Economic Recovery Assistant at Danish Refugee Council (DRC)

Background

• Danish Refugee Council (DRC), and its Economic Recovery unit, has had an operational presence in Nigeria since 2015. DRC Nigeria is the largest DRC country mission in the West Africa region and one of the largest DRC country missions globally.
• Currently, DRC delivers life-saving assistance and protection to vulnerable, conflict-affected populations including internally displaced persons, returnees and host communities in the areas of armed violence reduction, humanitarian mine action, livelihoods, nutrition and food security, protection, shelter and non-food items (NFI) and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in 30+ Local Government Areas (LGAs) across Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states in northeast Nigeria.

Purpose

• Work on the implementation of livelihood programming through supporting market systems development (MSD), improved production practices for farmers’ associations, cash transfer programming (CTP), vocational skills training and village savings and loans associations (VSLA) while developing the social cohesion between members of the target communities.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Supporting SME Development, CTP and Agricultural Inputs Distributions and Farming Skills Training using Market Systems Development (MSD) Approach
• Work with Government and Community Resilience Groups (CRGs) to screen, select and verify beneficiaries in the target communities.
• Provide livelihood guidance, on an individual, group or association basis, to increase beneficiaries’ awareness of different business options based on market assessment and beneficiary interests.
• Provide information to beneficiaries about livelihoods and business development opportunities.
• Organize small business training and business planning activities with beneficiaries
• Provide information to the beneficiaries on skills trainings, market opportunities, and small enterprise creation.
• Train, coach and mentor farmers on improved agricultural (livestock and crop) production practices
• Facilitate the implementation of Cash Transfer Programmes (CTP) at ward level; Unconditional/Conditional Cash Grants and Cash for Work
• Work with line manager to plan for agricultural inputs distributions using MSD approach and ensuring distributed inputs accountability.
• Linking bulk agriculture produce buyers with farmers associations and input sellers with farmers.
• Work closely with Ministry of Agriculture Extension workers in facilitating crop farming/poultry production trainings for beneficiaries.
• Support the organization of trainings and other events related to the project.
• Establish linkages to vocational learning institutions and refer beneficiaries to selected marketable courses of their interest.

Stakeholder Coordination:

• Work with LGA and Ward level stakeholders in consultation with line manager.
• Ensure that protocol is followed through stakeholder consultation at all stages of project implementation.

Social Cohesion Programming:

• Assess the relevance of potential intercommunal dialogue activities linked to livelihoods to improve the dialogue and cooperation between these fields (e.g. joint workshops, peer-to-peer activities, language exchanges, etc.).
• Select beneficiaries who will participate in the activities through youth empowerment and social safety-net planning in coordination with AVR teams.
• Support the Economic Recovery Officer in regular reporting on achievements and challenges related to the project.

Monitoring & Evaluation:

• Work closely with the monitoring team and the Economic Recovery Officer on the timely monitoring and evaluation of all components – information, beneficiary selection, beneficiary feedback about activities, etc.
• Facilitate the qualitative and quantitative monitoring of the project through team meetings, visits to selected beneficiaries, regular reporting and any other monitoring tools.
• Participate in the internal evaluation of the program.

The responsibilities listed in the JD are not exhaustive and may be readjusted according to operational needs but will remain in line with the overall purpose of the role.

Qualifications

• University Degree / course in Agriculture, Business Administration, Sociology, Social Work, International Affairs, Humanitarian or related field
• Experience in livelihood programming and trainings.
• An understanding of humanitarian/civil society issues in the country and the region.
• 1-2 years working experience, in the field of business is required
• Fluency in written and spoken English is a must.
• Fluency in Hausa in mandatory. Fluency in other common locally spoken languages such as Kanuri, Shuwa, Babur, etc. is an added advantage.

Desirable:

• Previous working experience with humanitarian agencies
• Experience working with hosts, returnees and displaced populations.
• Previous experience working on Market Systems Development approaches
• Experience in training farming communities
• Experience in vocational skills training.

General Regulations:

• The employee shall follow DRC instructions on safety, confidentiality and ethical guidelines, including the Code of Conduct and the Humanitarian Accountability Framework.
• Employee should not engage in any other paid activity during the DRC contract period without prior authorization.
• Employee should not engage in any activity that could harm DRC or the implementation of any project during the DRC contract period.
• Employee should not give interviews to the media or publish project-related photos or other material without prior authorization.
• Employee shall return all borrowed equipment for the project to DRC after the end of the contract period or upon request.