The five-year (2020-2025) USAID Local Impact Governance Project (Local Impact) is helping Zambia build up a sub-national system of governance for devolved service delivery more responsive to citizen needs. The program is engaging national and sub-national authorities to expand the capabilities of partner provinces and districts to deliver sustainable development outcomes, increase effective citizen and private-sector involvement in development planning and monitoring, and improve public financial management and domestic revenue generation.

The activity is specifically working toward three objectives:

•  Objective 1: Citizens improve their collective skills to effectively assess service-delivery needs and performance and constructively engage with government.
• Objective 2: The sub-national governance system becomes more responsive to citizen needs, generates, and accountably expends revenue, and improves service-delivery outcomes.
• Objective 3: The program generates learning and facilitates problem solving that supports the development of an effective, financially viable sub-national governance system for devolved services, capable of being scaled up throughout Zambia.

Local Impact is initially working in eighteen districts in Central and Muchinga Provinces to expand the capacity of district authorities to perform core functions, including strengthening the delivery of essential services, deepening citizen and private sector involvement in development planning and monitoring, improving public administration and public financial management, and increasing locally generated revenues.  The Project is recruiting for the following positions.

Position: Public Finance and Capacity Building Officer
Location: Province to be determined
Contract Name: USAID Local Impact Governance Project
Type: Long-Term Technical Assistance
Period of Performance: Subject to the availability of funds

Purpose

Through the development and facilitation of evidence-based and context-driven interventions, the province-based Local Impact team will help partner districts establish participatory mechanisms and capacity for cross-sectoral dialogue, planning, and budgeting and increasing own-source revenues. The team will support visible service improvements and ensure that core public administration and public financial management functions (budgeting, planning, management, and citizen engagement) are strengthened in partner districts.

The Public Finance and Capacity Building Officer will focus on public financial management and public administration at the provincial and district levels, specifically the generation of own-source revenues and the transparent management of fiscal resources and strengthening the capacities of local officials in public administration to enable them engage citizens and conduct local governance functions in an efficient, effective, and transparent manner.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

General duties

• Work closely and coordinate with other project team members based in the partner province;
• Follow field office finance and operations requirements (including procurements) in close coordination with Lusaka-based Finance and Operations Team;
• Build and manage relationships with province- and district-based Local Impact stakeholders, and coordinate with cooperating partner-funded programs operating at the local level;
• Develop, implement, monitor, and evaluate public financial management and public administration activities that involve partner province and district civil service and elected officials. line ministry service providers, traditional leaders, private sector entities, civil society organizations (CSOs) and local citizens (including women and disadvantaged communities);
• Provide logistics for assessment exercises, activities and events in the partner province as needed;
• Directly support the Local Impact sub-contractors as needed;
• Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) district mapping activities;
• Geo-Poll provincial surveys;
• Deliver timely, detailed, and accurate updates on province-based activities that inform trip activity, quarterly, annual, and final reports, including the annual work plan, and other deliverables;
• Work closely with and support the Grants Team on proposal and budget development; the solicitation process; activity implementation; deliverable completion; and monitoring, evaluation and learning for provincial and district level grantees;
• Serve as primary point of contact for select partner district to be determined;
• Identify and contribute to success stories in partner provinces and districts as required by USAID Collect quality data for the Activity, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Plan (AMELP) for quarterly and annual indicators.

Public financial management and public administration duties

• Support the development of strategies for maximizing own-source revenues;
• Improve expenditure management, tracking, and audit functions of district and province finance staff;
• Help citizens, private sector entities, and civil society organizations to better understand and take part in local decision making around public financial management issues;
• Enhance participatory planning and budgeting capacities of district councils;
• Strengthen district council capacities to structure, negotiate and monitor public-private partnerships;
• Support district councils in the effective and efficient management of and assets and liabilities;
• Support district councils in planning and budgeting using evidence-based data in the allocation of financial resources to attain set objectives;
• Enhance the participatory planning and budgeting capacities of district councils, including the joint development of Integrated Development Plans (IDPs);
• Improve joint service delivery in target sectors, including the effective use of maps and GIS data;
• Strengthen the capacity of district councils to structure, negotiate and monitor public-private partnerships;
• Enhance the capacity of district council to promote sustained economic growth, promotion of social development, facilitating infrastructure development and, promoting public- private partnerships and effective managing of development programmes;
• Enhance the council’s ability in strategic planning, recording keeping, information management and sharing;
• Provide technical assistance, coaching, mentorship and training in partner districts.

Other duties

• Provide leave of absence cover for staff as required;
• Escalate any issues to his/her supervisor immediately;
• Travel to partner districts as required;
• Perform any other duties as assigned.

Place of Performance and Reporting

• Based in a Local Impact provincial office to be decided (TBD);
• Reports to the Provincial Manager;
• Frequent travel to partner districts in the province.

Minimum Qualifications, Experience and Competencies

• University degree in Economics and Finance, Accountancy or Full ZICA, Full CIMA or Full ACCA or relevant field required, such as Public Administration and Finance or Economics;
• 6+ years of relevant experience;
• Experience in working on local level public financial management or public administration activities on cooperating partner-funded projects (USAID experience preferred);
• Knowledge of decentralization and public financial management at the local level in Zambia, including;
• Own source revenue collection
• Budgeting
• Expenditure management
• Auditing
• Public private partners
• Service delivery
• Public-private partnerships
• Capacity building of public officials
• planning and budgeting
• Citizen engagement
• Ability to respond effectively to time sensitive demands & inquiries;
• Demonstrated commitment to exceptional customer relations (both internally & externally);
• Excellent organizational skills with a willingness to take initiative and be proactive;
• An energetic, forward-thinking and creative individual with high ethical standards and appropriate professional image;
• Fluency in English is required.