Africa Strategy Delivery Officer at Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO)

Main purpose of the job

To coordinate the High Commission’s multi-departmental approach for delivering the British government’s Africa Strategy in Kenya; reporting regularly to senior leads oversee the change management required to achieve the mission’s high level of policy ambition across the four strands of the Africa Strategy; ensure coherence across the Mission’s work, a fit for purpose office environment and an enabling and supporting Learning and development offer.

The role presents unique opportunities to advance the UK-Kenya relationship, responding to enhanced focus on Africa under the Global Britain ambition.

The Africa Strategy Delivery Officer will work closely with the Senior Management Team of the British High Commission and the Africa Strategy Joint Coordination team to draw together policy ideas from across the four strands of the Africa strategy (Security and Stability, Building Inclusive Markets, Demography and Climate Change and Natural Resource Management) into a coherent plan for Post activity. S/he will shape the formulation of a policy approach that is built upon the Country Business Plan and docks into existing Post policy coherence structures (the Kenya Policy Board, and Kenya Portfolio Board) yet is flexible enough to reflect new policy thinking, ambition and opportunity.

The Africa Strategy Delivery Officer will ensure that Post understands the personnel, knowledge and skills uplift requirements to deliver the enhanced policy ambition, and is able to access them. This will require intensive collaboration with policy teams to devise a delivery plan for recruitment, helping teams to draw up job descriptions and run recruitment campaigns, coordinated with HR. And in tandem, shaping (with HR and the regional L+D team) a programme to address the new skills and knowledge required for existing staff, drawing from the world-class offer in Learning and Development available through the FCO’s Diplomatic Academy, the BHC’s own Driving Licence L+D approach and tapping into local /regional expertise as appropriate. Ensuring that this offer is fully integrated with L+D plans across our existing staff to optimise a whole of mission approach will be critical to a fully One Team approach.

The third key part of the role will be to enable the uplift in staffing and new team arrangements through tactical consideration of the physical workspace, working with the BHC Estates Team. This will require considered input into the remodelling of the existing office space and thinking through optimal use of desk configurations to promote effective multi-discipline working and cross-fertilisation of ideas. The ASDO will also pick up on recommendations made on organisational design to optimise collaboration and staff effectiveness, including structuring a process of meetings structures, reporting timelines and KPIs to plan, track and evaluate progress against objectives. This will require close coordination with London colleagues, and to some extent other Posts across the region.

Roles and responsibilities:

This is a new role that will support the Senior Leadership Team in making bold decisions about future policy delivery through the UK Mission in Kenya. The job holder will be responsible for setting the pace and structure for a delivery programme that brings together policy ambition, people and ways of working. The officer will be responsible for operationalising action points (often working through other teams across the Mission), setting out the framework for delivery, tracking progress, flagging concerns early and effectively and ensuring success is celebrated.

A more detailed time allocation is shown below.

Policy coordination (40%)

• Creating and operationalising a heartbeat of progress reports, underpinned by sub-structures that bring together the right people at the right levels in a timely way to discuss, propose, plan and assess.
• Generating and delivering a plan with London colleagues and policy teams to ensure BHC Nairobi is inputting to London and influencing policy thinking as a Post this size should.

Recruiting and training Africa strategy staff (30%)

• Identification of staffing and skills requirements across the Mission in order to deliver new / enhanced policy areas, working in close coordination with, policy teams and HR.
• Timely and accurate work (with others) to implement recruitment strategies to bring in the appropriate staff, in line with BHC terms and conditions and with the flexibility required of a new strategy.
• Working up mission, team and individual level L+D plans to ensure staff are supported in developing new / stronger skills and knowledge in line with the Africa Strategy.
• Coordinate strong communications across Post and with London about the process of skills and knowledge development to deliver the Africa Strategy, ensuring the approach is firmly embedded within the BHC core values and Mission statement.
• Ensure that opportunities are made available fairly and transparently, and that staff across the Mission (new and existing) see the Africa Strategy as a positive development for this Post.

Shaping the physical and collaborative space (25%)

•   Taking ownership of the BHC Gantt chart that sets out the timeline for policy formulation, staff recruitment, training and development.
• Bridging between policy and corporate teams to optimise use of physical space to support collaboration between Africa strategy and existing work
• Liaison point with London, to shape requests for financial / strategic support in ensuring the office space is fit for purpose to deliver the policy ambition
• Taking forward recommendations on organisational design, ensuring they remain viable and helpful, and can be implemented; tacking impact and tackling obstacles

Corporate (5%)

• As all other staff at post, the job holder is expected to participate in wider British High Commission activities. These may include  being active on various committees and in other corporate roles, as well as play a role in crisis management activities on an ad hoc basis.

Resources managed (staff and expenditure):

No direct line management is envisaged, at least initially. However team management and leadership experience is preferred given the jobholder will need to work closely with teams across the Mission to coordinate programme activity and drive the framework for strategic outcomes from the Africa Strategy.