Program Manager – REAP at International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)

ILRI Jobs, Jobs in Kenya,

About the program: REAP is a five-year multi-country initiative intended to advance education and relieve poverty by enabling 1,000,000 financially disadvantaged young women and men, aged 18 to 35 years, to access new work opportunities in sustainable feed and livestock value chains across the seven countries. The Program will equip young people with technical, entrepreneurial, financial; digital and workplace capabilities linked to real economic opportunities and enable financially disadvantaged young people to access work, finance, productive assets, markets and income-generating opportunities that improve household resilience and wellbeing. Among its participants, the Program shall target 70% young women and at least 5% youth with disabilities and 20,000 refugees and displaced young people.

The programme will support youth-led and youth-inclusive enterprises to enter, stabilise and grow in feed and livestock markets; strengthen market systems, services, and commercial relationships; and improve policy, finance, innovation, extension, and other enabling systems required for youth-led enterprises to succeed and generate additional employment opportunities. Across these areas, it applies gender-transformative and inclusive approaches to address restrictive gender and social norms, reduce barriers to young women’s participation, and strengthen their agency, voice, leadership and access to resources and opportunities. Safeguarding measures are embedded throughout the programme to protect young people from harm and support their safe participation.

Led by ILRI, the consortium includes ICARDA, IITA, the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, and icipe, working with downstream delivery partners, enterprise-support organisations, financial institutions, government and private sector actors. The Director draws on partners’ expertise in feed and livestock systems, enterprise development, market systems, inclusive finance, digital innovation, policy, and gender and social inclusion to guide country delivery and achieve measurable youth work outcomes, adapting implementation in response to evidence.

Key Responsibilities:

Working within the Programme Management and Coordination Unit and country teams, the postholder will translate programme strategy into coordinated workplans, delivery schedules, management routines and accountable action across seven programme countries, technical workstreams, consortium partners and ILRI support functions.

The role will serve as the operational engine of the programme, maintaining a programme-wide view of milestones, deliverables, dependencies, risks, decisions and resource needs. The Program Manager will work closely with the REAP Programme Director, country leads, workstream leads, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning, Finance and Grants, Communications, Safeguarding, and corporate service teams to remove delivery barriers, strengthen collaboration, and ensure timely, inclusive and compliant implementation.

This is a delivery leadership role requiring the ability to lead through influence, engage senior technical specialists constructively, and maintain momentum and accountability in a complex, multicultural and multi-partner environment.

Programme coordination, planning and delivery oversight

• Coordinate integrated programme planning across the PMU, country teams, workstreams, consortium partners and relevant ILRI functions, ensuring that activities, milestones, deliverables and interdependencies remain aligned with programme objectives.
• Track implementation against agreed milestones, deliverables, outcomes and budgets; identify gaps or misalignment and coordinate timely corrective action.
• Maintain consolidated programme risk, issue, dependency and decision registers; proactively identify operational bottlenecks and institutional constraints, coordinate mitigation with responsible teams, and escalate critical matters to the Programme Director with practical recommendations.
• Support adoption of programme processes, tools and operating arrangements, and continuously improve coordination methods, workflows and reporting tools as programme complexity evolves.

Governance, reporting and management information

• Strengthen the effectiveness of programme governance and management structures by ensuring that decision makers receive timely, high-quality information, that decisions are translated into accountable action, and that unresolved matters are escalated appropriately.
• Consolidate inputs from countries, workstreams and partners into coherent internal and donor reports, dashboards, presentations and leadership briefs, providing concise analysis and recommendations to support timely decision-making.
• Collaborate with the MEL function to align workplans, delivery tracking and management information with the programme results framework, and use monitoring evidence and implementation feedback to support adaptive management and course correction.

Partner, stakeholder and internal liaison

• Act as an effective liaison among programme leadership, technical teams, country teams, consortium partners, corporate functions and, as delegated, the Mastercard Foundation.
• Secure timely and coordinated support from Finance, Grants, People and Culture, Procurement, Legal, Communications, Safeguarding, ICT and other institutional functions, resolving systemic constraints and escalating service-delivery risks that could affect programme outcomes.
• Support engagement with government, private-sector, development, research and community stakeholders where operational matters affect programme delivery, as delegated by programme leadership.

Compliance and safeguarding

• Promote adherence to applicable donor, ILRI and programme policies and standards.
• Ensure safeguarding, ethics, risk management and responsible data practices are integrated into planning and delivery routines.
• Undertake other strategic programme management responsibilities consistent with the seniority, purpose and accountability of the role.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in project or programme management, development studies, public administration, business administration, agricultural or livestock sciences, or another relevant discipline.
• Recognised project or programme management certification, such as PMP, PRINCE2 or an equivalent qualification, is desirable.
• Training or demonstrated knowledge in results-based management, adaptive management, risk management, safeguarding, or partnership management is an advantage.
• At least seven years of progressively responsible experience managing or coordinating complex, multi-country and multi-stakeholder programmes in international development, research, agriculture, enterprise development or a related environment.
• Experience using project and programme management tools and dashboards
• Experience working in Africa and across multi-cultural institutional or consortium settings is strongly preferred.
• Execution-Oriented Leadership & Accountability – Ability to drive timely delivery, maintain follow-through, solve problems pragmatically, and hold teams accountable through influence, credibility and constructive engagement.
• Strategic Planning, Organisation & Adaptability – Ability to manage competing priorities, anticipate risks, navigate ambiguity and change, and maintain programme coherence and focus.
• Stakeholder Engagement, Communication & Influence – Strong facilitation, negotiation, stakeholder management and cross-cultural communication skills, with the ability to engage senior experts, partners and donors effectively.
• Analytical Judgement & Decision-Making – Ability to analyse complex information, identify implications and risks, exercise sound judgement in high-stakes situations, and translate evidence into clear recommendations for programme leadership and donors.
• Excellent written and spoken English. French language capability is an advantage for engagement across programme countries.

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