Programs and Community Support Manager (Remote)

Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO) - Founded in 2014 to foster a human desire to follow fundamental natural laws and adopt a lifestyle that is in harmony with the environment. We envision a world in which people live in harmony with the various natural systems on which they rely, with each component receiving the appropriate level of sustainability. We work directly with local communities to reduce the vulnerability of groups that are at risk to climate impacts such as children, youth, and women who have a comparatively less adaptive capacity due to social and structural inequalities.

Our work has spanned a variety of industries over the years, including climate change, the circular economy, disaster risk reduction, sustainable agriculture, and renewable energy activism.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Programs and Community Support Manager

Location: Remote within Africa
Contract Type: Full-time
Reports to: Director, Africa Youth Climate Fund
Duration: 1 Year, Renewable Subject to Performance and Funding Availability

About the Africa Youth Climate Fund (AYCF)

• Through a participatory youth-for-youth grant-making model, the Fund supports entrepreneurship and innovation, movement building, research, and climate justice advocacy across Africa. AYCF serves as both a financing mechanism and a continental platform for strengthening youth leadership in climate action, resilience, and sustainable development.
• Through resource mobilization, fostering partnerships, nurturing innovation, and amplifying youth voices, AYCF is building a new paradigm of climate finance that is accessible, equitable, and responsive to the aspirations and realities of Africa's young people.
• The Africa Youth Climate Fund (AYCF) is a flagship initiative of the Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO), established to redistribute power, resources, and decision-making to Africa's youth climate movements.
• At the same time, Africa faces disproportionate climate impacts despite contributing less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, making investment in youth leadership and locally driven solutions more urgent than ever.
• AYCF exists to address the persistent inequities in climate finance by ensuring that young African climate leaders, innovators, movements, and organizations have direct access to the resources, partnerships, and opportunities needed to scale transformative climate solutions.
• AYCF envisions an Africa where young people are not merely beneficiaries of climate interventions but are recognized as decision-makers, innovators, investors, and architects of the continent's climate-resilient future.
• Yet despite young people being at the forefront of climate action, innovation, advocacy, and community resilience-building, they continue to receive only a fraction of global climate finance. Less than 1% of international and local climate funding reaches youth-led organizations directly, limiting their ability to scale solutions, influence policy, and drive transformative climate action.
• Africa's youthful population is one of the continent's greatest assets in advancing a low-carbon, climate-resilient development pathway through initiatives that promote a just and inclusive green transition.

Purpose of the Position

• The role will ensure that AYCF-funded initiatives are programmatically coherent, technically supported, youth-centered, and capable of generating meaningful evidence, learning, and impact.
• The Manager will also lead the development of systems and approaches that strengthen program quality, monitor implementation progress, capture evidence of impact, and generate learning to continuously improve AYCF's grantmaking model. This includes coordinating technical assistance, facilitating knowledge exchange, documenting good practices, and supporting grantees to strengthen organizational performance, leadership, and sustainability.
• Working closely with the Grants and Operations Manager, the role will support grantees from post-award onboarding through implementation, learning, reporting, and program reflection, while the Grants and Operations function leads grant administration, compliance, contracting, disbursement coordination, and formal close-out processes.
• The role will cultivate strong relationships with grantees, facilitate peer learning and collaboration, strengthen institutional capacities, and promote adaptive program management that responds to emerging opportunities and challenges.
• Through effective program management, grantee accompaniment, and continuous learning, the programs and Community Support Manager will help position AYCF as a trusted partner to Africa's youth climate entrepreneurs, innovators, researchers and movement, ensuring that investments in young climate leaders translate into scalable solutions, stronger organizations, and transformative impacts for communities and ecosystems across the continent.
• The Programs and Community Support Manager will provide strategic leadership for the coordination, implementation support, quality assurance, learning, and community-facing dimensions of AYCF’s program portfolio.
• As AYCF expands its investment in youth-led climate action, the programs and Community Support Manager will champion a grantee-centered approach that recognizes youth-led organizations as long-term partners rather than short-term funding recipients.

