals, programme preparation funding, and project development fundraising.
- Drive development of bankable projects, including feasibility studies, permitting, and sponsor support.

3. Programme Development

- Lead the development of programme origination strategies to unlock infrastructure projects in South Africa, SADC and select African Countries through project preparation.
Develop sector-specific strategies to promote the development of projects aligned to the development priorities of the DBSA.
- Conduct market research and needs analysis to ascertain the gaps and requirements
- Understand legislation impacting infrastructure development, e.g., the Division of Revenue Act, conditional infrastructure grant guidelines, sector governance frameworks, etc.
- Profiling and identifying the gaps for infrastructure development for South Africa, SADC and select African countries.
- Comprehensively map industry or sector opportunities to generate a list of potential programmes to be developed.
- Conduct in-depth macro-level feasibility assessments to provide insight into the programmes:

- National, Provincial and Local landscape sector-specific challenges.
- Environmental and regulatory assessments.
- Community structures and needs.
- Identify, originate and design projects/programmes at a macro level that support the annual disbursement target and the division's strategic objectives.
- Develop pilot projects to test the design, measure the success of the programmes and review the design for final development and execution handover.
- Support programme implementation, identifying funding needs for the programme and development of funding structures for projects developed through the programme.
- Prepare and present programme development proposals for approval by various committees.
- Develop funding strategies and initiate innovative fundraising and partnering initiatives.
- Provide a steady flow of deals into the Programme by:

- Identify and structure project opportunities from a project developer/sponsor perspective
- Define project concept and scope
- Engage with clients and obtain a mandate as a project developer
- Support efficient risk management of projects (programmes), provide opportunities for equity investments in projects and improve the quality of the loan book by:

- De-risk the technical and commercial risk aspects of projects
- Facilitate a better understanding, assessment and pricing of project risk
- Ensure DBSA has the right of first refusal to finance projects that are prepared through the programmes developed
- Actively manage programmes developed:

- o Manage pilot projects for the programme and initiate the preparation thereof
- Identify service providers required to undertake project preparation on projects developed
- Appraise projects and programmes (prepare proposals for DBSA’s governing structures for approval)
- Structure the PMO governance and structure
- Negotiate MoA with programme owner
- Develop profiles for PMO resources and initiate the recruitment process
- Provide comprehensive reporting on expenditure and progress on all programme management offices (PMO).

4. Stakeholder Management

- Build and maintain strong relationships with clients at global, regional, and local levels, including businesses, banking and multilateral partners and government officials to further develop specific project preparation opportunities.
- Manage expectations from programme owners and ensure third-party programme mandates are understood by the DBSA teams
- Liaise with Investment divisions' peers to develop a pipeline for the DBSA market at large.
- Contribute to the development of the DBSA’s brand and reputation through positioning the bank as a partner of choice for end-to-end infrastructure development and financing across Africa.

**Expertise