Country Fund Associate, South Africa

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:

Palladium is recruiting a Country Fund Associate for a programme and grants professional with a passion for carbon reductions to join our UK PACT team in South Africa. The UK PACT programme aims to improve the effectiveness of key institutions (public, private and civil society) in partner countries so that they can deliver accelerated emission reductions and raise the ambition of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) targets. Specifically, the programme will deliver the following results:

An increase in the capacity and capability of partner institutions (national, sub-national and civil society) to deliver enhanced and accelerated climate actions
An increase in in-country buy-in to urgently facilitate low-carbon development

Location:

The position is based in South Africa.  

You and Your Career:

If you are a problem-solver, collaborator, and doer, and you have expertise in operational management, procurement and grants management and have experience supporting complex programmes in the development space, we are interested in hearing from you. 

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

Reporting Lines:

This role will report to South Africa Country Fund Manager, UK PACT.

Primary Roles and Responsibilities:

The South Africa Fund Associate will be a key in-country member of the Palladium UK PACT team supporting management of day-to-day activities from project implementation and reporting to stakeholder engagement and context analysis to ensure overall programme success.

Specifically, the South Africa Fund Associate will:

Strategy Development and Engagement:

Support on continuous context analysis and assessment of local market capacity to identify the most appropriate avenues for interventions and pathways to climate change impact within each key strategic sector
Support further demand scoping for UK PACT-funded projects in-country, including stakeholder mapping and engagement, identification of complementary existing programmes (funded by the UK and other donors) to avoid programme duplication, and horizon scanning

Stakeholder Relationships:

Support the UK PACT South Africa Fund Manager in promoting UK PACT funding opportunities to potential implementing partners, project and programme outputs to intended beneficiaries, and broader UK engagement on low-carbon development where relevant
Working closely with the UK PACT South Africa Fund Manager, contribute to, and where appropriate lead the management of day-to-day interactions with local stakeholders
specifically supporting the relationships with project applicants and grant recipients/implementing partners; and
Maintain an excellent working relationship with local FCDO team at Post to collaboratively design and generate buy-in for the programme activities.

Project Management: Identification, Selection and Design of Interventions:

Support the UK PACT South Africa Fund Manager and PMU in coordination of grant funding windows and support market engagement to ensure the right local stakeholders are aware of, and well-placed to apply for, UK PACT funding opportunities
Contribute to the project screening and selection process, particularly regarding assessing deliverability and impact potential on the ground
Support the UK PACT South Africa Fund Manager to oversee timely implementation of projects and regularly ensure the feedback of results, impacts and learning through quarterly reports to FCDO covering overall progress, progress against outputs, main activities and outputs for the next period, budget, spend and forecast, and risks
Support the UK PACT South Africa Fund Manager and PMU to adhere to any local due diligence required from Implementing Partners and to support initial briefing to potential Implementation Partners
Support defence against fraud, corruption and safeguarding risks, conducting spot checks and other processes to ensure FCDO grant funding is spent as intended and that Implementation Partners meet FCDO compliance requirements
Support the UK PACT South Africa Fund Manager in advising on the potential to extend, scale up or replicate successful projects, and work with successful Implementation Partners to do this with FCDO approval

Programme Reporting:

Support Implementing Partners on project reporting (technical, financial, results and risk), by reviewing and requesting additional information, where required, to ensure reporting meets FCDO requirements
Support identification of country and project-specific risk management, working with FCDO in post and in the UK, the Team Leader and PMU

Desirable Criteria:

Programme and grant management skills, with experience supporting the deliver and management of projects, grantees or subcontracts
Strong reporting skills with proven ability to contribute to client formal reporting and ad-hoc requests
Good knowledge and/or willingness to learn more about the environmental / low carbon sector in terms of policy landscape, relevant state and non-state actors in relation to climate change, and low-carbon economic development
Some knowledge and understanding of the local political economy and business operating context in South Africa, including socio-economic context and development challenges and priorities
Strong organisational, inter-personal administration and communication skills
Strong financial management and administration skills, with the ability to review and quality assure the financial reports of projects
Professional fluency in written and spoken English
Shows flexibility and ability to adapt to changing circumstances
Highly collaborative and committed to close working and open communication with colleagues in post and in the UK, and other UK PACT partners
Commitment to neutrality in all dealings with stakeholders, including political stakeholders, to build trusted relationships and ensure maximum effectiveness of the programme

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.