Project Leader at Oxfam Nigeria

Project Background
Oxfam is implementing a Canadian-funded project in Nigeria. The LINE Project seeks to promote agriculture-driven economic growth and improve living conditions for 10,000 farming households (directly benefiting approximately 80,000 people), with a special focus on women and youth, in six (6) out of 20 Local Government Areas, over five (5) years. The project proposes to improve productivity by training farmers on improved agricultural practices, with a special focus on female farmers (60%) to help them overcome disparities in the distribution of household workloads, use of resources and sharing of the benefits of production.

The Project will support Bauchi State to establish youth business development centres and will provide skills training for women and youth to create jobs. In addition, farmers will be organized to work in collaboration with other interest groups, alliances and civil society groups to advocate, lobby and influence the Bauchi State Government to create an enabling environment that supports market-based agricultural value chain intervention.

The Project is aligned with two of the Government of Nigeria’s SDG targets: reduce by 30% the number of people living in poverty and promote gender equality and empower women; as well as its Agricultural Transformation Agenda, of which Bauchi State is a part.

Context

• Bauchi State, an agrarian state with 85% of its population dependent on agriculture, has a high poverty rate of 82% which translates to 3.5 million people out of a population of 4.2 million. Furthermore, it has a high unemployment rate.
• The infant mortality rate is high due in large part to high food insecurity and malnutrition levels. Forty-one percent of children under the age of five are underweight, 51% are stunted and 25% are wasting (severely malnourished). Malnutrition is reported to be the underlying cause of 50% of morbidity and mortality of under-five children in Nigeria.

Project Results

• The ultimate outcome of the Project is to improve the livelihoods for 10,000 poor and vulnerable households in Bauchi State through increased farm productivity, enhanced market access, better nutrition, and improved/enhanced enabling environment for business development.
• To achieve this, 60% of targeted farmers will be women and will be trained on good agricultural practices, provided access to financial and extension services, facilitated linkages with private sector partners and offered information on better nutrition.

Three high-level expected results will be achieved upon completion of the Project:

• Increased yields in selected commodity and livestock value chains for women and men farmers and youth (60% women), which will be done through the mapping of farmer organizations, carrying out farmer cooperative development, training of farmers and developing value chains;
• Improved business enabling environment that is responsive to the needs of farmers and youth. This will involve reviews of relevant laws and regulations guiding businesses in Bauchi state; reviews of laws guiding markets, taxation, standardization of commodity weights and measures and pricing so as to facilitate more functional and effective markets; and
• Improved nutrition for vulnerable women and children. This will be achieved through training in home-based skills in nutritional diversification, carrying out promotional campaigns on nutritional options and nutritional behavioural changes through the use of handbills, pamphlets and brochures.

Job Description

• The Project Leader will be under the supervision of the Country Head of Programs and will be responsible of the project management and its implementation and the Field Team leader will work under his supervision.
• He or she will work in a matrix management structure with the Project Officer/Manager based in Canada and the Hague.

The Project Leader has the Following Responsibilities

• Overall management of the project in terms of organization, implementation, monitoring, reporting and content, ensuring overall coherence of approach and delivering on time, high quality outputs;
• Provide methodological support, feedback, guidance, direction and  perform appraisals;
• Supervise the design of  capacity building plans and technical assistance;
• Support multi-stakeholder consultations, negotiations, consensus building, using participatory and consultative processes;
• Assure communication and visibility ;
• Review and implement the administration, finance and Human Resources procedures manual and provide recommendations, if necessary, to ensure compliance with Nigeria and contractual requirements and practices, including international best practices, particularly with respect to high-risk activities that can result in fraud or the misuse of funds;
• Ensure effective application of Results Based Management tools and implementation of monitoring, evaluation and learning strategies to ensure achievement of results. This includes the planning, budgeting, reporting and oversight of high quality project evaluations;
• Ensure project compliance and effective progress reporting (financial and narrative);
• Responsible for promotion of evaluation standards and quality assurance/control;
• Undertake regular field visits (Bauchi) to ensure compliance and timely execution of the Project and provide support to the team;.
• Ensure the coordination and appropriate functioning of the Project Steering Committee and Technical Advisory Committee;
• Ensure regular communication with Global Affairs Canada in Nigeria.

Candidate’s Profile

• Master degree in Management, Social Sciences, Economics or a related field;
• At least 10 years of experience in Livelihood and Nutrition (Community and local development ) including agriculture, revision of regulatory frameworks, implementation of programming, monitoring and evaluation;
• At least 5 years of experience working with Global Affairs Canada in Results Based Management Programs or equivalent;
• Experience in planning and designing capacity building and technical assistance programmes with partner institutions in multilevel governance (experience in Bauchi and Nigeria preferred);
• At least 5 years of international experience as Team Leader or Project Manager in technical assistance with  long term positions in managing and conducting similar projects;
• Experience in multi-stakeholder consultations, negotiations and consensus building and participatory and consultative processes;
• Experience in implementing communication and visibility action plans.
• Strategic thinking and politically astute, with strong negotiation and influencing skills;
• Languages: Fluent in spoken and written English and working knowledge of French is an asset.