Portfolio Coordinator - Economic Empowerment

Countries: Kenya, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Organization: Sightsavers

Closing date: 27 Nov 2022

Sightsavers implements projects in over 30 countries in Africa and South Asia working to eliminate avoidable blindness and promote the rights of people with disabilities. We are looking for a Portfolio Coordinator – Economic Empowerment – a new role within our expanding Economic Empowerment team to help us upscale our economic empowerment (EE) portfolio across 13 countries

Salary: Local terms and conditions apply

Location: Sightsavers Country Offices in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia or Zimbabwe.

Contract: Due to local terms and conditions in some locations, this role may be a two year fixed term contract with the possibility of extension

About the role

Sightsavers believes that it is vital for people with disabilities to be empowered and financially independent. We help people with disabilities gain independence by providing vocational training and skills. We are looking for a Portfolio Coordinator – Economic Empowerment to support our transition from the current ‘project approach’ to an acknowledged model of economic empowerment as inclusive development through coordinating the sufficient knowledge and evidence (gathering, collating, and disseminating) to support this. This new role comes at an exciting time as we accelerate our work supporting the inclusion of people with disabilities in economic empowerment programmes. Key duties will include:

• Supporting EE portfolio management oversight through establishing and coordinating country project governance meetings to share programme implementation progress, escalation of risks and challenges, and interim reporting updates to guide decision making and programme adaptations


• Working with the country governance leads to better understand EE project management and technical capacity building needs. Managing a process to track any residual gaps and associated risks through a capacity/capability plan to bring in guidance and support from relevant internal stakeholders


• Curating and extend the current EE (SharePoint) document repository and populating a knowledge repository of all pathways, tools and approaches employed within EE programming


• Coordinating and chairing an EE community of practise, open to all staff and partners through monthly meetings to exchange practical programming knowledge and experiences


• Communicating updates to the knowledge repository and cross-country learning exchange


• Working with colleagues to track progress towards answering strategic learning questions

About you

This is an ideal opportunity to build on your existing project management/ project coordination experience and ability to initiate, innovate and translate ideas into effective action plans. To succeed in this role, you will need:

• Knowledge of current issues and best practice in economic empowerment and international development


• Analytical thinking and the ability to plan strategically from an organisational perspective


• Strong ability to develop and maintain knowledge bases and newsletters


• Ability to build strong working relationships across different departments and work collaboratively as a member of cross-functional teams


• Experience in project management and/or project coordination


• Strong organisational skills and ability to multi-task


• Proven ability to initiate, innovate and translate ideas into effective action plans


• Excellent communication and influencing skills


• Excellent oral and writing skills in English


• French or Portuguese language skills an advantage


• An understanding of and commitment to equality of opportunity for people with disabilities


• Able to travel for up to 4 weeks a year (regional and international)

Candidates are welcome to demonstrate their ability to match the person specification by expanding on how their experience, training and/or qualifications might have provided them with the knowledge or skills required for the role. Successful candidates will be appointed on merit.

This is a brilliantly varied and involved role, please read the full job description for further details. As an equal opportunity employer, we actively encourage applications from all sections of the community. Sightsavers is a Disability Confident Leader and qualified people living with a disability are particularly encouraged to apply.

Sightsavers is an employer that does not tolerate any form of harassment and has zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse. All potential candidates will be subjected to rigorous background checks and controls.

How to apply

Next steps

To apply for this exciting new opportunity, please complete an application via our recruitment portal here . We are particularly interested in learning of your motivations for applying https://isw.changeworknow.co.uk/sightsavers/vms/e/sightsavers/positions/dhZlIiutvmrkNwwnJH0vWG

We anticipate that remote interviews will take place from 14 December and the evaluation process will include a role-specific task to be completed by shortlisted candidates in advance of this.