Job Opportunities at Engineers Without Borders Canada

In Africa

	Team Leader, Governance in Ghana Engineers without Borders Canada is looking for someone to lead the Governance team in Ghana, one of the five African Programs sector teams. This is a challenging position, ideal for someone with strong leadership potential looking to take on new levels of responsibility in a supportive, fast-paced environment.
	African Programs Staff, Agricultural Extension Team Agricultural extension is the provision and facilitation of agricultural information. Extension usually refers to the link between research, or those generating new information, and farmers, who can harness the information to maximize productivity and proHitability. It can also involve sharing existing knowledge among farmers about indigenous farming practices. Save, Print & Share this opportunity: Download as a PDF [2.45 MB] »
	African Programs Staff, Agriculture Value Chains Team We are a Free Actor; we convene donors/projects, give opinions on what's working, and act as sector knowledge managers. We develop focused knowledge management tools for a large NGO to capture what's working best in different regions of the country and why. Save, Print & Share this opportunity: Download as a PDF [2.6 MB] »
	African Programs Staff, Business Development Services In 2012, we have up to 12 positions available in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Senegal, Mali and Zambia. This demand for our services is due to EWB's enviable reputation for attracting and developing the brightest young change leaders Save, Print & Share this opportunity: Download as a PDF [2.2 MB] »
	African Programs Staff, Governance & Rural Infrastructure Team Over the past two years the team has evolved from defining the issues around governance in Ghana to developing a series of interventions that achieved meaningful change in district operations around enhancing the processes and incentives for evidence-based decision making and planning and investing in strong local government leadership. Save, Print & Share this opportunity: Download as a PDF [2.2 MB] »
	African Programs Staff, Malawi Water & Sanitation Team After three years of working in sanitation in Malawi, EWB has become one of the most valued partners in the sanitation sector in Malawi. Working at the district level has given the credibility needed for recognition as one of the primary technical assistance providers for Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS). More recently, we have become primary coordinators of nationwide sanitation and hygiene efforts, through our role as the Secretariat for the National Open Defecation Free (ODF) Task Force. Save, Print & Share this opportunity: Download as a PDF [2.2 MB] »

In Canada

Executive Team Assistant The primary purpose of this role is to increase the effectiveness of the CEO and Executive Team. This means getting inside the heads of our CEO and members of our Executive Team, and anticipating necessary interactions, schedules, travel and resources (e.g. research, letter-writing, etc).

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Team Leader, Governance in Ghana

The Role

Engineers without Borders Canada is looking for someone to lead the Governance team in Ghana, one of the five African Programs sector teams. This is a challenging position, ideal for someone with strong leadership potential looking to take on new levels of responsibility in a supportive, fast-paced environment. Through your commitment to learning, passion for strategic change creation, and dedication to developing people on your team, you will be directly supporting effective decentralization in Ghana, and leading a team on an exciting upward trajectory.

If you're interested in a leadership role with EWB but have your own idea for a venture you'd like to lead in the area of governance in Ghana, we're also open to this too. Skip to the end for more details.

EWB's Governance Work in Ghana

The challenge: Districts are the service delivery body in Ghana closest to the ground, and are tasked with delivering development to their constituents. However, a system that fails to trust these bodies, that undermines their ability to effectively plan and execute, and that dis-empowers the key actors in local service delivery fails everybody. Decisions are often influenced by political and donor priorities, resulting in fragmented and poor service delivery to rural communities, and a lack of trust and communication with district institutions by donors and central government leads to inefficient, decision-making.

The approach: Our team is working with partners at the district, regional, and national level of government to identify and address in a systemic way the key challenges and roadblocks to decentralization in Ghana. These involve tackling technical issues, such as our work in figuring out how to best support districts in managing information, while at other times focusing on management issues and supporting innovative district leaders. We’re contributing to successful institutional processes in Ghana, and more effective and efficient service delivery to constituents.

In the past three years EWB has worked on the issue of effective government service delivery in Ghana. EWB has had a team of people that has focused particularly on the ability and power to effectively direct resources at a regional and district level.

• We've developed a tool and process for district planning officers to analyze and recommend decisions regarding district infrastructure. This tool is now being expanded across all 20 districts in the Northern Region.
• We've focused on leadership capabilities of District Coordinating Directors. We've worked with 10 leaders now with a program that has a lot of leadership from the DCDs.
• We've worked with key donors and national level forums to encourage decisions made in Accra to take regional and district capacity realities into consideration. We've been asked to speak at several events and our briefing papers have been widely circulated and discussed.
• We've explored the potential to improve processes around Internally Generated Funds and the relationship between Assembly Men and the District Assembly.

