Jobs at Diamond Development Initiatives (DDI)

Job Summary

• The Chief of Party (COP) will have overall responsibility for the Nigeria Resilience Activity.
• Responsibilities include meeting Activity objectives and deliverables while providing overall leadership in technical, administrative, operational, and management aspects.
• The COP will act as the primary relationship manager for the project with USAID/Nigeria, Government of Nigeria, partners and external stakeholders.

Specific Responsibilities

• Provide overall strategic guidance, leadership, management and general technical oversight of the entire Activity, with a strong focus on achieving defined results.
• Act as the key liaison with USAID, Government of Nigeria, all implementing partners and stakeholders involved with the program.
• Provide technical leadership and specific directions to design and implement streamlined interventions that enable households to break out of recurrent stress and crises and achieve results in accordance with FGN and donor standards.
• Represent the Activity and present its work nationally and globally to DDI leadership, the donor, partners, and other stakeholders.
• Lead, manage, supervise and mentor Activity staff and consortium partners.
• Ensure high-quality monitoring and evaluation of Activity impact and timely submission of donor reports and deliverables.
• Ensure compliance with DDI and USAID policies and requirements

Key Qualifications and Requirements

• A Master's Degree or higher in Agriculture, Economics, or Business Administration;
• A minimum of ten (10) years of significant in-country experience and of being a Chief of Party in managing large (preferably $5 million and above) livelihood, agricultural development activities, with knowledge of resilience programming and preferrably the Nigerian context;
• At least five years of field-based work in a conflict-prone and/or active insurgency and banditry environment;
• Demonstrated ability to be collaborative across activities while utilizing strong communication and interpersonal skills, with evidence of the ability to productively interact with a wide range and levels of organizations (government, private sector, other activities, NGOs);
• Demonstrated capacity to advance collaborative learning and adaptive management, including but not limited to collaboration and coordination with other FTF and donor-funded activities.
• Demonstrated capacity to manage complex teams, including problem solving skills, and capacity to meet deadlines and deliver quality deliverables to meet objectives; and
• Very strong written and verbal communication skills (proficiency in English).
• Ability to communicate in Hausa language is a plus.

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Job Summary

• The DCOP will support the Chief of Party in meeting Activity objectives and deliverables and in providing overall leadership in technical, administrative, operational, and management aspects.
• The DCOP will support relationship management with USAID/Nigeria, the Government of Nigeria, partners and external stakeholders.

Specific Job Responsibilities

• Manage key aspects of the development, implementation, and consolidation of the Nigeria Resilience Activity.
• Serve as a point of contact to USAID as well as public, private and non-government stakeholders, when needed.
• Manage key functions of the project to meet donor expectations in terms of timely and quality results and budget.
• Contribute to ensuring coordination between program and operations leads.
• Contribute to ensuring the DDI program quality standards are adhered to per MEAL policy and procedures.
• Effectively supervise and manage talent,team dynamics and staff well-being; provide coaching and mentoring; strategically tailor individual development plans and complete performance assessments; and contribute to the development of staffing plans and the recruitment process of senior staff.
• Manage and mitigate risk through monitoring national and regional issues that may impact staff and programming.
• Ensure all staff members understand and adhere to safety and security policies and plans and update such plans.
• Promote, uphold and model a commitment to the efficient use of agency and donor resources.
• Help ensure compliance with USAID grants, including financial tracking and oversight of partner budgets, finance, administration and reporting to USAID.
• Maintain relationships with key staff of consortium partner organizations, and contribute to coordination of the roles and activities of staff from other consortium member organizations in implementation in line with DDI partnership principles.
• Create and maintain proper conditions for learning, establish a safe environment for sharing of ideas, solutions, and difficulties and possess the capacity to detect, analyse and respond quickly to deficiencies.
• Identify performance gaps and training opportunities for DDI and partner staff and recommend trainings and technical assistance.

Key Qualifications and Requirements

• A Master's Degree or higher in Agriculture, Economics, or Business Administration;
• Demonstrated expertise and a minimum of five (5) years of Deputy Chief of Party experience in managing large to medium-scale livelihood, agricultural development activities, preferably valued at $5 million and above. Knowledge of resilience programming and preferably the African context is also required;
• At least three (3) years of field-based work in a conflict-prone and/or active insurgency/banditry environment;
• Strong technical experience in market system approach to development;
• Demonstrated ability to be collaborative across activities utilizing strong communication and inter- personal skills, with evidence of the ability to productively interact with a wide range and levels of organizations (government, private sector, other activities, NGOs); and
• Strong written and verbal communication skills (proficiency in English). Ability to communicate in Hausa language is a plus.

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Job Summary

• The Market Systems and Resilience Specialist will provide strategic guidance in market systems/value chains across the Activity.
• S/he will lead the program's efforts to invest sustainably in agri- business particularly targeting smallholder farmers.

