Global Coordinator

The Global Campaign for Education (GCE), founded in 1999, brings together civil society organizations, NGOs, teacher unions and child rights activists. GCE promotes education as a basic human right, and mobilises public pressure on governments and the international community to fulfill their promises to provide free, compulsory public basic education for all people.

The campaign is driven by the conviction that quality education for all people is achievable, and by the concern for the immense costs of failure. GCE believes that in an increasingly knowledge-based economy, exclusion from education will translate into growing poverty, inequality and deprivation.

The Global Campaign for Education commits itself to achieve its mission with objectivity, transparency and accountability and to follow democratic norms and processes in all its plans and actions.

GCE is launching a large new initiative to foster the growth of education-focused civil society coalitions in developing countries. Through partnerships with regional coalitions in Africa, Asia and Latin America, GCE will fund national coalitions engaging in a range of advocacy projects, including expanding education coalitions, analysing and monitoring national education budgets, lobbying national governments, supporting policy-oriented research and more.

CGE seeks to appoint a Global Coordinator, based in Johannesburg, to lead and manage the Civil Society Education Fund project, liasing with the regional and national implementing partners as well as managing the reporting into the Fast Track Initiative and the World Bank

Responsibilities:

• Ensure full accountability for the use of Fast Track Initiative Education Programme Development Fund (EPDF) resources to the Fast Track Initiative EPDF committee;
• Oversee the preparation of annual reports and audited accounts with World Bank as required under the terms of the grant agreement;
• Liaise with the six regional implementing partners coalitions to ensure that the regional CSEFs are set up an managed effectively;
• Encourage effective policy and practice change and to ensure effective monitoring systems are in place to capture there;
• Ensure efficient distribution of the resources to the relevant regional bodies and to manage the global section of the budget;
• Identify capacity building needs across the project and put in place programmes to respond to these;
• Facilitate the sharing of experiences across Africa, Asia and Latin America and the dozens of national coalitions;
• Draw out learning from the 3 regions and help build an evidence base about the effectiveness of the approaches used and to ensure this learning / evidence is widely shared / disseminated;
• Help establish trial National CSEFs and promote the conclusions at the end of the regional CSEF project cycle.

Requirements:

• Minimum of 3 years previous experience of managing major projects or programmes;
• Extensive experience of advocacy or campaigning work;
• Experience of fundraising - including developing proposals and managing reporting requirements;
• Excellent written communication skills;
• Experience of significant financial responsibility;
• Experience working with civil society groups and coalitions;
• Knowledge of international education agreements and aid infrastructure including the World Bank;
• Experience of working at the international level or at working nationally in several different countries;
• Excellent interpersonal skills over e-mail, by phone and in person;
• Ability to work with colleagues in a small diverse office team, and with members in many different countries;
• Ability to meet tight deadlines and motivate others to do the same;
• Ability to prioritise a complex workload;
• Fluency in written and spoken English;
• Competency in one or more of GCE official languages (French, Spanish, Arabic);
• Willingness to work outside working hours during peak campaign moments and undertake significant travel;
• University degree to Undergraduate level or higher.

Salary: R540 000 Rand - R700 000, depending on experience.

Contract Length: 12 months initially, with a further 2 years subject to funding confirmation (expected by November 2009).

To apply, submit a CV, a cover letter explaining your suitability for the position and details of two references to jobs [at] campaignforeducation [dot] org.

Please state your name and CSEF Global Coordinator in the title.

For more about the GCE, refer to www.campaignforeducation.org.