Agriculture/Livelihood Zonal Coordinator

INTRODUCTION

Save the Children is an exciting and dynamic organization that follows a holistic approach to achieve more for children and use its resources in an efficient and sustainable way. In every programming we aim to achieve results at scale, build partnership to influence others and increase our impact; look for innovate solutions to the problems children faces, campaign for better practice and ensure that Children’s voices are heard.

Save the Children is an organization for talented people with different backgrounds and perspectives. We are proud that our people are representative of the children we work with and we thrive on our diversity. We are an equal opportunity organization dedicated to our core values of Accountability, Ambition, Collaboration, Creativity and Integrity. Our culture is embedded in these values, along with a strong commitment to our Child Safeguarding Protocol, ensuring that all representatives of Save the Children demonstrate the highest standards of behavior towards children both in their private and professional lives.

Save the Children, offers sound employment conditions with opportunities for personal growth and development. If you are interested to work in an organization that is determined to achieve dramatic change for the most vulnerable children, we encourage you to look through the job profile below.

ROLE PURPOSE: 

Feed the Future Ethiopia Growth through Nutrition activity, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) flagship five-year, multi-sectoral nutrition and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) project is implemented in four regions (Amhara, Oromia, SNNP, and Tigray) of Ethiopia. The primary aim of this five-year (2016-2021) project is to prevent undernutrition during the first 1,000 days, from the start of pregnancy until the child’s second birthday using evidence-based nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions. Save the Children leads the project in partnership with government ministries (FMOH, FMOANR, FMOWIE, FMOE, and FMOE) and international and local NGOs.

The Agriculture/Livelihood Zonal Coordinator, based at Zonal Agriculture Office, is responsible for Intermediate Result one (IR1) – agriculture and livelihood component – of the Growth through Nutrition project.

The Agriculture/Livelihood Zonal Coordinator coordinates, supervises, and provides technical assistance for the implementation of Growth through Nutrition’s agriculture and livelihood activities at woreda and zonal level. S/he will actively participate in, and strengthen, nutrition multi-sectoral coordination among the various relevant sectors with that of the agriculture sector; identify strategies and facilitate the implementation of nutrition-sensitive agricultural activities among vulnerable households; establish support and partnerships with local actors and smallholder farmers to improve livelihoods and increased nutritional values; facilitate linkages with other agricultural, health and nutrition programs, international NGOs, private sector businesses, and government agencies; build local capacity through mentorship and training of zonal, woreda, and kebele sector offices and the targeted households; mobilize target beneficiaries to establish saving and credit groups in support of program activities and ensure sustainability; and support reporting and monitoring and evaluation to assure project related data and reports are submitted in project formats and in a timely manner.

KEY Responsibilities

Job specific roles and responsibilities

·         Coordinate, supervise, and provide technical assistance for proper implementation of nutrition-sensitive agriculture such as homestead vegetable production, productive livestock rearing, food safety and postharvest handling, and saving and credit group establishment planned under Growth through Nutrition and implemented by the respective government structures (agriculture, school, and health), etc–at woreda and kebele levels.

·         Facilitate the implementation of activities to promote nutrition-sensitive agriculture at FTCs, schools, model framers’ plots and among vulnerable households, including providing technical training in agronomic practices of horticultural crops, livestock husbandry, business development skills, saving, cooperative management, and financial literacy.

·         In coordination with Growth through Nutrition team members and other donor-funded agricultural, livestock, and fishery programs, plan and implement nutrition-sensitive livelihood strategies.

·         Facilitate linkages with other agricultural (specifically AGP II and PSNP IV) health and nutrition programs, international NGOs, private sector businesses for the supply of inputs and marketing of produce, and government agencies.

·         Works with team members of Growth through Nutrition and staff of Zonal and Woreda Offices of Agriculture to target model farmers and most vulnerable households as per the targeting criteria and methods to ensure exclusion and inclusion errors so that appropriate beneficiaries are reached.

·         Establishes support and partnerships with local actors and smallholder farmers to improve livelihoods and increased nutritional value through demonstrations on new agricultural and nutritional technologies.

·         Works closely with the field office SBCC manager to bring about behavioural changes in the agricultural system and dietary habits.

·         Works closely with MEL Project Manager to generate practical information that can be used for on-going program decision making while also capturing results at the outcome and impact levels.

·         Capacity building through training of Zonal, woreda, school teachers, Kebele sector offices staff, model farmers  and targeted households to strengthen livelihoods services and programming Mobilize target beneficiaries in collaboration with the cooperative promotion offices to establish saving and credit groups and create linkage to financial service providers such as micro- finance institutions and rural saving and credit cooperatives (RUSACCO) in support of program activities, and ensure sustainability of the results by beneficiaries.

·         Conduct regular follow up/appropriate mentoring and provide on-job training for government agriculture and health workers using project tools.

·         Ensure allocated resources reach the right beneficiaries, for the right objective, and in a timely manner.

·         Coordinate with the project’s Nutrition Zonal Coordinator and woreda level sectors for integrated planning and implementation of livelihood and nutrition-sensitive agriculture activities at woreda and kebele levels.

·         Collaborate with Growth through Nutrition and other partners working in livelihood and nutrition-sensitive agriculture, WASH, SBCC activities and sectors on the ground in support of Growth through Nutrition’s layering and convergence approach.

·         Ensure the proper planning and implementation of Growth through Nutrition cross-cutting activities – gender, learning agenda, sustainable approaches, and convergence and overlay of multi-sector nutrition interventions.

·         Collaborate with Gender Specialist and gender focal persons/taskforce to deliver gender-sensitive agriculture and livelihood activities at woreda and kebele levels.

·         Enter program data for target woredas accurately into DHIS 2 database regularly and in a timely manner; crosscheck and verify entered data into the database for accuracy and edit data as needed; and analyse and use data.

·         Support reporting and monitoring and evaluation, assuring that quality reports are submitted using standard project formats and in a timely manner.

·         Performs other related tasks as required.

MINIMUM QUALFICATION, EXPEREINCE, COMPETENCIES

 Essential

• Bachelor’s degree in Animal Science (animal production, animal health), Plant Science (preferably in horticulture), Cooperative Development, General agriculture with significant experience in animal production/homestead gardening.
• At least 5 years of experience implementing livelihoods and economic strengthening programs, supporting nutrition sensitive/diverse economic strengthening activities such as homestead gardening and animal production.

·         Excellent and demonstrated skills in computer Microsoft office applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

• Competency in spoken and written English language
• Speak/understand local (regional) language
• An understanding of and commitment to Save the Children values.

Desired

• Significant training experience in nutrition-sensitive agriculture, horticulture, cooperative development, animal husbandry, etc. and community mobilization in support of agriculture and economic strengthening programs.
• Experience conducting trainings, training of trainers, and organizational capacity building.
• Knowledge and learning ability to integrate gender issues in agriculture and livelihood interventions.
• Strong written and oral communication skills, as well as the proven ability to work collaboratively with various organizations and stakeholders.
• Experience working with private sector, government agencies and beneficiaries on livelihoods programs.
• Ability to travel throughout the focus zone, woredas, kebele and other rural areas as needed.
• Strong results orientation.
• Experience in multi-sectoral coordination.
• Proven project management skill with professional certificate in project management is an added advantage.
• Ability to manage complex and demanding workload.

·         Experience in NGO setup.

·         Qualified female candidates are highly encouraged to apply.