What makes EWB unique?

Our problem statement: Efforts to address poverty and accelerate long-term development in Sub-Saharan Africa are not reaching their potential. Existing systems are unable to scale proven innovations and approaches, and there remains an unproductive relationship between donors, citizens, businesses and governments in developed countries and in Africa.

Engineers Without Borders Canada does not do traditional development work. Instead, we leverage the passion and talent of our network in Canada to create systemic change in Africa.

We don’t run our own development projects. We help other organizations run their projects and programs better.

• We convene actors from multiple sectors and facilitate conversations where a common understanding is sought.
• We facilitate an increased understanding of field realities with decision makers (donors, national government, businesses, NGOs).
• We have inovative ways to develop organizational capacity that enhance internal operations and empower staff (we focus on African governments, NGOs and CBOs and Small and Medium Enterprises).
• We are free agents, flexible through the nature of our untied funding and untied to specific log-frames.
• We are excellent at coaching others to think creatively and innovate.
• We facilitate innovations in field level services e.g. enhanced interactions between Assembly Men and District Assemblies that provide meaningful ways for Assembly Men to engage in District resource allocation processes.

EWB has a unique and high-performing team working environment. We have 26 staff members working out of our Toronto-based National Office and some who are posted in Sub-Saharan Africa for most of the year. Our culture is one of passion, entrepreneurship, pragmatism, thoughtfulness, dedication and hard work (see our values and beliefs). We have a strong commitment to excellence and achieving results.

Our leaders, staff, and volunteers are generally young; this manifests in our dynamic and positive outlook, and willingness to work 60 hours per week when necessary.

We blend a passion to change the world with private sector pragmatism. For those coming from the development sector, this is your chance to break free of the constraints so many organizations face.

For more information about EWB check out: http://vision.ewb.ca

The Candidate

We are looking for a candidate who will ride a steep learning curve and be ready to take on full team leader responsibilities by September 2012. From your arrival until then, you will be fully supported by the team through your learning phase, as you ramp up your leadership role on the team.

If you are interested in taking on the role but feel you’d need some time in Ghana, to familiarize yourself with the work, the country, and further build your skills as a leader let's chat! We're open to this option!

In order to be successful, our ideal candidate would have skills and experiences in most of the areas outlined below:

• Strong communication and relationship building skills with senior bureaucrats that lend themselves to influencing high level government staff and donors (essential) and with EWBers who are young volunteers with are keen to learn and contribute.
• Past experience that demonstrates strong leadership potential.
  EWB’s Nine Leadership Traits:
  
  • Leaders are able to define a complex problem in complicated or simple terms.
  • Leaders ensure people (both on their team and external it) not only see the vision, they and breathe it.
  • Leaders enable innovation around solutions linked to your problem definition.
  • Leaders relentlessly invest in their team, using every encounter as an opportunity to evaluate, coach and build self-confidence.
  • Leaders get into everyone’s skin, exuding positive energy and optimism.
  • Leaders establish trust with candor, transparency, and credit.
  • Leaders have the courage to make unpopular decisions and gut calls.
  • Leaders inspire risk taking and learning by setting the example.
  • Leaders celebrate.
• Learns quickly. Demonstrated ability to learn new areas and master new skills quickly. You are committed to personal growth and have a willingness to operate at the edge of your “comfort zone” of skills and knowledge.
• Passionate about strong institutions and the belief that government plays a key role in the delivery of water, health, education, and poverty reduction services.

Location:

Your home base will be in Tamale or Accra with travel through-out the country to Accra, Tamale and several districts through-out the Northern Region.

Compensation:

We will negotiate a salary to be able to incorporate people with diverse circumstances and management experience. However, EWB focuses more on giving people great opportunities to lead and our compensation is needs based not market based.

Each employee has a significant professional development fund available to them and many opportunities for professional growth. A health benefit package with 3-4 weeks of vacation each year is standard.

Timing and Process:

Ideally the individual will start immediately, but we will privilege the right candidate and are open to adapting to their circumstances.

We will begin interviews as candidates apply. Applications will close April 15th, 2012.

Please forward a letter of interest and resume to Sarah Grant at sarahgrant@ewb.ca.

EWB is also open to pitches from leaders who have their own idea for change that promotes good governance in Ghana.

Engineers without Borders Canada is looking for leaders who are interested in promoting effective governance through leveraging EWB’s unique assets.

Successful pitches will be rewarded:

• Funding up to $80,000 in the first year will abilities to access increased levels of funding depending on meeting a minimum performance criteria (salary, modest operational budget and ability to hire 2 – 3 EWBers on your team).
• Access to EWB’s network of experienced system changers who are working in Africa and Canada.
• Access to EWB’s intimate knowledge in Ghana and Malawi regarding the experiences and incentives of public servants and donors in the sector.