Specific Job Responsibilities

• Provide overall strategic guidance and leadership on viable value chains across the program; ensuring thorough assessments and analysis of commercial viability (return on investment, Cost- benefit, profit margins, cash-flow requirements, supply and demand modelling) of potential value chains before investment.
• Facilitate the consortium to achieve high levels of program quality through technical service provision in close collaboration with the COP/DCOP.
• Working jointly with other stakeholders and relevant government ministries and department agencies (MDAS), develop sustainable intervention strategies for prioritized value chains.
• Work closely with other project managers to demonstrate and promote commercial viability of selected value chains and agribusinesses.
• Liaise with private sector partners to promote sustainable commercial markets for prioritized value chains.
• Provide technical support to all donor's reporting requirements (including quarterly, semi-annual and annual technical reports) in a timely manner in coordination with the COP/DCOP.
• Support the adoption of appropriate technologies in agricultural production and post-harvest processing to reduce costs and increase commercial viability of selected value chains.
• Ensure compliance with DDI and USAID policies and requirements.

Key Qualifications and Requirements
The Market Systems and Resilience Specialist must have the following skills and experience:

• A Master's Degree in Agriculture, Economics, or Business Administration;
• Minimum of five (5) years of demonstrated experience with USG or other similar development projects focused on market systems, resilience, and livelihood development, preferably with an understanding of the Nigerian context including gender and youth issues;
• Spoken and written proficiency in English;
• Demonstrated ability to work and coordinate effectively with a wide variety of stakeholders, including national and local government, donors, community-based organizations, and the private sector;
• Strong technical experience in market system approach to development;
• Skills in resilience programming and strategies for developing household and market-systems
• Demonstrated ability to work and coordinate effectively with a wide variety of stakeholders, including national and local government, donors, community-based organizations, and the private sector;
• Strong technical experience in market system approach to development;
• Skills in resilience programming and strategies for developing household and market-systems resilience especially in conflict settings;
• Skills in livelihood promotion focused on human and social capital, but also including aspirations for improving livelihood prospects and the confidence to take on prudent risks to achieve improved livelihoods;
• Expertise in programming that enables the inclusion of women, men, and youth in livelihood and market systems development.

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Job Summary

• The Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Manager will provide leadership in ensuring high quality monitoring and evaluation of the Nigeria Resilience Activity while liaising with the technical programming staff of the Activity and sub-recipients.
• The MEL Manager will be accountable for all the monitoring and evaluation, accountability, learning and documentation of technical project related activities, results and program quality.
• The MEL Manager will lead in routine data analysis and liaises with technical program staff to identify and address issues in a timely manner.
• The MEL Manager will work closely with the technical staff in knowledge management by documenting processes, successes and lessons learned throughout project implementation.
• The MEL Manager is accountable for overseeing the development, implementation, and adherence to monitoring and evaluation systems, work plans, and technical program quality standards. This includes managing processes, procedures, and reporting requirements.
• The MEL Manager ensures compliance with USG and DDI regulations and best practices for all project sub-recipients, DDI, and individual consortium member organizations of the Nigeria Resilience Project.

Specific Duties and Responsibilities

• Provide guidance and technical assistance to the project sub-recipients, local governments and staff to facilitate institutional capacity assessment to identify major challenges and develop effective capacity building plans and documentation of results.
• Lead the project consortium partners and all sub-recipients to support the tracking and achievement of the project targets and in close collaboration with the Nigeria Resilience Project M&E Associates, develop a comprehensive M&E system, tools and plans for measuring performance at partner and consortium level.
• Facilitate the realignment and harmonization of the Activity's targeting strategies to ensure effective integration and implementation of interventions (periodically review jointly for relevance and effectiveness).
• Along with the COP, periodically review progress, integration with other USG-funded partners and achievements of the project to identify bottlenecks and recommend appropriate actions to maintain the program on target.
• Ensure that the M&E system provides accurate and timely data for project reports to donors and the Government of Nigeria.
• Support and develop guidelines to accompany the data collection and analysis tools for reports in consultation with the project M&E staff and respective technical and program staff.
• Provide leadership support to all donor's reporting requirements (including quarterly, semi-annual and annual technical reports) in a timely manner in coordination with the COP/DCOP.

Key Qualifications and Requirements

• A Master's Degree or higher in Monitoring and Evaluation, Agriculture, Statistics, Economics, or Business Administration;
• A minimum of five (5) years of demonstrated experience in managing performance monitoring plans, evaluation, collaboration, learning, and adapting (CLA) approach (preferably with knowledge of USAID's CLA approach), and an understanding of agriculture production, market systems and livelihood programming; and
• At least (5) years of practical experience in using monitoring, evaluation and learning activities to inform activity implementation and results.