Key Responsibilities

• The key areas of responsibility include:
  • Strategic Partnerships, Stakeholder Engagement, and Ecosystem Building
  • Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning, and Knowledge Management
  • Leadership, Team Coordination, and Continuous Improvement
  • Program Portfolio Management and Delivery
  • Grantee Support, Capacity Strengthening, and Organizational Development
  • Program Quality Assurance and Adaptive Management
• Together, these functions ensure that AYCF delivers high-impact programs, strengthens the institutional capacity of youth-led organizations, fosters learning and collaboration across its grantee portfolio, and generates evidence that advances youth-led climate action and informs the continuous evolution of AYCF's grant-making model.
• The Programs and Community Support Manager will provide strategic leadership across six interconnected functional areas that ensure AYCF's grant investments translate into meaningful, high-quality, and sustainable climate action led by young people across Africa.

Program Portfolio Management and Delivery (30%):

• Coordinate regular portfolio review meetings to assess implementation progress, address emerging challenges, and identify opportunities to enhance program impact.
• Develop and maintain strong, collaborative relationships with grantees throughout the grant lifecycle, serving as the primary point of contact for program implementation and technical support.
• Support grantees in navigating implementation challenges by facilitating access to technical expertise, mentoring, and relevant resources.
• Lead the strategic management and oversight of AYCF's program portfolio, ensuring that funded initiatives are implemented effectively, achieve intended outcomes, and contribute to AYCF's mission and strategic priorities.
• Promote adaptive program management by supporting grantees to respond effectively to changing contexts while maintaining alignment with grant objectives.
• Monitor program implementation against approved work plans, milestones, results frameworks, and grant agreements, identifying risks and opportunities for adaptive management.
• Coordinate program onboarding for new grantees in collaboration with the Grants and Operations Manager, ensuring that grantees understand program objectives, implementation expectations, safeguarding requirements, reporting obligations, learning expectations, available support mechanisms, and grant compliance requirements.
• Ensure timely identification and escalation of program risks that may affect delivery, and collaborate with the Grants and Operations Manager to address compliance-related matters as needed.
• Support the design and refinement of AYCF’s program windows, including movement building, climate research, innovation, youth-led advocacy, and other thematic areas, ensuring that each window has clear objectives, target groups, support models, learning questions, and expected outcomes.

Grantee Support, Capacity Strengthening and Organizational Development (20%):

• Facilitate coaching, mentoring, and technical assistance to strengthen grantee performance and long-term organizational resilience.
• Conduct organizational capacity assessments to identify strengths, gaps, and priority areas for institutional development.
• Strengthen AYCF’s wider community support approach by creating spaces for youth-led organizations, applicants, grantees, alumni, and movement actors to learn, collaborate, access opportunities, and remain connected to the Fund beyond individual grant cycles.
• Develop and coordinate capacity-strengthening initiatives across organizational leadership, project management, financial management, governance, safeguarding, monitoring and evaluation, communications, resource mobilization, and sustainability.
• Design and implement AYCF's grantee support strategy to ensure that youth-led organizations receive tailored institutional and technical support throughout the implementation period.
• Coordinate peer learning initiatives, exchange visits, webinars, communities of practice, and other collaborative learning platforms that enable grantees to share experiences, innovations, and lessons learned.
• Promote inclusive participation and youth leadership by ensuring that grantee engagement reflects AYCF's values of equity, collaboration, locally led development, and meaningful youth participation.
• Support grantees in identifying opportunities for growth, partnership, and long-term sustainability beyond individual grant cycles.

Program Quality Assurance and Adaptive Management (20%):

• Ensure safeguarding, gender equality, inclusion, youth protection, do-no-harm principles, ethical community engagement, and environmental and social safeguards are effectively integrated across funded initiatives.
• Document and disseminate program innovations and successful approaches to inform future grantmaking and program design.
• Work closely with grantees to strengthen program design, implementation approaches, and results delivery through adaptive management.
• Develop and implement program quality standards, tools, and guidance to promote effective, accountable program delivery across the grant portfolio.
• Conduct periodic program reviews to assess progress, quality, relevance, effectiveness, and emerging risks.
• Coordinate program improvement plans where implementation challenges or capacity gaps are identified.

Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning, and Knowledge Management (10%):

• Monitor program performance using agreed indicators, results frameworks, and learning objectives.
• Prepare high-quality program reports, portfolio analyses, and impact summaries for internal management, donors, and governance bodies.
• Facilitate regular learning and reflection sessions with grantees and internal teams to promote continuous improvement and adaptive management.
• Lead the implementation of AYCF's monitoring, evaluation, learning, and knowledge management framework across the program portfolio.
• Coordinate the collection, analysis, and synthesis of program data to assess progress, outcomes, and impact.
• Strengthen knowledge management systems to enable the effective documentation, dissemination, and utilization of evidence generated by AYCF's investments.
• Work with the Communications and Youth Engagement Officer to translate program evidence, case studies, learning briefs, and grantee stories into accessible knowledge and communications products for youth audiences, donors, partners, and the Advisory Circle.
• Capture and document lessons learned, promising practices, innovations, and case studies that strengthen organizational learning and inform future programming.

Technical Partnerships, Community Engagement, and Ecosystem Building (10%):

• Coordinate technical and learning collaborations that expand opportunities for mentoring, capacity strengthening, peer learning, research support, visibility, innovation, and community-building across the grant portfolio.
• Support the documentation and communication of program achievements and impact stories in collaboration with the Communications function.
• Represent AYCF in program-related meetings, learning events, conferences, technical working groups, and partner engagements as delegated by the Director.
• Promote collaboration among grantees, partners, and stakeholders to strengthen Africa's youth climate ecosystem and encourage collective action.
• Build and maintain relationships with technical partners, youth networks, research institutions, mentors, incubators, learning partners, and ecosystem actors that can strengthen the support available to AYCF grantees and wider youth climate communities.

Leadership, Team Coordination, and Continuous Improvement (10%):

• Supervise program staff, consultants, and technical partners as assigned, providing coaching, performance management, and professional development.
• Champion continuous improvement by identifying opportunities to strengthen program systems, grantee support approaches, and portfolio performance.
• Provide strategic leadership for AYCF's program portfolio, fostering a culture of excellence, learning, accountability, and innovation.
• Contribute to organizational planning, annual work planning, budgeting, institutional development, and the generation of program evidence that supports AYCF’s donor engagement and resource mobilization efforts.
• Perform any other duties assigned by the Founding Director that are consistent with the purpose of the role and contribute to AYCF’s mission.
• Strengthen collaboration across the Programs, Grants & Operations, Finance, and Communications functions to ensure integrated delivery of AYCF's strategic objectives.

Person Specifications
Education and Professional Qualifications:

Essential:

• Professional training or certification in project/programme management, monitoring and evaluation, organizational development, capacity strengthening, facilitation, safeguarding, or youth development will be an added advantage.
• A Master’s Degree in International Development, Development Studies, Project/Programme Management, Climate Change, Environmental Management, Public Policy, Social Sciences, Monitoring and Evaluation, Organizational Development, Youth Development, or a related field.
• A Bachelor’s Degree in a relevant discipline with substantial and progressively responsible experience in program management, grantee support, organizational development, capacity strengthening, MEL/KM, or community-based development may be considered in lieu of a master’s degree.

Professional Experience:
Essential:

• At least five to seven years of progressively responsible experience in program management, grant portfolio support, organizational development, institutional capacity strengthening, MEL/KM, community engagement, or grantee accompaniment within the development, philanthropy, humanitarian, climate, youth development, or non-profit sectors.
• Experience preparing high-quality program reports for donors, senior management, and governance bodies.
• Proven experience supporting civil society organizations, youth-led organizations, grassroots movements, or community-based organizations to strengthen program delivery and institutional performance.
• Experience in integrating safeguarding, inclusion, gender equality, youth participation, and do-no-harm principles into program implementation and community engagement processes.
• Demonstrated experience managing multi-country or multi-partner program portfolios.
• Proven ability to facilitate learning processes, peer exchanges, workshops, and communities of practice.
• Demonstrated experience in program planning, implementation, monitoring, reporting, and adaptive management.
• Experience developing and implementing Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning, and Knowledge Management (MEL/KM) systems.
• Experience in designing and implementing organizational capacity-strengthening initiatives, including mentoring, coaching, and technical assistance.

