Main purpose of job:

This is an important role at the heart of British High Commission (BHC) Nairobi offering great opportunities to shape the development agenda to include the most vulnerable and marginalised groups and make a real difference to people living below the poverty line in Kenya.

BHC Nairobi hosts over 400 staff covering roles on Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and the region. The UK-Kenya Strategic Partnership and the BHC Country Plan goals cover four outcomes: Trade, Investment and Green Growth; climate and Nature; Science and Technology and Security and Stability.

The Social Development Adviser (SDA) will sit within the Resilience and Inclusion (HI) Team responsible for ensuring that the UK’s portfolio in Kenya is effectively addressing the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable, building resilience and pioneering new instruments that catalyse greater government responsibility for service delivery. The team covers a portfolio that aims to strengthen systems to deliver resilience for the poorest and vulnerable, while identifying sustainable pathways to increase the Government of Kenya’s (GoK) commitment on these essential services over time.

The SDA will lead work on enabling the UK to deliver of all its development portfolio in Kenya while enabling GoK’s own systems to design and deliver solutions to tackling poverty and inequalities that limit development for all. This is a cross-team role, supporting the development portfolio and policy. The role holder will lead on undertaking social analyses, social impact assessments, to influence policy design and implementation, and promoting civil society engagement in policy making. The role will also work across BHC Nairobi, providing social development technical support to strengthen evidence-based policy making. The post holder must be a motivated and experienced development professional with a commitment to overcoming poverty, ready to oversee, support and manage a wide range of programmes.

Roles and responsibilities 

• Lead on addressing inclusion in Kenya through BHC Nairobi policy and programmes portfolio. This will entail leading research, evidence and knowledge processes to bring out Kenya’s demographics, social relationships, and political economy. In addition, ensuring that these are shared widely to shape BHC Nairobi’s portfolio.
• Lead on providing cross cutting advice to business planning processes, reviewing portfolio investment proposals on key aspects of equity and inclusion and ensuring that they are in line with central policies and best practice.
• Lead delivery of social development advice to BHC Nairobi’s development portfolio and policy engagements.
• Work with advisers across other thematic pillars, and through engagement with stakeholders in GoK, and partners to promote the participation of the poor and excluded in shaping social and economic development; ensuring a greater level of social, economic and political inclusion to maximise opportunities for all; and ensuring greater levels of accountability in development and political processes.
• Provide leadership in ensuring the UK’s commitments to tackling Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG), all human rights and disability-related issues are delivered across HMG (His Majesty’s Government) portfolio in Kenya, and links with Kenya Government. This will include working with Gender and Equalities team in HQ and leading the delivery and monitoring of the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Strategy with support from the Regional Gender lead and the BHC Nairobi GESI Working Group.
• Work across all the outcome goals and teams in BHC Nairobi as well as engaging HMG colleagues in the wider Kenya network to support implementation of UK foreign policy through supporting requests for VIP briefings, PQs (Parliamentary Questions) and HMG public reporting on social issues.
• Ensure clear link and contribute professionally to the SDA cadre while developing own professional expertise. All advisers are aligned to a professional cadre and are expected to share their knowledge and experience with the network of other cadre members, through 10% of their time.

The post-holder is expected to be flexible and respond to emerging priorities or new workstreams as required. The post will report to the RI Lead.