Terms of Reference: 

Recruitment of a Technical Project Support Officer

• Position: Technical Project Support Officer for Digital Payments and e-Commerce
• Duration: One (1) year, renewable
• Location: Kigali, Rwanda
• Deadline: 19^th February 2023 at 5:00 PM Kigali (GMT+2) time 

1. About Smart Africa

The Smart Africa Alliance is a partnership among African countries adhering to the Smart Africa Manifesto (herein after referred to as “the Manifesto”), the African Union (AU Commission, AUDA, specialized institutions and Regional Economic Communities), the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the World Bank, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the Private Sector, Academic and Research Institutions.

The Smart Africa Alliance (or Smart Africa) is a bold and innovative commitment from African Heads of State and Government to accelerate sustainable socio-economic development on the continent, ushering Africa into a knowledge economy through the usage of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT).

On 30th-31st January 2014, the Smart Africa Manifesto was endorsed by all Heads of State and Government of the African Union at the 22nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union in Addis Ababa. This development places the Manifesto at the heart of the ICT agenda in Africa beyond just the 7 original signatories at the Summit to all African countries. The Smart Africa Alliance has since grown to include 32 African countries that represent 815+ million people.

The Smart Africa Manifesto aims to put ICT at the center of the continental and national socio-economic development of Member States. This means increasing access to ICT solutions, improving accountability, efficiency, and openness through ICT, promoting the introduction of advanced technologies in telecommunication, strengthening the private sector, leveraging ICT to promote sustainable development.

The Smart Africa Alliance as an organization is the framework for implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Manifesto, designed to make it actionable. The Smart Africa Alliance is not a profit-oriented organization.

2. Project Background for Smart Africa Cross-border Digital Payments and e-Commerce Initiatives

Smart Africa will provide a continent-wide regulatory framework for cross-border payment systems to move away from the fragmentation of national and regional legal systems, which creates confusion, legal uncertainty, and hampers integration and interoperability. This will be enabled through an environment of digital trade across Africa by supporting the development of robust/ harmonized e-payment ecosystem policies.

Smart Africa’s e-Payment framework will ensure interoperable, future-proof, accessible, and inclusive e-Payment systems at the national, regional, and pan-African levels.

More specifically, Smart Africa and the African Development Fund signed a protocol of agreement for digital payments and e-commerce policies for cross-border trade in Africa.

The Project’s main objective is to strengthen the enabling environment for digital trade across Africa by developing robust/ harmonized e-payment ecosystem policies. The objectives include:

1. Develop a gender responsive policy framework to facilitate cross- border trade through harmonized e-Payment systems;
2. Promote dialogue across e- payments stakeholders to increase public-private participation/projects that enhance e- payment ecosystem, and

• Support targeted countries to develop action plans to enable e-Payments for the facilitation of inclusive digital trade.

3. Responsibilities

The Smart Africa Secretariat would like to recruit a Technical Project Support Officer for Digital Payments and e-Commerce to support SAS digital payments and e-commerce initiatives in selected Smart Africa Member Countries while ensuring effective communications to a diverse range of stakeholders (private sector actors, governments, international organizations, etc.).

Main responsibilities will include:

• Support in all implementation and coordination activities related to digital payments and e-commerce;
• Facilitate the monthly review of e-commerce and digital payments’ implementation activities;
• Document routine progress, success, and the implementation process;
• Provide analytical learnings from the implementation to ease scale-up of activities;
• Providing periodical reports on the progress of project activities and issues arising;
• Support project activities including input into project planning and documentation;
• Coordinate meeting and events for the establishment of digital payments and technical workshops on pilot projects;
• Any other assignments or projects, which will be assigned from time to time by the leadership of Smart Africa;

4. Key qualifications

Education and Experience Requirements:

• At least a Bachelor’s Degree in ICT, Information Systems and Communications, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, or other relevant fields;
• A minimum of five (5) years of experience in digital economy/Payments/Mobile VAS/ICT product development area at a national or regional level;
• Excellent MS PowerPoint, Technical Writing and Visual documentation skills such as infographics;
• Proficiency in MS Office.

General experience and skills:

• Familiarity with digital payments and financial sector initiatives ecosystem;
• Good interpersonal skills
• Demonstrated written, analytical, presentation and reporting skills as well as familiarity with modern communication systems (internet, the world wide web, email, and related);
• Ability to work in a team;
• Strong competency in using standard software productivity tools (such as Microsoft Office Suite or others).

Languages:

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in French or English; Being Bilingual will be an added advantage.

5. Duration of the assignment

The appointment will be for One (1) year, with the first Three (3) Months as probation period, renewable subject to candidate’s successful performance and availability of funding.

6. Reporting requirements

The Technical Project Support Officer will report directly to the Project Manager in Charge of Digital Payments & e-Commerce.

Please send the following application documents to the following email address [email protected]:

• A one-page cover letter in English with a motivation statement in relation to this position.
• A CV in English with 3 contacts of professional referees.



• Copies of relevant academic and professional certificates.

8. Deadline

The deadline for submitting applications is 19^th February 2023 at 5:00 PM Kigali (GMT+2) time.