Assistant Coordinator: Planning & Strategic Initiatives Coordination Unit
1. Introduction
The Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank, commonly known as the PTA Bank, is a development financial institution established as part of the common Market for Eastern and southern Africa ( COMESA ) economic arrangements. The Bank’s objective is to provide short and medium term finance to support viable projects and trade finance activities in member states.
Over the last five years, however, the institution has recorded strong growth and exceeded, by a wide margin, the growth targets set out in its 2008- 2012 Corporate Plan. As a result of this growth, and given the promise of the Bank, in 2011, the Bank’s existing shareholders participated in a general capital increase, raising the Bank’s level of shareholder equity and funds. This has set the stage for further growth, and a new five year corporate plan.
An initial internal review was carried out during the first quarter of 2012, and an outline of key strategic directions and initiatives, including internal capacity building, were discussed at the levels of management and the board of directors. The board considered and approved an initial set of key strategic directions and a roadmap for corporate strategy formulation, planning and capacity development, together with a special purpose budget for 2012.
The initial strategic directions and budget was approved along with a new Partnership Agreement with Agence Francaise De Development (AFD), which is providing PTA Bank with a technical assistance and capacity building grant, part of which will co-fund an institutional review and study on options and scenarios for expanding and deepening the Bank’s value proposition in the next five year plan period.
An important stream of strategic work to be undertaken involves strategic outreach to additional shareholders, both states and institutions. The Bank is targeting a number of COMESA and non-COMESA countries, as well as development finance institutions, commercial banks and central banks. Another stream concerns outreach to strategic regional institutions, donors and development institutions for consideration of PTA Bank as a ‘fund manager and agent’ to house and manage special purpose investment funds for the COMESA region, alongside the Bank’s shareholder capital, lines of credit and capital market funds.
2. Establishment of a Planning and Strategic Initiatives Coordination Unit (PSU)
PTA Bank is a lean organisation, with no dedicated capacity for corporate and strategic planning and the coordination and championing of strategic initiatives. Existing management and staff capacity is centred on delivering development finance products
and services to customers and running core organisational functions, which has served the Bank very well.
The Bank’s historically high level of business fully consumes the Bank’s operational capacity. The rapid growth of operations have also heavily drawn the capacity of the core functional departments, especially where legal, finance and risk are concerned. Similarly, the capacity of the human resources and administration department is heavily consumed by the high demands of the two regional operational centres, particularly the young and growing regional office in Zimbabwe; both offices do not have dedicated management capacity, and the workload is particularly high given the complexity and administrative pressure of purchasing new permanent physical premises in both regional offices, over and above the pressures of recruitment and bank-wide administration activities.
It is evident that the Bank’s leadership and management are heavily consumed by day-to-day management and operational activities, and have limited capacity to drive, coordinate and support strategy development, planning and the implementation of strategic initiatives. Accordingly, the Presidency, based on the budget approved for this purpose, is establishing a temporary Planning and Strategic Initiatives Coordination Unit (PSU) that will serve as a temporary corporate secretariat to drive and support strategy development and coordinate planning and cross-cutting special initiatives across all departments. Such dedicated capacity in this respect is a common feature of the organizational structures of all well-established development finance institutions in Africa and world-wide.
The unit/secretariat will coordinate, co-develop and support the implementation of strategic initiatives, working closely with the management team, among others, facilitating internal and external engagements with key stakeholders and partners. Examples of special initiatives will include the development of a strategic performance management system (linked to a balanced scorecard instrument); and strategic outreach and engagements with prospective state and institutional shareholders and funders from southern Africa, Europe, Asia and Latin America.
The unit/secretariat will coordinate, co-develop and support the implementation of strategic initiatives, working closely with the management team, among others, facilitating internal and external engagements with key stakeholders and partners. A key initiative will be a strategic outreach drive to expand and deepen current partnerships, special purpose funds, and prospective shareholders from southern and north Africa, the middle east, Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Toward this end, short term contractors will be recruited for the PSU as part of the strategy and planning process in the Office of the President, working with and supporting the management team and coordinating the work of specialists working on studies and capacity building interventions. One such contractor will be an Assistant Coordinator.
3. Responsibilities and Deliverables of the Assistant Coordinator
The role of the Assistant Coordinator will be to assist with coordination in the temporary corporate strategy/planning secretariat of the Bank. Responsibilities will be logistics, liaison, scheduling and assistance with communication and relationship marketing involving partners and stakeholders.
Key deliverables will be as follows:
Co-organize and schedule various meetings and engagements, internal andexternal;
Draft and follow- up various internal and external communication, includingcorrespondence in French and Portugese;
Assist with the preparation of various documents and presentations;
Facilitate specific coordination and liaison tasks.
Qualification and Experiential Requirements:
The assistant coordinator will have communication and marketing know-how and working experience in this respect, and be bilingual in English and French to enable multilingual interaction with French speaking stakeholders and development partners such as AFD, EIB and BIO.
Ideally, the assistant coordinator will also be able to communicate in Portugese, the third official language of PTA Bank. A key strategic initiative being rolled out is outreach to Lusophone countries both as potential member states and funding partners of the Bank. Exploratory dialogue in this regard is already underway.
The assistant coordinator will have relevant qualifications and experience in the field.
Reporting Lines
The assistant coordinator will report to the President, or his designate, and work closely with and support the above two experts ( the Senior Advisor – Strategic Partnership and Resource Mobilization and the Strategic Planning Expert )as well as other specialized consultants brought in to work on specific studies, conduct training, benchmark and develop systems.
Time Frame
The consultancy is for a 9 month period. The consultant must be available to start in June 2012.
Contractor Fees
Contractor fees will be negotiated taking into account the experience and background of the consultant, and internal PTA Bank policies/benchmarks.
For inquiries, please contact : kifle.hamza@ptabank.org
Applications should be sent to the following address by 25th May, 2012:
Office of the President / CEO
The Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank (PTA Bank) Bishop’s Road, NSSF Complex 22nd Floor
P. O. Box 48596 00-100 Nairobi
KENYA
Assistant Coordinator: Planning & Strategic Initiatives Coordination Unit
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