AECF (Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund) is a leading non-profit development organisation that supports innovative enterprises in the agribusiness and renewable energy sectors with the aim of reducing rural poverty, promoting resilient communities and creating jobs.
We catalyze the private sector by surfacing and commercializing new ideas, business models and technologies designed to increase agricultural productivity, improve farmer incomes, expand clean energy access, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve resilience to the effects of climate change. We finance high risk businesses that struggle to access commercial funding; we are committed to working in frontier markets, fragile contexts, and high-risk economies where few mainstream financing institutions dare to go.
Over the course of 13 years, we have supported over 375 businesses in 26 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, impacted more than 30 million lives, created over 27,000 direct jobs, and leveraged US $771 million in matching funds.
The Role
The Kakuma Kalobeyei Challenge Fund (KKCF) is a competitive financing mechanism for disbursing donor funding to incentivize for-profit companies, social enterprises, and local and refugee entrepreneurs to start or scale existing operations in the Kakuma-Kalobeyei area.
Attracting the private sector to the area and supporting local entrepreneurs has the potential to expand job opportunities, improve services, provide more choice, and reduce prices. In turn, this could enhance the self-reliance and socioeconomic integration of both refugee and host communities while also contributing to the development of Turkana County. KKCF is a programme of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and AECF is the implementing partner.
The role will be responsible for actively managing the Local Enterprise Development (LED) Window projects and will report to the Programme Manager.
- Conduct due diligence on prospective investee companies.
- Prepare investment memorandums and supporting documentation to be presented to the internal Investment Review Committee.
- Ensure that defined transactional requirements recorded in the documentation are executed accordingly and further monitor the portfolio and report development results internally and to the donor.
- Monitor and track financial and impact performance of investee companies assuring a healthy portfolio.
- Engage investees on a regular basis and serve as an active risk/growth investment partner to the companies.
- Prepare and deliver reports on financial performance and development impact objectives for internal purposes and for inclusion in reports to the donors and stakeholders.
- Working with the AECF Impact Team, develop results measurement plans with each investee, and support monitoring and evaluation activities at the investee level during implementation, to ensure quality impact reporting.
- Ensure program compliance with all AECF and implementing partner policies and procedures, local laws, and regulations that govern AECF.
- Contribute to the building of AECF’s knowledge base for best practices and participate in knowledge sharing and dissemination.
- Contribute to the identification of investees who require technical assistance and arrange to deliver services based on the AECF TA and Learning service delivery framework.
- Provide mentoring and coaching to support investees implement their planned activities, the M&Eand reporting systems.
The suitable candidate should be/have:
- At least a bachelor’s degree in economics, development finance, development
studies, business or commerce, or a related field. - At least 5 years of experience in end-to-end project management, business advisory, enterprise development, and private sector development, including scoping and design, resourcing, risk management, and quality assurance.
- Experience working in project design, implementation, and management, working with WSMEs.
- Extensive experience in markets and private sector engagement with systems targeting women.
- Excellent business judgment, analytical and problem-solving skills to identify issues, present creative, practical solutions, and make and commit to sound decisions, anticipating short-term and long-term implications.
- Demonstrated strong written, presentation, and communications skills in English & Swahili and the ability to synthesize and present information effectively and tailored for different audiences.
- An understanding of donor operations and international development organizations.
- Be willing to relocate to Kakuma.
