Global Food Security & Livelihoods Specialist

JAM is now ForAfrika

JAM is excited to announce that we have rebranded, we are now ForAfrika

Purpose of Position:

The Food Security and Livelihoods Specialist is the technical expert who will be responsible for providing the overall strategic direction and performance of ForAfrika’s FSL Programme. The range of duties include playing a critical role in defining the portfolio’s programs, principles, objectives and operational strategies in line with ForAfrika’s Theory of Change, Programming Framework and the FSL Overall Strategy. This includes setting standards and targets for all ForAfrika’s FSL program implementation, monitoring and evaluation; overseeing project planning and budgeting; giving technical assistance to staff ensuring collaboration with counterpart agencies and representing ForAfrika’s external organizations. This position is expected to provide all round direction to ForAfrika in achieving the FSL goals and objectives.

Key Responsibilities:

The Global Food Security & Livelihoods (FSL) Specialist

The Global FSL Specialist shall provide technical methodological guidance and oversight to field teams during the full length off the project cycle. S/he will be responsible for technical quality assurance for these projects and ensuring that FSL programme choices in each country of ForAfrika’s operations meets all standards/targets and quality and comply with the organization’s and all donor guidelines and technical standards. T

he FSL Specialist will be responsible for new project/programme development starting with the identification of program initiatives appropriate to both the sector and country office strategies, all the way through submission of quality proposals. The Specialist assures synergy among projects/programmes within the sector as well as with ForAfrika’s other sector programmes in Health and Nutrition, WASH and Economic Empowerment.

The Specialist shall undertake resource mobilization

The FSL Specialist shall represent ForAfrika in all relevant meetings such as the FSL cluster meetings, donor meetings and line ministry meetings coordinated by the governments where the organization operates.

Program strategy and development

1. Develop and lead the implementation of the ForAfrika’s Food Security and Livelihoods portfolio.
2. Proactively seek new business development in FSL, including cultivating relationships with donors, proposal writing, etc. in line with ForAfrika’s Country Offices strategies.
3. Provide technical leadership and strategic direction to the team in the development of proposals and program planning.
4. Coordinate with program support and finance teams to ensure adequate budgeting for new initiatives.
5. Promote adherence to standards and best practices taking into account the need for local adaptation.
6. Ensure that humanitarian FSL needs are identified by planning and coordinating assessments which are adapted to the local context.
7. Contribute to the identification of critical issues that require multi-portfolio responses and coordinate with other ForAfrika’s portfolio owners and COs to develop appropriate responses.
8. Provide support in negotiation and review of funding contracts.
9. Coordinate external technical assistance and draw on the resources of program support in new program development exercises
10. Serve as the focal point for donor liaison, in technical areas of FSL, in close collaboration with the Technical Unit and the Executive Committee (EXCO).
11. Generate clear ForAfrika’s FSL model/s and best practices ensuring these are tested and proven.

Technical Leadership and Capacity Building

1. Provide technical oversight to ensure the quality of ForAfrika’s FSL programing and promote adherence to global FSL standards.
2. Supervise and support the timely and effective implementation of FSL projects/programmes and activities across operational areas, in line with budgets and work-plans.
3. Provide technical support to the recruitment of FSL-related staff (i.e. JD review based on existing standard JDs, technical short-listing, technical interviews).
4. Coordinate with ForAfrika’s Country Offices (COs) and other portfolio owners to integrate livelihoods related activities/ indicators, especially through awareness raising and mainstreaming protection aimed at enhanced well-being and access to food amongst beneficiaries
5. Oversee the production of FSL-related research papers including advising on research design and methodology.
6. Establish a ForAfrika organization led FSL Community of Practice.
7. Regularly assess and strengthen the capacity the organizations FSL teams, ensuring that teams are able to access training and professional development resources, appropriate to their capacity gaps/needs.
8. Coordinate the dissemination of key technical material and organize trainings with a special focus on standards and best practice.
9. Build the technical capacity ForAfrika’s staff, partners, NGOs and government counterparts as required.

External Representation and Communication

1. Establish and maintain communications with key FSL stakeholders (including national, state and county FSL authorities, FAO, WFP, national and international organizations and civil society actors) and engage actively with existing coordination mechanisms.
2. Represent the organization in relevant working groups, sector fora, conferences, and high-level meetings and FSL humanitarian cluster meetings.
3. Engage proactively with donors and other stakeholders for the purposes of advocacy and fund raising.
4. Ensure strong donor relations with current and potential donors.
5. Lead and support the implementation of positioning strategies for ForAfrika including the cultivation of partners, events, publications / materials, etc.
6. Coordinate with ForAfrika’s FSL teams and other technical and operational staff.
7. Supply necessary information to ensure timely reporting and communications with donors, government and other key actors.
8. Seek support and technical assistance from other technical units as needed.
9. Support and work effectively in coalitions, networks and social movements for advocacy, research and resource mobilization with peer INGOs, NNGOs, Academic institutions.

Monitoring and Reporting

1. Work closely with the others teams in the monitoring of FSL interventions; ensuring the collation, analysis and sharing of data related to project activities in the food security context for the purposes of designing new interventions, donor advocacy and fund raising.
2. Support the development of needs assessments, market assessments and surveys and conduct in-depth analysis of the data collected through the use of these tools.
3. Support the other ForAfrika teams in ensuring that robust monitoring systems are in place and that reviews are undertaken periodically.
4. Lead on the review of FSL components of project/programme reports – contributing both in terms of narrative reporting and data analysis.
5. Ensure timely submission of quality donor reports within the FSL portfolio.
6. Regularly review and improve FSL programming (emergency response, recovery and resilience programming) performance and assess coherence with prevention and mitigation components in other programs/sectors.
7. Conduct monitoring visits to project locations, develop field reports and follow up on critical issues in a timely manner.
8. Participate in grant start-up and close out workshops to ensure collegial understanding of donor expectations and integration of learning from projects in subsequent designs.

Research Innovation and Learning

1. Lead on the development of FSL related position, policy and research papers.
2. Lead in identifying and documenting lessons and promising practices from the organization’s portfolio.
3. Lead in identifying themes for operational research within ForAfrika programming focus and opportunities for collaborative research with other teams and partners.
4. Stay abreast of latest development and professional norms, upcoming project models, standards, tools and methodologies within FSL sector for inclusion in program development and sharing with FSL teams.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural economics,
• Extensive working knowledge/experience with data systems.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience in data systems
• Must have proven knowledge and experience in community agriculture, food security and nutrition assessments, analysis, design, implementation and monitoring
• Proven knowledge of the agricultural sector including agricultural development and use of agrotechnology.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience in agriculture development, agri-tech or commercial agriculture with development.
• Must have excellent oral and written communications skills, team building skills
• Being proactive, seek to identify and communicate potential problems and propose solutions to the appropriate level of management.
• Able to function effectively in a complex work environment and to set appropriate priorities and deal effectively with numerous simultaneous requirements.
• Ability to carry out responsibilities independently with minimal technical support.
• Diligent/ paying attention to detail, pro-activeness, multitasking and ability to work under pressure and handle competing tasks