Project Officer Society at British Council Nigeria

The British Council is the world’s leading cultural relations organization and creates opportunities for people in the UK and worldwide to understand each other, to work together and learn from one another. We see this as crucial to building secure, more prosperous and sustainable futures for us all. We build trust and understanding between different countries and cultures and develop strong international links that are of benefit to people in Britain and the rest of the world.

We are recruiting to fill the below position of:

Job Title: Project Officer, Society

Region: Sub Saharan Africa
Location: Kano
Department: Education & Society
Job Category: Project Management
Pay Band: 4
Reports to: Society Programme Manager

Purpose of Job

• To work with the Director Society, Society Programme Manager and other members of the Programmes team to support project delivery for the Northern Nigeria Girls School Enrolment Programme, Premier Skills, Active Citizens and NSRP/Arts project

Context and Environment
The British Council in Nigeria works in three strategic business areas; Arts, English, Education and Society.
The Society portfolio in Nigeria is delivered through a mix of large scale donor funded contract work including the Justice for All (J4A) and Nigeria Stability and Reconciliation (NSRP) programmes as well as partnership projects, including Active Citizens, Northern Nigeria Girls’ Enrolment Programme and Premier Skills. Our work focuses on three key areas:

• Working with civil society to enable the development of more inclusive, open and stable societies.
• Working with partners across the justice sector and with civil society to strengthen the rule of law, ensure access to justice and address and resolve conflict.
• Working to contribute to improved opportunities for women and girls through all our programmes.

The Northern Nigeria Girls’ Enrolment programme will work with an extensive range of partners, including donor agencies, civil society organizations, government agencies and contractors to organize and implement a range of projects, including:

• Community based advocacy and enrolment campaigns
• Media advocacy using radio and community performances
• Exchange programmes for key influencers, primarily traditional and religious leaders
• Research and development of innovative approaches to improving enrolment and educational outcomes for girls

The objectives of the project are to increase enrolment rates for girls across the North-Eastern and North-Western regions of Nigeria. The project will focus on challenging the social barriers to girl’s education building on interventions by government and international partners to address the supply side barriers.

• Active Citizens is a social leadership project run in partnership with four universities including Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Bayero University Kano, University of Jos and Uthman Dan Fodiyo University Sokoto, providing training for students in citizen engagement, volunteering and social action projects.
• Premier Skills is a partnership between the British Council and the English Premier League, which uses football as a tool to engage with and develop the skills of young people.

Accountabilities, Responsibilities and Main Duties
Project Management and Coordination:

• Support the delivery of project activity to agreed timelines, costs and performance indicators.
• Responsible for maintaining programme activity and gantt charts
• Responsible for programme records management and archiving in line with corporate policy on data protection and information management
• Support Project Manager in organising and managing training, dissemination and programme management events.

Financial Management:

• Responsible for creating and managing programme purchase orders and ensuring appropriate management of invoicing and payment of suppliers and vendors.
• Support the project manager with the procurement of goods and services in line with established corporate policies and guidelines.
• Ensuring the administrative purchase to pay process is executed in line with corporate standards.
• Equality, diversity and inclusion and Child Protection standards
• Support project manager to ensure that project delivery and activity reflect British Council EDI policy.
• Ensure that child protection policy and standards are followed and maintained for all relevant projects

Key Relationships:

• Society Programme Manager, Director Society, Nigeria Programme team, Nigeria Communications team, NSRP project managers, regional and global Education and Society team.
• Some travel and evening working within Nigeria and internationally.
• Some unsocial working hours.

Skills and Knowledge
Managing Projects:

• Works with project management systems and procedures, and has a track record of compliance with them as a project team member.

Communication skills

• Listens to others and expresses self clearly, with grammatical accuracy and awareness of a diverse audience in speaking and writing.

Planning and organising:

• Able to plan own work over short timescales for routine or familiar tasks and processes.

Managing finance and resources:

• Uses resources efficiently in own role and complies with financial rules and procedures.
• Understanding of the education and social landscape in Northern Nigeria.

Qualifications / Experience

• Bachelor’s Degree
• Experience working in North-East/North-West Nigeria

Application Closing Date
24th July, 2015.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Click here to download job details MS Word

Click here to download BC Core Skills (pdf)

Click here to download BC Behaviours (pdf)