APHRC’s flagship program, The Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) is an Africa-based, Africa-led initiative which seeks to rebuild and strengthen the capacity of African universities to produce well-trained and skilled researchers and scholars in Africa by Africans. The program addresses an important challenge facing the African academy i.e. the scarcity of a robust research and training infrastructure capable of offering the type of vibrant and sustained doctoral training necessary to attract, train and retain the continent’s brightest minds. CARTA seeks to recruit a Program Administrative Officer to provide training and administrative support to CARTA fellows and institutions.
Duties/Responsibilities:
Create, maintain and update training repositories for Joint Advanced Seminars (JASs), Graduate Workshops while also overseeing automation of training processes;
Support the recruitment of facilitators for JASs and Graduate Workshops, assisting the facilitators with interpretation of training documentation and aiding the facilitators to deliver on teaching methods at the CARTA workshops in line with the curriculum and philosophy;
Provide requisite resources and material for JASs and Graduate Workshops;
Support calls for doctoral, post-doctoral and senior faculty fellowships as well as coordinating recruitment of participants for the said fellowships;
Conduct evaluation of post-doctoral opportunities including re-entry grants and post-doctoral fellowships;
Support curriculum implementation through facilitation of review meetings, collation of feedback from fellows and facilitators and rolling out curriculum review resolutions by Board of Management and Partners’ Forum;
Create and maintain mailing list for groups within CARTA including fellows, supervisors, funders, focal persons, Board of Management and Partners’ Forum;
Facilitate and manage facilitators’ and fellows’ communication and correspondences;
Provide administrative support by coordinating timely approval and disbursement of contracts, tuition fees, health insurances, research grants, publication funds, internship funds, conference funds and stipend of fellows, in liaison with the Program Manager, Grant/Development Officer, Accounts Officer, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer and Administrative Officer;
Support CARTA’s governance activities by providing the necessary program documentation and reports;
Coordinate the implementation of CARTA’s partner meeting resolutions;
Prepare award/ regret letters to applicants, in liaison with the Program Manager, Finance Office and Development Office;
Support donor engagement by availing documents required for funding calls, in liaison with the Development Office, Finance Office and the Program Managers;
Identify funding opportunities to support CARTA and disseminating information on funding opportunities through relevant media, aid fellows to develop and apply for winning proposals;
Lead the internship and visiting scholars’ programs at APHRC; and
Participate in Higher Education Research activities as well as other Research Capacity Strengthening (RCS) activities based on need.
Qualifications, experience and skills:
Master’s degree in a relevant field;
At least 2 years’ working experience in administering and implementing training programs in academic and/or research institutions;
Excellent administration and training skills;
Knowledge of, and experience in data mining and maintenance will be an added advantage;
Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to effectively work with diverse teams; and
Excellent writing and presentation skills.
