Initiative Manager (Livelihood Specialist) Non-profit Jobs – CARE International
Job Title: Initiative Manager (Livelihood Specialist)
Organization: CARE International
Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda
About US:
CARE International is a leading global development and humanitarian organization. In 2014, CARE worked in 90 countries around the world, supporting 880 poverty-fighting development and humanitarian aid projects, reaching more than 72 million people. CARE International in Uganda (CARE) works with others to make a sustainable improvement in the lives of the very poor, with a focus on women and girls. Our current program focusses on women and girls’ economic rights, particularly financial inclusion and governance of natural resources women and girls depend upon, and on their sexual and reproductive health rights, including a life free of violence. Our programming is guided by our core values of excellence, accountability, respect, integrity and transparency.
Job Summary: The Initiative Manager (Livelihood Specialist) is responsible for managing projects that include livelihood components, in partnership with local partners where relevant. S/he seeks guidance from other Specialists on the team for other technical components, such as Protection, GBV, EMB & RMM, shelter etc and s/he provides technical support to other members of the humanitarian team on livelihood. The IMLS will manage a number of projects, the number will vary over time. As Initiative Manager, the IMLS is responsible for managing all aspects of a given initiative or project, including Human Resource Management of staff assigned to that particular initiative, planning and timely and quality implementation of initiatives in line with approved proposals and work plans, financial management of grants in line with approved budget, overall compliance of initiatives in line with organizational and specific donor rules and regulations, management of assets assigned to the initiatives, monitoring, evaluation and reporting. The IMLS reports to the Emergency Team Leader and is part of CARE’s West Nile Humanitarian Management Team (HMT).
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
Management of projects with large livelihood components (30% of time)
- Drawing from the objectives and agreed upon key activities in the project proposals, develop detailed yearly and quarterly implementation plans and related budgets while ensuring synergies between the different initiatives;
- Ensure DIPs (Detailed Implementation Plans) are followed and closely monitored for each initiative to ensure timely implementation of activities and within available resources and immediately report any problems or deviations from plans;
- Ensure logistics for all training, capacity building, research and other events have been prepared and organized in line with CARE’s & donors’ internal procedures and to create the best possible environment and conditions for participants in these different events;
- Responsible for monitoring the initiatives’ budget, reviewing monthly expenditure reports and ensuring budgets are used in accordance with CARE’s and the donors’ rules and regulations. This involves planning and designing activities in ways that fit the available budgets, reviewing monthly expenditure reports, working closely with finance to prepare accurate and timely donor financial reports and ensuring allocation of expenses to the right budget lines, preparing quarterly projection of needed funds, pipeline projections, etc.
- Responsible for preparing procurement plans for all goods and services related to these initiatives, according to approved budgets and activity plans and in line with both CARE and the donors’ procurement rules and policies
- Ongoing identification of staffing needs in managed initiatives, recommends changes of staffing structure as needed and develops / adapts job descriptions as needed;
- Direct supervision of staff assigned to initiatives under direct management, which includes development of annual performance objectives and proactive management of performance through day to day guidance and coaching, formal mid-term and annual performance reviews and support to staff to achieve their personal and professional development objectives.
- Ensures synergy across the supervised initiatives as well as efficient use of resources across initiatives and also with other initiatives under CARE’s Humanitarian Program;
Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) and Reporting for livelihood projects under direct management (20%)
- Ensure projects under direct management have results based monitoring and evaluation system in place with SMART indicators, with the engagement of local partners and the development of a learning system that not only generates quantitative data but allows for ongoing collection of participants views on the programs’ relevance and success;
- Ensure that project indicators are sex disaggregated and gender sensitive;
- Ensure each project has a database to allow keeping track of project participants in each component, without double counting across components;
- Ensure CARE and partner staff are trained on the developed monitoring and evaluation system;
- Coordinate and manage the design of the base line, midterm review and end line and final evaluation;
- Facilitate and document regular project reviews with key partners and ensure these reviews inform project implementation and are used to improve project quality;
- Writes and support direct reports to write briefs, human interest stories and papers that can be used for advocacy or information purposes;
- Assists team members and partners to write reports on their sector of intervention and coordinates process of consolidation of reports for internal purposes as well as donor reports, as per guidelines of the donor; It is critical to ensure reports are a true reflection of implementation and reflect progress as well as challenges and lessons learnt;
- Ensure learning products are developed in coordination with relevant colleagues, with a focus on livelihood initiatives;
- All the above is in close collaboration with and technical support from the MEAL Humanitarian Advisor.
