The Ugandan Jobline

Job Title:     Livelihoods Manager

Organization: Mercy Corps

Duty Station: Uganda

Reports to: Technical Director

About US:

Mercy Corps has been operating in Uganda since 2006 and
works to catalyze change through the Ugandan private sector, civil society and
government to create resilient, economically inclusive, healthy, and secure
communities. Our work focuses on building resilience and enabling economic
growth, improving opportunities to attain better health and nutrition,
improving governance and conflict management, and bridging humanitarian
response with longer term development outcomes. We implement programs in
Acholi, Karamoja and West Nile Sub-regions, as well as eastern Uganda and the
greater Kampala area with funding from USAID, Sida, US State Department, SDC,
DFID as well as other private donations.

Job Summary:  The Livelihoods Manager will play a key
leadership role in the implementation of a five-year $46 million USAID Food for
Peace Activity called ‘Apolou’ to support crop farmers, agro-pastoralists, and
pastoralist households living across the districts of Amudat, Kotido, Kaabong,
Karenga and Moroto in Karamoja. The Activity is multi-sectoral with programming
grounded in a resilience framework working on livelihoods, nutrition, WASH, and
governance with cross-cutting attention to gender and youth. The overall
objectives of Apolou Activity are to reduce stunting and increase household
income. The Livelihoods Manager will work closely with the Technical Director
and Implementation Director to ensure the quality, efficiency, integrity and
learning associated with Apolou Activity livelihood interventions. The
Livelihoods Manager will be responsible for implementing a market systems
approach, together with private sector and government actors, to hasten
economic development in the Karamoja sub-region, with key focus areas including
livestock and crop agriculture value chains, financial inclusion, economic
empowerment of youth and women, and growth of the business enabling
environment. The livelihoods interventions will be fully integrated with other
technical areas of Apolou Activity to build resilient households.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:  

Strategy & Vision

·      
Support the Technical Director in developing a
vision and strategy for livelihood activities to build household resilience and
ensure sequencing, layering and integration.

·      
Play an active role in identifying and
developing new initiatives that foster or improve strategic objectives of the
economic development activities.

·      
Review and adapt relevant curricula, strategy
documents and training materials for technical integrity across the different
Apolou livelihood sectors.

·      
Program Management

·      
Ensure program management and administration of
livelihood team members across various field locations, including budget and
workplan management

·      
Use a market systems development approach to
strengthen links between local, regional and national private sector actors to
hasten the growth of the private sector in Karamoja as it relates to key food security
domains.

·      
Ensure program adherence to USAID and internal
compliance regulations, building the capacity of livelihood team members to
ensure consistency in policy application, human resource, administrative and
operations procedures

·      
Adopt and promote resilience learning, ensuring
that livelihood activities result in improved capacity of participants to
overcome shocks and stresses

·      
Ensure that program implementation is responsive
to communities and partners and consistent with Mercy Corps’ relevant program
guidelines, principles, values, quality standards and strategic plan.

·      
Ensure that participants are effectively
targeted according to established vulnerability criteria.

·      
Develop strategic MoUs and contracts for key
private sector, other development partners and government actors

·      
Integrate gender and youth sensitive programming
to all implementation, ensuring that livelihood activities are meeting the
unique needs and priorities of women, girls, boys and men.

·      
Together with the Implementation Director, create
and maintain systems ensuring effective and transparent use of financial
resources for timely and informative reporting in line with donor and Mercy
Corps policies and procedures.

·      
Ensure livelihood team adherence to Mercy Corps’
Program Management Minimum Standards based on the organization-wide guide.

·      
Develop and review regular reports for internal
and external audiences.

·      
Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

·      
Ensure indicator targets are set and adhered to
for all livelihoods interventions

·      
Support the livelihoods team in routine
monitoring activities with support of the MEL Advisor

·      
Ensure Livelihoods team members understand the
link between activity implementation and the Theory of Change

·      
Support the MEL team with CLA (Collaboration,
Learning and Adaptation) activities

·      
Ensure livelihood implementation is on time,
target and budget, using effective M&E systems to reach desired impacts.

·      
Contribute to Apolou Activity’s learning themes.

Team Management

·      
Create and sustain a work environment of mutual
respect where team members strive to achieve excellence.

·      
Promote accountability, communicate expectations
and provide constructive feedback via regular performance reviews of livelihood
team members

·      
Supervise, hire and orient new team members as
necessary.

·      
Provide team members with information, tools and
other resources to improve performance and reach objectives.

·      
Contribute to country team-building efforts,
help team members identify problem-solving options and ensure the integration
of all team members into relevant decision-making processes.

·      
Together with the Senior Management Team,
support broader Apolou Activity team by leading coordination meetings and
identifying integration opportunities as relevant.

Influence & Representation

·      
Together with the Apolou Senior Management Team,
identify, build and manage collaborative partnerships with local government,
other development partners and private sector partners

·      
Communicate effectively to ensure overall
Activity targets and donor obligations are met.

·      
Manage relationships with regional and national
stakeholders, including private sector companies that participate in livelihood
activities

Organizational Learning

·      
As part of our commitment to organizational
learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are
more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve, we expect
all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit
Mercy Corps as well as themselves.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

·      
The applicant must hold a Masters Degree in
business, economic development, international development or other relevant
field is preferred.

·      
At least 7+ years of relevant experience with
positions of progressively greater responsibilities.

·      
Experience working in Karamoja sub-region
strongly preferred, experience in agro-pastoralist communities advantageous.

·      
Regional / international experience is an added
advantage.

·      
Demonstrated experience in technical livelihoods
strategies, preferably in multi-sector food security and/or nutrition
programming

·      
Management and demonstrated success building,
managing and leading a team of professionals.

·      
Strong organization, prioritization and
negotiating skills, including excellent (English) verbal and written
communication skills.

·      
Excellent quantitative skills required,
including financial management.

·      
Experience in building and maintaining
strong/productive relations with implementing and strategic partner agencies is
preferred. This includes coordinating with government authorities and private
sector counterparts.

·      
Strong computer literacy with a full knowledge
of office applications.

·      
Knowledge of local languages is an advantage

·      
The successful Livelihoods Manager will combine
strong management skills and experience in maintaining staff and partner
relationships for economic growth.

·      
S/he will have an ability to develop, implement
and manage innovative market systems development activities and ability to
prioritize nutrition-sensitive interventions.

·      
S/he will also have proven experience with
cross-cultural teams and capacity building, individual staff development, and
strong mentoring skills.

·      
Multi-tasking, prioritizing, problem solving and
simultaneous attention to detail are essential.

·      
The most successful Mercy Corps staff members
have a strong commitment to teamwork and accountability, thrive in evolving and
changing environments and make effective written and verbal communication a
priority in all situations.

How to Apply:

All candidates should send their applications online through
the Mercy Corps recruitment portal at the link below.

Click
Here

Deadline: 27^th February 2020

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