Energy Governance Advisor

Focus of the Role

Our Governance work supports the governments and leaders of fragile, developing, and emerging states to enhance their effectiveness. We are focused on helping governments and leaders make their vision for the development of their country a reality. We work in the centre of government and key line ministries and our work is shaped by national priorities. Our advisory work in energy has, up until now, focused on supporting governments to plan, identify priority investments and then establish the structures and systems to deliver on these investments.

Job Introduction

In Sierra Leone, TBI is supporting national power sector reform, to promote an enabling environment for sustainable power generation and improve energy access to households and businesses.

The Energy Governance Advisor will primarily be responsible for supporting the Ministry of Energy in Sierra Leone to deliver on their priorities and providing direct advisory support to the Minister of Energy and his team as they conduct power sector reforms.  

Advisor will work with the existing TBI team in country to ensure the political leadership is able to drive the delivery of the program (through both making informed decisions and having the necessary structures and systems to deliver).
Please note that this is a fixed-term role for an initial period of 2 years that may be extended based on budget availability and performance.

Key Responsibilities

• Support the Ministry of Energy to deliver on their priorities. This may include provision of support to strengthening the enabling environment of the energy sector and implementing critical reforms, enhancing the sector’s legal and regulatory framework to facilitate both private and public investment, promoting integrated power sector planning and strategic use of on-grid, off-grid and small-scale solutions, in line with international recognized standards and best practices;
• Support development partners to identify how they can best support the Ministry of Energy and other key sector stakeholders to advance national power sector reforms. This will involve providing timely analysis and acting as a point of coordination and expertise;
• Identify areas where leader-to-leader engagement is required and coordinate these engagements in collaboration with the Programme Team Lead;
• Undertake high-impact analysis or studies for senior officials, including financial appraisals of Purchase Power Agreements (PPAs), policy & regulatory analysis, as well as sectoral & industry analysis;
• Proactively identify risks and issues affecting task or work stream delivery, and promptly communicate upwards with solution options;
• Present ideas and respond to queries clearly and concisely in internal team meetings and with external stakeholders;
• Support completion of high-quality written documents and/or presentations;
• Articulate findings and presentations using various presentation tools, i.e., power point, excel etc.

Person Specification

Applicants should have:

• At least 5 years of power sector experience is required. Experience in institutional capacity development, regulation, cross-border power trade, power system planning or public-private financing are desirable, as is experience working in developing economies;
• An ability to work independently, think strategically and translate strategies into delivery plans on the ground, with attention to detail; with excellent analytical, organizational, communication and management skills;
• An understanding of the needs of senior officials both while office based and travelling; be able to work and interact at the highest level of public life;
• Excellent inter-personal skills and ability to work in a team with colleagues;
• Ability to liaise with partner governments, external bodies, organizations and key stakeholders to deliver the requirements of the office, and TBIGC in particular;
• Willingness to travel, sometimes at short notice;
• Experience of identifying and resolving project implementation bottlenecks;
• Strong of sense ethics, discretion and perseverance required;
• Fluency in English. French would be of benefit.

About The Institute

At the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change we are dedicated to making globalisation work for the many, not the few. We do this by helping countries, their people and their governments, address some of the most difficult challenges in the world today – beginning with those where we think we can break new ground, offering leaders new thinking and new approaches. Our staff – over 200 of them, based all over the world – are working on some of the most intractable problems around issues of co-existence, governance, the peace process in the Middle East and renewing the centre.