Quality assurance and development of gender, youth and conflict sensitive livelihood interventions (25%)
- Support team to develop, resource (through proposal writing) and implement innovative livelihood interventions with a view of building the refugee community self-reliance and increase their resilience;
- Ensure proposed livelihood interventions:
- Promote gender equity;
- Reduce the risk exploitation and abuse, including of GBV by offering dignified livelihood enhancing opportunities to vulnerable groups, with a focus on refugee women and girls;
- Are at least environmentally friendly and if possible even have a positive impact on the environment;
- Do not exacerbate the risk of conflict between groups of refugees and between refugees and hosting communities;
- Focus on youth and take the specific needs and potential of women, girls, men and boys into account;
- Lead to Women and Girls Economic Empowerment and resilience;
- Promote innovations including use of cash, use of ICT and mobile technology, pilot new ideas;
- Build on CARE Uganda’s strengths in the financial inclusion sector, in Women’s Economic Empowerment and on relationships with existing partners (banks, private sector, etc);
- Based on the above criteria, the IMLS will develop a gender, youth and environment friendly livelihood strategy for CARE’s humanitarian program in West Nile, within three months;
- The IMLS will then use this strategy to contribute to the development of proposals and budgets for livelihood programs in West Nile;
- The IMLS will work closely with other managers and colleagues and provide them with technically support to ensure potentially livelihood components under their projects align with the livelihood strategy for West Nile. This will include conducting training of staff and partners, conducting field visits, facilitating workshops, supporting directly certain activities such as developing training modules on livelihood, etc
- As the technical lead on livelihood, the IMLS will supervise all livelihood focussed studies, research of all projects. This may include identifying research needs, developing TORs for consultants, protocols for livelihood focussed research, supervising consultants, etc
- Ensure coordination with other livelihood actors in West Nile, with a focus on areas of operations, including representation of CARE in livelihood technical working group coordinated by UNHCR and any other relevant technical working group;
Management & capacity building of livelihood humanitarian partners (20%)
- Identify local partners with capacity and interest in livelihood programming in our humanitarian area of operations and collaborate with Grants and Contracts to conduct due diligence and organizational capacity assessments in line with policies before signing MOUs with them;
- Ensure selected partners who will implement livelihood activities with CARE as sub grantees have clear MOUs, Scopes of Work and detailed budgets as per policy and are very clear about their role;
- Ensure partners’ capacity development plans are developed based on findings of due diligence and capacity assessments; Ensure on-going capacity building at institutional, organizational and technical level, including attention to Gender Equity and Diversity;
- Manage relationships with these livelihood partners to ensure deliverables are met timely and with the required quality; In cases where partners also work with CARE’s long term development program team, this may involve coordinating with colleagues in other parts of CARE Uganda;
- Ongoing review and assessment of partners performance and provision of support as needed through development, implementation and monitoring of partners’ capacity development plans and close tracking of progress against scopes of work, work plans and budgets;
- Propose revisions of SOWs, workplans and budget of partners as needed;
- Ensure partners’ reports, both financial and narrative, are submitted timely and analysed and that feedback is shared with partners;
- Ensure all partners’ agreements are in line with CARE’s sub agreement policy;
- Ensure partners have in-depth knowledge of the projects’ objectives and strategies;
- Ensure that partners are involved in all critical moments and events of the projects (design phase, consultancies, planning meetings, review meetings, baseline, midterm review, endline, steering committee meetings, etc.) and that all key information is shared with them in a transparent manner and in real time;
Others: Any other duties (5%)
Qualifications, Skills and Experience:
- The applicant for the CARE International Initiative Manager (Livelihood Specialist) job placement should preferably hold a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Rural Development, Agriculture or related field (though a Master’s degree is preferred)
- Expert level knowledge and at least five years practical experience in livelihood programming in rural Uganda, preferably with refugee and / or displaced populations;
- Experience in at least two of the following fields required: cash transfer programs (cash for food, cash for work, etc), financial inclusion (VSLAs and bank linkages), market engagement and value chain approaches, on and off farm livelihood preferred;
- Experience in the use of ICT in livelihood programs required;
- Experience with youth livelihood programs preferred;
- Advanced knowledge and at least 5 years of proven practical project management experience (managing at least three different grants at once), including strong skills and experience in M&E, report writing, participatory planning, financial management, Human Resource Management.
- People manager with proven experience managing diverse teams and individuals’ performance for success,
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English.
- Computer literate (email, word processing, spreadsheets,)
- Personally committed to gender equality and women and girls’ empowerment with ability to lead to organizational change processes that aim at making organizations more gender aware, gender committed and gender competent.
- Both a team player as well as able to work independently with minimum supervision
How to Apply:
All applicants are encouraged to send their application letters clearly articulating alignment with the above profile and an updated detailed (CV) giving day time telephone contacts and names and addresses of 3 (three) work related referees to ugarecruitment@care.org
Deadline: 13th April 2018
: List of Current Job Vacancies / Opportunities in Uganda