Creative Associates seeks a Governance Director for Adamawa State for the State Accountability Transparency and Effectiveness (State2State) project in Nigeria funded by USAID to help states in northern Nigeria improve their services to the community by enhancing the government’s financial management and procurement systems. The Governance Director serves as the state director of all project programs, provides technical leadership, engages with state and local government leaders for monitoring, responds to opportunities for institutional reform and manages the State Project Office staff and technical advisors. S/he will serve on the project leadership team, working closely with counterparts in other states and facilitating knowledge transfer between state offices and with Nigerian federal officials.
Reporting and Supervision
The Governance Director reports to the Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP).
Primary Responsibilities:
- Assist state governments to develop strategic approaches for improving governance of state operations, including improvements in public financial management, improvements in service delivery, generation of internal funding and communication with citizens;
- Assist state governments in identifying and then providing a broad range of technical assistance and capacity development to achieve strategic governance objectives. Support state governments to facilitate public dialogue on governance and civic engagement between government and non-governmental actors through technical assistance to local civil society organizations;
- Monitor the progress of state governments in achieving agreed upon reforms and improvements in performance;
- Support the Chief of Party and the DCOP in the development of the project strategic framework and work plans for the program implementation to ensure the achievement of the program goals;
- Support state governments to facilitate interaction, collaboration, and collective action between diverse stakeholders and leverage stakeholder networks to develop strategies advocating citizen priorities;
- Support state government efforts to engage women, youth, and excluded groups in public and political dialogue, and electoral campaigns;
- Monitor and document all implementation activities, document successes, challenges, and lessons learned and share them with through regular program reports; and
- Deliver presentations on program objectives and achievements to implementing partners, civil society organizations, government officials, donor, and other organizations.
Required Skills & Qualifications:
- Minimum Master’s degree in political science, public administration, public financial management, public policy, law, economics or a related field;
- Minimum eight (8) years of related Nigerian development experience in public policy and administration, community development, , public financial management, or political analysis;
- Expertise in political economy and conflict assessment and mapping, managing complex partnerships and cross-cutting projects, and local, state, and national institutional building;
- Expertise in public service, good governance and/or accountability and oversight;
- Proven effectiveness in managing high-level government relations;
- Experience with civil society and government capacity building, and governance accountability;
- Strong experience with coalition building and collaboration with multiple stakeholders, including civil society, and government;
- Demonstrated leadership, management, strategic thinking, training, and human resources experience;
- Able to work effectively and professionally with high-level government officials, civil society organizations (CSOs), donor, project staff, and other beneficiaries;
- Demonstrated track record of developing, managing and working effectively in a teamwork environment;
- Experience with providing technical assistance, including organizing and conducting workshop and trainings; and
- Proficiency in writing, reading and speaking English at a senior professional level.
Desired Skills & Qualifications
- Experience working in northern Nigeria;
- Knowledge of state government reform efforts in Nigeria; and
- Experience engaging women and marginalized groups to ensure their inclusion.
Local and regional candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
Position contingent upon donor funding.