Catalyze Edufinance Regional Representative – Africa Palladium

About Palladium:

Palladium is a global company working to design, develop and deliver positive impact on the lives and livelihoods of people around the globe; broaden access to health, water, power, and infrastructure; build enduring, sustainable, and transformative institutions and market systems to address global challenges; and conserve the natural world. We operate in over 90 countries and have a workforce of 4,000 talented, motivated, and diverse staff of all religions, races, languages, and gender identities.

This Opportunity:

CATALYZE EduFinance (‘EduFinance’) is seeking to fill a long-term position based in Sub-Saharan Africa, which will provide regional representation; program management; communications; monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL); and technical quality assurance and support to the current and prospective EduFinance activities being implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa. These activities currently include Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, with other prospective buy-ins in development (see below for more details on CATALYZE EduFinance).

Palladium is the prime contractor under CATALYZE EduFinance. The projects in Africa are implemented on a day-to-day basis by implementing partners / sub-contractors and sub-grantees.

About CATALYZE/EduFinance

The CATALYZE Blended Finance Mechanism is a $250 Million, 8-year contract (5-year base period, with a single 3-year option period) which uses a facilitated partnership model to craft solutions to crowd in $2 Billion in blended finance (i.e., blended concessional and commercial finance) to USAID partner countries and initiatives. CATALYZE allows USAID Bureaus and Missions to efficiently deploy investment facilitation solutions that respond to the needs of specific sectors, issues, and geographies.

The CATALYZE EduFinance program develops private sector partnerships to facilitate innovations in financing and service delivery that increase access to low-cost, quality education. CATALYZE EduFinance mobilizes blended finance – the strategic use of public funds to increase private sector investment – to crowd in private capital into non-state schools and education enterprises in USAID partner countries. Private capital leveraged with funding from USAID will address the substantial funding gap to respond to the global need for increased access to quality education.

CATALYZE EduFinance leverages a pool of specialized expertise to design and implement complex multi-year programs, that can include dynamic tools, such as first loss capital, to mitigate country or education sector-specific risks.

To mobilize private capital in support of education goals, CATALYZE EduFinance operates at the nexus of demand-driven investment and innovative solutions development, collaborating with a global community of experts. CATALYZE EduFinance is implementing a pipeline of education investments in target countries in Africa (Zambia, South Africa, Rwanda, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya), and Latin America/Caribbean (Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and Paraguay).

Location:

The Regional Representative must be able to live and work in a Sub-Saharan country, with a strong preference for those residing full-time in one of the countries where CATALYZE EduFinance’s activities are active.

This position will require frequent travel (up to 50%) to current and prospective activity sites (currently in Rwanda, Tanzania, DRC, South Africa, and Zambia with more buy-ins in the process of being added).

You and Your Career:

If you are a problem-solver, collaborator, and doer, with skills in communication, monitoring and evaluation and stakeholder engagement, we are interested in hearing from you.

We are a learning organization and provide growth opportunities from the start. We pride ourselves on giving you the freedom, resources, and guidance to chart a fulfilling career!

Reporting and Supervision:

The EduFinance Regional Representative will report to the CATALYZE Senior Education Finance Specialist based in Washington, DC.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

The EduFinance Regional Representative is expected to travel frequently to the EduFinance projects in each of the countries of current and prospective activities to accomplish the following:

Serve as Palladium’s regional representative, supporting the DC-based USAID team by providing on-the-ground support, quality assurance, stakeholder management, and partnership building efforts
Stakeholder engagement and partnership building duties include meeting with USAID clients, implementing partners and other key stakeholders (e.g., host country government officials, private sector investors and financial institutions, partner schools, foundations, etc) in the countries where EduFinance is operating. Objectives are to maintain strong client engagement and trust in Palladium’s work on current activities (achieving results, technical excellence); and build strong networks to help foster the growth of current activities and new opportunities
Conduct quality assurance and performance management of the projects to make sure they are achieving their technical results
Carry out monitoring and evaluation of the projects – this includes assisting the home office Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) team with tasks such as program reporting, data verification, checking to make sure the projects are meeting their indicators and targets
Communications support – identify and help develop important new knowledge products, attend events representing Palladium / CATALYZE EduFinance and serve as a thought leader in this capacity (e.g., be on panels and presentations at these events)
Help resolve management and technical challenges as needed
Support Safeguarding efforts – this includes visiting the projects and meeting with the implementing partners to ensure that safeguarding protocols are being followed and help proactively address potential safeguarding-related issues
Help support task order development (new business development) as needed
Other duties as required

Key Competencies Required:

Relevant program management, MEL, or other similar experience, ideally focused on education, finance, and/or development initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa
Evidence of strong communication skills, both interpersonal and written, to fulfil the diverse technical and managerial requirements of the project
Knowledge of USAID processes and regulations, and ideally USAID programming in the education sector and key policies including the Private Sector Engagement Policy, Education Policy and USAID terminology, processes, and tools
Strong ability to communicate effectively and professionally in English, and strong proficiency in a language that’s predominant where CATALYZE EduFinance implements activities
Strong existing network in the countries EduFinance operates in or is looking to expand to in order to facilitate business development

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion – Palladium is committed to embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion into everything we do. We welcome applications from all sections of society and actively encourage diversity to drive innovation, creativity, success and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce; and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment regardless of their background or personal characteristics. These include: (but are not limited to) socio-economic background, age, race, gender identity and expression, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, veteran, marital or Indigenous status.

Should you require any adjustments or accommodations to be made due to a disability or you are a neurodivergent individual or for any other circumstance, please email our team at accessibility@thepalladiumgroup.com and we will be in touch to discuss.

Safeguarding – We define Safeguarding as “the preventative action taken by Palladium to protect our people, clients and the communities we work with from harm”. We are committed to ensuring that all children and adults who come into contact with Palladium are treated with respect and are free from abuse. All successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced selection process including safeguarding-focused interviews and a rigorous due diligence process.