Department for Business and Trade Hiring for Policy Officer, Grade-HEO, Islamabad at Islamabad, Islāmābād, Pakistan Full Time

Main Purpose Of Job

The work of the British High Commission (BHC) in Pakistan is focused on six main workstreams – Regional Stability, Threats, Health and Education, Climate, Resilience and Humanitarian, Open Societies and Economy and Trade.

BHC Islamabad is looking to recruit a suitably qualified and experienced Programme Officer on a fixed term contract who can start as soon as possible. This position is open to Country Based Staff on promotion and level transfer who have demonstrated the required competencies and experience and also to externals.

This HEO programme officer role sits within the Health and Education Group (HEG) in BHC Islamabad (BHCI), also known as CG3. It is a top performing unit, that offers an attractive and rewarding work environment, and which delivers programme results and provides policy and technical input across the UK mission in Pakistan and to a wide range of external stakeholders. CG3 strives to work together in a positive team environment, making development and career progression a priority and providing flexibility to deliver results at pace on high-profile priorities while maintaining work-life balance.

In terms of programming, the Health Team in CG3 has two large programmes with a total value of £155m, including an allocation of more than £15m for fiscal year 24/25 following the ODA uplift. Programming work focuses on family planning, demography, sexual and reproductive health rights, ending preventable deaths, strengthening health systems at both national and sub-national levels, including health security and climate resilient systems.

UK supports a more effective, inclusive and resilient health system that provides quality services for all, including women and girls, which results in a healthier population and enables a step change in Pakistan’s human capital. UK-Pakistan Health Partnership ( 2023) sets out how the UK and Pakistan will work on shared objectives and mutual interests to support accelerated progress in key areas of health. This is reflected in a shift in investments from large scale service delivery programmes to systems strengthening work, policy engagement, and catalytic technical assistance. The partnership outlines the mutual areas of interest in which we will work together drawing on UK strengthens and in response to identified needs while leveraging the full range of UK resources (bilateral, centrally managed, multilateral and commercial) providing catalytic interventions that focus on supporting capacity strengthening, sustainable exit and maximising overlap with other priorities and available resources.

This is an exciting opportunity to join the Health and Education Group.

Roles and responsibilities / what will the jobholder be expected to achieve?

Role

The purpose of the role is to provide expert technical leadership, policy influencing support and programme management capacity in the Health Team and to CG3 more broadly. The successful candidate will:

Delivering Accelerated Family Planning in Pakistan programme (DAFPAK) (50%)

• support the SRO and PRO in the delivery of DAFPAK by providing programme leadership through all stages of the programme cycle. DAFPAK is a complex, high value (£120m) programme in its seventh year of implementation that aims to improve access and quality of Family Planning Services. It is currently being redesigned to focus on sustainability and to incorporate new International Climate Finance (ICF) and humanitarian response component which can be flexed for climate resilient health systems.
• co-lead the development and implementation of sustainability plans for each component under DAFPAK.
• support the work on advocacy, technical assistance for FP, behaviour change communications and monitoring and evaluation.
• support implementation of influencing strategy on demography/population policy including identifying key stakeholders, preparing briefs for senior management, coordinating with other development partners, and attending coordination meetings. This will also include supporting the mobilising of the cross-mission group on demography.
• lead in keeping a database of results achieved through the programme with a focus on gender and inclusion.
• lead implementing the communication strategy of the programme

Managing The Programme Cycle

• Support the implementation of the DAFPAK programme through a complex mix of modalities (accountable grants and MoUs) with limited supervision and guidance
• Establish and maintain a programme delivery plan to inform planning and task execution
• Manage and deliver CG3 (specifically health team’s) annual/programme completion review cycle, ensuring that all reviews are planned, adequately resourced and delivered within deadlines;
• Ensure appropriate monitoring and evaluation practices are in place that will deliver programme data requirements to understand delivery and impact.

Support effective delivery of the health portfolio including policy objectives. (20%)

• Support the team in policy work under the UK-Pakistan Health Partnership and Health Vision areas of priority (Universal Health Coverage, Demography, Climate, Nutrition, ending preventable deaths and Global Health Security). This will include mapping key stakeholders, working with other CGs and enablers, drafting lobbying strategies and briefs and coordination with other development partners.
• Lead in identifying synergies between the health and education group linking them to the human capital agenda and incorporate those in programming and policy work.
• ensure health and family planning programmes in the health portfolio are compliant with FCDO Programme Operating Framework (PrOF) i.e. covering both DAFPAK and Evidence for Health (E4H) programmes and supporting colleagues as required. This includes oversight of the finance, risk management, contract management and programme governance.
• support the Health Team Leader, Senior and Programme Responsible Owners across the portfolio, including responding to commissions, developing briefs for meetings and quality assuring the work of partners with the aim to achieve impactful results.
• line manage up to two other programme staff and provide quality support to the development of programme delivery capability of less experienced and more junior colleagues across the group.
• alongside colleagues from the education team and the group ‘secretariat’, provide portfolio support to the group, strengthening the connection between Health and Education teams and ensuring group finance, risk management and portfolio compliance is according to the ProF guidance.

Managing risk and issues: (20%)

• Has experience of identifying and assessing risks (including safeguarding), applying appropriate mitigation and escalation measures during project design, mobilisation and implementation; and, implementing project controls until appropriate level of assurance is established
• Take the lead on delivering and maintaining key programme management documents such as due diligence reports for new partners, programme delivery plans and risk registers
• Lead programme financial management to ensure team forecasts are credible, robust and timely; identifies issues and trends; ensures lessons are learnt and fed back into financial management processes. Be aware of the way funds flow through the programme and conscious of where fraud risks are highest. Implement strategies to safeguard FCDO funds and handle any identified cases of fraud rigorously in a timely manner.

Engaging with others: (10%)

• Manages external relationships, particularly with programme partners – holding them to account/challenge as appropriate.
• Contributes effectively to project related briefing, Parliamentary Questions, Ministerial Correspondence, public enquiries, freedom of information requests. Support the team by drafting clear and concise project documentation (submissions, information notes, Business Case) and other written work; and quality assure these before submission to senior management.
• Contributes to policy work, helping to shape policy based on programme lessons; and recognising the need for policy work alongside programmes to lobby for change.
• Liaise proactively with other donors and programmes across BHC Islamabad portfolio to develop synergies.
• Demonstrates good line management skills and zero tolerance to Bullying, Harassment and Discrimination.