Country Representative - Street Child

Street Child is a rapidly developing international children’s charity with exceptional programming in 20 of the world’s lowest income and most crisis-affected countries.  Our high-impact projects chase gains in education and protection outcomes for the most marginalised children - through signature integrated education, child protection and livelihoods initiatives.

Job Description

• Job Title:  Country Representative - Ghana
• Contract: Full Time, 3.5 years
• Salary: $60,000 - $70,000 per annum depending on experience (plus accommodation and benefits)
• Principal Location: Accra, with regular travel within Ghana

Street Child is searching for an outstanding professional to rapidly set up and lead, from scratch, Street Child’s new flagship Ghana country programme. The role will have a major initial focus on ensuring fantastic delivery of the charity’s significant Ghana TransformED Partnership programmes (GED) - an ambitious and truly innovative partnership with the Ghana Ministry of Education and Education Outcomes Fund to deliver payment by results programme targeted at improving access and quality in primary education for tens of thousands of Ghanaian children.

More broadly, Street Child is also keen to leverage the capabilities and profile that will flow from our participation in GED to explore wider opportunities for supporting the protection and education of Ghana’s most vulnerable children – and we very much seek a Country Representative with the vision, energy and qualities to maximise these possibilities.

Working alongside excellent local NGOs is at the heart of Street Child’s approach globally and this role will build and lead the Street Child Ghana team together with a consortium of local and technical partners in the delivery of this ground-breaking, outcomes-oriented programme.  

Specifically, the role-holder will be directly accountable for the strong management and delivery of this multi-million-dollar consortium education programme, focused initially in the Northern Region on primary school improvement and accelerated learning for out of school children.

Key duties include:

1. Programme management

• Lead the GED Partnership consortium overall, working at a high level with finance partners, implementation partners and collaborative partners to ensure strong coordination and accountability.
• Drive programme outcomes through evidence-based, adaptive design and delivery of GED Partnership Programme activities, in collaboration with the Street Child HQ management unit
• Line manage the Ghana team (initially c 10 staff) and coach Street Child’s partners to ensure quality and accountability in programme implementation;
• Ensure that the financial and wider management of Street Child’s programmes is accountable and transparent and that all staff are fully aware and able to comply with the Finance Policies;

2. Operations, HR and organisational development

• Lead Street Child’s establishment in Ghana, providing administrative oversight including office and operational setup, recruitment and the establishment of localised policies;
• Oversight of robust implementation of relevant processes and policies, in particular relating to safeguarding, security, HR, finance, due diligence, and local partnership
• Work alongside national partners to assess organisational capacity and to identify technical and human resource capacity gaps and where appropriate, directly provide coaching and training input and support in priority areas.

3. Resource mobilisation and representation

• Lead the development of strategic partnerships with relevant actors including donors, INGOs and local/national government;
• Identify and drive new potential needs/gaps/expansion opportunities in line with Street Child’s global strategy;
• Represent Street Child at the highest level in the region, including pro-active participation in relevant coordination mechanisms at the national, regional and local levels;
• Proactive engagement with Street Child UK head office and programmes team on strategic, networking and fundraising activities.

Required Skills or Experience

• This is a terrific opportunity for someone who has country-level leadership experience already, or for senior programmes or education sector leader who is hungry for the next step.  
• We are looking for someone with the experience, drive and interpersonal relationships to take ownership.  You will have the management, technical and operational skills to drive excellent, evidence-driven education programmes.  
• This is strictly not an ‘ivory tower’ role - you will be hands-on and agile across the programmes, and deeply involved in building profile and strategic relationships with donors, government and local partners.