Desirable Skills and Experiences:

• Experience working with youth-led organizations, youth movements, or youth networks across Africa.
• Experience working with regional or international development partners and multi-country programs.
• Experience working with climate finance initiatives, grant-making institutions, community foundations, or philanthropic organizations.
• Experience in supporting participatory grantmaking, youth advisory processes, community-led funding models, or movement-based funding approaches will be an added advantage.
• Experience supporting locally led development, participatory approaches, and trust-based philanthropy.
• Experience managing programs in climate change, environmental conservation, biodiversity, sustainability, or climate justice.

Technical Competencies:
Program Portfolio Management:

• Ability to oversee multiple grants and programs simultaneously while ensuring quality implementation and results.
• Strong understanding of program and portfolio management principles.
• Experience applying adaptive management approaches to improve program performance.
• Strong planning, coordination, and program management skills.

Grantee Support and Organizational Capacity Strengthening:

• Strong appreciation of locally led development and participatory approaches.
• Experience supporting organizational sustainability, governance, leadership, and program management.
• Demonstrated experience in designing and delivering organizational capacity-strengthening programs.
• Ability to assess organizational capacity and develop tailored institutional strengthening plans.
• Strong coaching, mentoring, and facilitation skills.

Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning, and Knowledge Management:

• Ability to analyze program data and generate evidence for decision-making.
• Experience developing indicators, results frameworks, and learning agendas.
• Experience documenting lessons learned, good practices, and program innovations.
• Strong knowledge management and report-writing skills.
• Strong knowledge of results-based management and MEL frameworks.

Climate and Youth Development:

• Knowledge of youth participation, leadership development, and inclusive program design.
• Understanding of the opportunities and challenges facing youth-led organizations across Africa.
• Good understanding of climate change, climate justice, adaptation, resilience, biodiversity, and sustainable development.

Core Competencies and Skills:
Strategic Program Leadership:

• Ability to provide strategic direction for program portfolios and translate organizational priorities into impactful programs.
• Strong leadership skills with the ability to inspire collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement.

Relationship Management:

• Strong networking and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively with multicultural and multidisciplinary teams.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to build trusted relationships with grantees, partners, and diverse stakeholders.

Communication and Facilitation:

• Exceptional facilitation, presentation, and training skills.
• Ability to communicate complex program concepts clearly to diverse audiences.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Analytical Thinking and Problem Solving:

• Ability to identify program challenges and develop practical, context-specific solutions.
• Strong organizational skills and ability to manage competing priorities.
• Strong analytical and critical thinking skills.

Digital Literacy:

• Experience using program management, monitoring, and data management systems is desirable.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite and collaboration platforms.

Personal Attributes:
The successful candidate will demonstrate:

• Passion for climate justice, locally led development, and strengthening youth-led organizations.
• A strong commitment to youth leadership and meaningful youth participation.
• A genuine interest in empowering young people to lead transformative climate action across Africa.
• Creativity, innovation, and a continuous learning mindset.
• Strong emotional intelligence and cultural sensitivity.
• Ability to thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced, and mission-driven environment.
• Integrity, professionalism, and accountability.
• Commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and safeguarding.
• A collaborative, empathetic, and service-oriented leadership style.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Important Information and Notice

• Ensure that your application package is accessible and does not exceed 10 MB.
• Prepare your application package, which should consist of a one-page cover letter stating your interest in the role and highlighting your relevant achievements, along with a recent CV, all merged into a single PDF.
• Be sure to complete the form in full with accurate information before submitting.
• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.