COSDEC Liaison Specialist at Adam Smith International

Tracking Code: 1141-112
Location: Kano
Department: Private Sector Development
Position Type: Full-Time/Regular

Programme Background

• Mafita is a large-scale, six-year youth employment programme operating in Nigeria’s northern states, funded by DFID and implemented by Adam Smith International.  Through a combination of innovative skills development and job creation interventions, Mafita will support over 60,000 marginalized young people to find employment or become entrepreneurs by 2021.
• Within the above scope, Mafita is mandated to support the economic empowerment of Northern Nigerian women, whose economic disenfranchisement has direct and adverse impacts on the country’s economic prosperity and development at the national, regional and community levels. Through its work, Mafita seeks to support women to access economic resources both directly by supporting women’s entrepreneurship, employment and access to finance, and indirectly by creating a more enabling environment for women.

Areas of Responsibility

• The COSDEC (Community Skills Development Center)Liaison Officer will coordinate and facilitate the link between Mafita, COSDEC, State and the industry, support career counselling initiatives for the COSDEC beneficiaries, support job placement and commercialization activities of the COSDECs in the focal states.

Main Tasks

• In close consultation with Career Counselling Officers at COSDEC and state level, facilitate the implementation of career counselling days at COSDECs.
• Facilitate the design of Workplace Experience Learning with local enterprises. This includes the design of monitoring tools for beneficiaries during WEL (Workplace Experience Learning)and ensure that COSDECs are carrying out monitoring support to beneficiaries during WEL to ensure their well-being as well as implementation of WEL in accordance with National Occupational Standards.
• In close collaboration with LED, support the initiatives and planning for transition to work for the COSDEC trainees by facilitating job placement opportunities within the immediate industries within the four focal states.
• Ensure on-going/on-job support of COSDEC to ensure trainers sustain gained skills and knowledge from Mafita and stakeholders training programme. This include all training related to, occupational standards, usage of learning material, and quality assurance management systems including minimum standards.
• Engage Private Sector organisations on matters relating to skills upgrades for Trainers, WEL opportunities for beneficiaries, commercialization of COSDECs, Career fairs
• Acts as a liaison between Mafita COSDEC Unit, COSDEC training institutions, community, industry and State Agencies on skills development matters.
• Facilitate exchange visits for COSDEC Trainers to industry for purposes of technical skills upgrading
• Ensure implementation of commercialization plan at COSDEC and State level
• Advises the Intervention Manager on support needed at COSDECs for continuous improvement
• Receive, deal with and report grievances relating to trainees, trainers and other stakeholders at State level
• Provide weekly, monthly and quarterly progress report on skills delivery for COSDEC where possible, and in collaboration with Training Officer and MDAs (Ministries Departments and Agencies)
• Conducts any other tasks as assigned by the Skills Lead and/or Intervention Manager
• Ensure full compliance of SharePoint usage guidelines
• Support COSDEC unit in ensuring information / data generated is compiled accurately and uploaded to appropriate folder in SharePoint
• Excellent interpersonal verbal/written communication skills
• Reporting - You will also be required to adhere to all reporting requirements (both scheduled and ad hoc) regarding your team as communicated to you by the PMU
• Meeting deadlines on all assigned tasks.

Duration and Location

• This position will be based in Kano, Nigeria with frequent travel to Jigawa, Kaduna and Katsina states.
• The successful candidate will be contracted for 110 days till March 2019 however we expect the role to receive a further allocation of days with the new programme year beginning April 1st, 2019. The allocation will be subject to programme needs.

Required Skills
The individual must conform to the following qualifications:

• A university Degree in any related field.
• A post-graduate degree would be an added advantage.
• Intermediate proficiency level of Microsoft Office Suite.
• Excellent interpersonal verbal/written communication skills.
• Fluent in Hausa and English (written and spoken).

Required Experience:

• Professional experience in job placement is an added advantage.
• Experience with engagement with local private sector organisations is essential for the role.
• Experience working on donor funded programmes is an added advantage.