Livelihood Officer at Plan International

Role Purpose

• The purpose of this role is to have an experienced Livelihoods Officer in income generating activities (IGA), Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) and Cash Based Transfer (CBT) for the WFP livelihood project.
• The officer will be in charge of the livelihood components of the project and all that is related to economic empowerment of the target beneficiaries.

Dimensions of the Role

• The Livelihood officer will be responsible for the livelihood activities of the project, this includes VSLA, CBT and IGA.

Accountabilities

• Oversee the beneficiary selection for the livelihood component.
• Supervise the cash distribution, success of VSLA groups and ensure the IGA component is sustainable.
• Facilitate the cash distribution and ensure there is protection of all beneficiaries at the distribution point is not compromised.
• Collect information on government units and partners that are into economic empowerment and small-scale business and share with the project coordinator
• Supervise the community assistants that work on IGA, VSLA and CBT
• Report all areas of the livelihood activities to the project coordinators and link up with livelihood specialist through the coordinator for any support.
• Design the techniques of improving project delivery on IGA, VSLA and CBT.
• Develop the capacity of the team on livelihood activities
• Contribute to overall reports of livelihood project.
• Design and follow up a local value chain of CBT, VSLA and IGA and see how the project beneficiary will benefit from it.
• Support market development on selected IGA of the beneficiaries in the target area.
• Submit weekly report to the project coordinator
• Contribute to the final project report.
• Any other assignment from the livelihood coordinators or his/her delegate.

Dealing with Problems:

• Excellent risk-assessment and management is required to support decisions that may require overcoming attitudinal, systemic and physical barriers.
• The post-holder will make rapid assessments of situations and then make judgements for the organisation on strategic choices and action often with inadequate information.
• The job requires decisions to be made on the basis of assumption and experience, as little hard information will be available. Decisions need to be context specific and there will often be no precedents to draw upon.
• Management judgement will be required to negotiate and influence COs’ Plan teams to take steps to respond in ways that may be new or worrisome in contexts that are stressful to all involved.
• Decisions may affect the lives of thousands of disaster affected children, millions of dollars, security of staff, and the profile of Plan across the humanitarian sector and across media.

Technical Experties, Skills and Knowledge

Qualifications and Technical Competencies:

• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent in Business Management, Home Economics, Entrepreneurship Development.
• Experience in working in deep field location.
• Good knowledge of vocational studies, ability to train on knitting, soap making, tailoring and other vocational studies.
• Knowledge and experience in M&E.
• Experience with participatory learning approaches.
• Experience of conducting assessments in emergency contexts.
• Experience of training on relevant crop production.
• Fluency in English and Hausa, written and spoken.

Skills & Knowledge:

• Ability to work independently and as a team player who demonstrates leadership and is able to support and train local and international staff and also able to work with disaster affected communities in a sensitive and participatory manner.
• Excellent negotiation, representation, skills and the ability to work comfortably with an ethnically diverse staff in a very sensitive environment.
• Strong organizational and work prioritization skills and attention to detail
• Demonstrated attention to detail, ability to follow procedures, meet deadlines and work cooperatively.
• Proven ability to solve problems independently without direct supervision.
• Good facilitation skills and ability to deliver induction briefing/training.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, the ability to communicate clearly and effectively at all levels, and to maintain this under pressure.
• Ability to work with limited supervision from line manager.

Behaviours:

• Commitment and adherence to humanitarian values and standards.
• Focussed and striving for the delivery of programme.
• Cross-culturally agile
• Aware of own strengths, weaknesses and pro-active in using feedback and self-development.
• Aware of impact on others and uses impact to create positive climate at work
• Works with trustworthiness and integrity and has a clear commitment to Plan International’s core values and humanitarian principles.
• Resilience/Adaptability and flexibility: Ability to operate effectively under extreme circumstances including stress, high security risks and harsh living conditions. Works and lives with a flexible, adaptable and resilient manner.
• Awareness and sensitivity of self and others: demonstrates awareness and sensitivity to gender and diversity. Have experience and the ability to live and work in diverse cultural contexts in a culturally appropriate manner.
• Has a capacity to make accurate self-assessment particularly in high stress and high security contexts.
• Patient, adaptable, flexible, able to improvise and remain responsive under pressure.
• Preparedness to live and work in uncertain security environments.
• Experience working in conflict or emergency-affected areas (or other situations where insecurity and corruption can be big issues).