Criteria:

• The venture will have a disproportionate impact on enhancing government service delivery in Ghana.
• The venture will have a disproportionate impact on enhancing government service delivery in Ghana.
• The venture leader should have a strong reputation and proven ability as a leader.
• The venture will be articulated in terms of building assets, defining problems, leveraging assets, and delivering results, with a convincing mix and timeline.

If you are interested in this position please send a Statement of Interest and your CV sarahgrant@ewb.ca.

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Executive Team Assistant

The Role

Engineers Without Borders' CEO and Executive Team are busy.

They have strategic and operational priorities to balance, hundreds of EWBers to engage and manage (75+ fulltime staff, including Africa-based volunteers, 500 active leaders in our cross-Canada network, plus hundreds more active EWBers) and hundreds of relationships to maintain within and outside EWB's network.

They are busy by choice -- "A" type, driven personalities! Their plans and ideas are always ambitious and constantly evolving. Additionally, our CEO isn't particularly organized -- think opportunistic, entpreneurial, creative type versus effective executive.

Enter the Executive Assistant: The primary purpose of this role is to increase the effectiveness of the CEO and Executive Team. This means getting inside the heads of our CEO and members of our Executive Team, and anticipating necessary interactions, schedules, travel and resources (e.g. research, letter-writing, etc).

Day-to-day, this means interacting with internal (CEO, National Office staff, African program staff, chapters and City Network leaders, and Board of Directors) and external (donors and supporters, anyone calling to make inquiries or get involved, and the CEO's personal and professional networks) stakeholders. It means organizing schedules, booking meetings, booking travel, writing letters and speeches. There are many requests to be managed from a lot of different people and areas, so sequencing and balancing tasks and priorities is critical.

When the Executive Assistant is ultimately successful, all the needs will be aligned and our executives will achieve Matrix-like moments where they can see and interact with every moving piece of the organization in slow motion!

We believe that leadership matters, and so the CEO and Executive Team's effectiveness can have a big multiplier effect throughout the organization. This means that the potential impact of the Executive Assistant on EWB is huge.

Specific Responsibilities

• Manage and coordinate the CEO's and Executive Team's schedules and help to drive processes. This includes, among other things, updating and coordinating the calendar and all engagements; collecting and requesting all supporting material and agendas for each booking in the calendar; booking all logistics for travel plans; being able to prompt the CEO on decisions and activities, and; developing procedures for expenses, travel, Board of Directors items, and letter writing.
• Manage and coordinate all domestic and international travel for EWB's staff and volunteers. This includes booking flights for staff and volunteers, managing the flight request process, coordinating with others, and pre-planning.
• Reconciling monthly credit card statements and logging travel booked.
• Manage employee benefits. This includes interfacing with the insurance company, enrolling new staff into the program, and answering any staff questions related therein.
• Supporting the Executive Team by helping plan office meetings and taking minutes.
• Supporting the Office Manager by answering phone calls, running errands, and ordering office supplies.

The Candidate

Do you love working with busy, massively-driven people?

Are you energized by interacting with many different people and balancing many tasks at the same time?

Are you motivated by knowing you helped other people be successful, playing the behind-the-scenes role?

Do you like responding to and helping with people's requests?

Are you the most organized person you know? The most trustworthy?

If you answered yes to all of the above, then we definitely want to hear from you. If you answered yes to 4 of 5, we still want to hear from you! If you are excited reading this job description we want to hear from you.

In addition to the above characteristics, when we're doing the interviews we'll be testing for the following:

• Detail orientated and very organized -- you can sweat the small stuff
• Great at anticipating needs and thinking proactively
• Really comfortable on computers and managing a mostly paperless office environment
• Excellent communications skills, in writing and on the phone
• Able to effectively manage multiple projects and responsibilities concurrently
• Problem-solving and self-sufficiency
• Commitment to confidentiality

Timing, Compensation, and Next Step

We are looking for availability in December if possible, but will consider candidates who are only available beginning in the new year.

We will negotiate a salary to be able to incorporate people with diverse circumstances and experience. Starting salaries for this position are $32K.

Each employee has a significant professional development fund available to them and many opportunities for professional growth. A health/dental benefit package with 3 weeks of vacation each year is standard.

We don't care a lot about resumes. So please spend your time telling us why you're right for this role and why you're a great fit with EWB's team. If you want to forward your resume as well, that's great, but it's not the first thing we'll look at.

Please forward a letter of interest and resume to Mark Abbott at info@ewb.ca. We will be considering these applications on a rolling basis.

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