The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), alongside its sister AKDN agencies, has implemented innovative, community-driven solutions to development challenges for over 50 years. It brings together human, financial and technical resources to address some of the challenges faced by the poorest and most marginalised communities in the world. Special emphasis is placed on investing in human potential, expanding opportunity and improving the overall quality of life, especially for women and girls. It works primarily in six areas: Agriculture and Food Security; Economic Inclusion; Education; Early Childhood Development; Health and Nutrition; and Civil Society.
“The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) is committed to safeguarding, which means it promotes respectful relations with and between all staff, associates, beneficiaries and wider communities with whom it works, and takes all reasonable measures to prevent harm, including all forms of sexual exploitation, abuse, harassment (PSEAH), bullying, discrimination, harassment and abuse of power that may arise from contact with its staff, programmes or operations.
AKF also adheres to child safeguarding principles, as set out by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
All selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s), employment history and any potential history of misconduct. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a full background check.
Position summary
AKF USA is seeking to hire a Regional Design Lead for the AKF, and USAID jointly funded Local Impact Leader with Associate (LWA) award. With an eye toward conflict prevention and resolution, Local Impact will target marginalized and vulnerable communities to: (1) Catalyze inclusive economic growth and ensure basic livelihoods; (2) Enhance infrastructure and access to basic services with a foKcus on clean energy; (3) Enhance the capacity of citizens and local institutions; and (4) Promote pluralism and social cohesion.
The Regional Design Lead will support a portfolio of Human Centered Design (HCD) projects across three country offices in Central Asia while building the capacity of local teams in leading and facilitating design processes. As part of an interdisciplinary team, you will tackle complex, human-centered and socially impactful challenges alongside other development practitioners from different backgrounds.
This position will be based in Bishkek or Dushanbe ideally. However, this position will span Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan so travel would be needed often when it is safe and permissible.
PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
1. Human Centered Design
- Project Scoping. Identify opportunities and write design proposals in close collaboration with local teams and Local Impact focal points based on AKDN and USAID priorities.
- Design Planning. Support country and agency offices in planning and customizing design processes, methods, and tools to use.
- Capacity development. Conduct workshops and learning experiences to build design capacity of local teams and stakeholders.
- Design Facilitation and Consulting. Support the projects and teams in conducting design processes and facilitating workshops to move the design work forward.
- Design Research. Employ a variety of traditional, non-traditional, and participatory research methods to elicit nuanced human insights.
- Synthesis. Bring together learnings from design processes by leading the discussion of data collected in the field. This will include debriefing and discussing user feedback with your teams—collaborating to turn research into potential directions for design.
- Prototype. Build prototypes and test solutions with target audiences to collect feedback and iterate on solutions.
- Document. Creating design playbooks, reports, case studies, communications materials, and presentations.
- Present. Clearly communicate complex concepts to a variety of audiences to include, but not limited to, internal AKDN stakeholders, USAID staff and more.
2. Project Management & Mentorship
- Lead. Work collaboratively with the Design Team and Country Office to lead on challenge identification, solution development, and pilot implementation.
- Relationships. Engage with key project partners and donors to ensure they are bought-in and contributing to the project. Each design challenge will have external stakeholders that you will engage closely
- Mentor. Each design challenge will have a co-lead who you will mentor and support.
- Collaborate. Work closely with the Country Managers and project staff to find opportunities and linkages to all aspects of AKF’s work. Listen and engage effectively with other stakeholders to co-create open mind solution
- Inspire. Your job will be to keep design team members engaged and inspired throughout the process.
- Report and communicate. Document and share the progress, learnings, challenges, barriers, and other information with the design team, country manager, and the Global Lead.
QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE
- English. Spoken and written fluency in English is essential, and knowledge of Russian, Tajik or Dari is an asset.
- Design. A background in one or more traditional design disciplines (interaction, visual communications, or service design preferred), with 3-5 years of work experience, ideally with some innovation consulting experience.
- HCD. Fluency in the human-centered design process, from qualitative research and synthesis to ideation, prototyping, and implementation.
- Social Development. Experience or demonstrated interest in tackling poverty-related challenges.
- Portfolio. A credible portfolio with examples of products, services, and systems that you helped create and that are driving impact in the world.
- Managing. Experience in managing and leading interdisciplinary teams.
- Training. Experience training and building capacity of non-designers.
Design Across Scales. Experience in designing product, experience, and service at various levels. - Prototyping. Experience creating quick and dirty prototypes as well as more refined deliverables. You have experience prototyping in various resolutions to create experiences that lead users to provide valuable feedback about your solutions.
- Cultural sensitivity, and an ability to connect easily with new people.
- Perspective. You can add a unique perspective to your research and to our teams, such as writing & storytelling, strategic thinking, or service design.
- Writing Skills. Ability to communicate succinctly and effectively in English. Writing skills in Russian, Tajik or Kyrgyz is also ideal.
- Facilitation Skills. Foster participation and encourage people to come up with ideas, thoughts and perspectives that add value.
How to apply:
Interested applicants should apply through AKDN Career website www.akdn.org/careers/1831664 no later than 2nd July 2021.