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
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