RTI is recruiting for a mid-level professional to serve as a Capacity Development Specialist. This position will assist in supporting RTI’s growing local capacity development (LCD) work within the Governance and Economic Development (GED) team. This support will include developing and delivering trainings on a broad range of organizational development (OD) areas for local partners, facilitating organizational assessments, adapting or delivering new training tools, and helping to document RTI’s progress in strengthening the skills of local partners. In addition, the Capacity Development Specialist will also support business development through assistance in writing, leading or contributing to proposals that include capacity building components.
The ideal candidate will have strong experience in directly building the capacity of local partners (preferably on USAID-funded project) through training and/or mentoring in a range of areas: financial management, human resources, institutional governance, leadership, project management, M&E and strategic planning. S/he will be a self-starter that can work autonomously with little direction but will also have exceptional collaboration, communication and writing skills in order to support colleagues within and outside the GED group. S/he will work closely with the Capacity Building Advisor in order to fulfill capacity building needs among projects, be flexible to support a variety of tasks as needed, and be extremely motivated to grow RTI’s work in this area.
This position may be based in RTP, NC or Washington, DC and will report to RTI’s Capacity Building Advisor.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Responsibilities for the Capacity Development Specialist will include but not be limited to:
Provide LCD technical assistance to a variety of GED projects, either working directly with local partners or with project teams to ensure adequate support.
Ensure implementation is in compliance with RTI, donor and project-specific policies and engages partners in interactive and consultative ways in order to gain the buy-in of local partners.
Technical support will likely involve a combination of guidance, training, facilitation of organizational assessments, and development of strategies and institutional strengthening plans.
Support the Capacity Building Advisor in developing or revising RTI tools and training staff on their use in order to build the capacity of partners in innovative ways and increase RTI’s ability to measure increases in capacity.
Support business development efforts on LCD, assisting RTI proposal teams in crafting LCD designs and writing portions of proposals. Other proposals may require a more direct lead in pursuing bids that contain heavy capacity building components.
Support marketing of RTI’s LCD work, both internally and externally. This may involve crafting or collecting success stories, compiling data, and developing brochures, newsletters or other content in order to promote RTI’s success in this area.
Conduct research around LCD issues, as needed.
Provide project management support, as needed, on projects or Task Orders that are capacity building focused.
Requirements
Master’s degree in Social Science, Community Development, Organizational Strengthening or relevant field with at least 9 years of experience in the international development field and at least 3 years LCD-related experience; OR Bachelor’s degree plus 3 additional years of experience.
Demonstrated knowledge of and experience in using LCD tools such as pre-award surveys, OCA-like assessment tools, and institutional strengthening plans.
Proven ability to assess capacity building interventions and recommend appropriate activities to develop skills and promote organizational learning and change.
Experience in developing trainings for local institutions that cover a broad range of areas across financial management, HR, M&E, project management and USAID rules and regulations.
Exceptional writing skills and experience in contributing to proposals.
Strong organization, planning, communication, and presentation skills.
Superb collaboration, diplomatic and interpersonal skills.
Ability to handle multiple tasks efficiently, perform under pressure, and work with diverse staff.
Internationally savvy and culturally astute.
French or Spanish language skills strongly preferred.
Ability to travel internationally up to 25% of the year in order to provide technical support to projects.
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