North East Recovery and WEE Coordinator at Propcom Mai-karfi

Propcom Mai-karfi, a six-year project which works to improve the livelihoods of Nigeria’s rural poor through targeted market initiatives. Propcom Mai-karfi aims to increase the incomes of 500,000 poor Nigerians; half of them by enhancing employment opportunities and improving productivity in selected agricultural and other rural markets in northern Nigeria.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: North East Recovery and WEE Coordinator

Location: Abuja

Purpose

• To provide strategic direction and management to the technical work of the Programme with primary focus on the three Tier 1 states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, but with significant input to work in Tier II and DFID partner states as identified.
• The incumbent will also be responsible for providing overall strategic direction in the integration of gender and women’s economic empowerment (WEE) across the Programme.
• As a key member of the senior management team, the North East Recovery & Programme WEE Coordinator is expected to contribute to overall programme management, direction and delivery of agreed milestones.

Scope of Work
The North East Recovery & Programme WEE Coordinator will have the overall responsibility for providing strategic guidance and oversight of the programme’s activities in Tier I and Tier 2 states for NE recovery strategy for the NE and all partnership states to incorporate WEE objectives into interventions. This will be done through liaison with Senior Market Managers and supporting both the strategic and administrative elements of the interventions, activities and inputs. S/he will also be responsible for knowledge sharing and identifying cross-cutting opportunities that can be pursued in Tier II and DFID partner states.

The post holder will also be responsible for ensuring strong linkages between Tier I technical and geopolitical teams, the Results Measurement team and the Gender & Women’s Empowerment Manager of the programme. A key component of his/her work will be the collation and dissemination of information related to the NE States and utilising this resource within the Programme to help with intervention(s) design and delivery. Though based in Abuja, this post will require travel to the field and especially to the NE States.

The Propcom Mai-karfi staff work as an integrated team. The North East Recovery & Programme WEE Coordinator will be expected to contribute to wider Programme planning and project direction meetings as a member of the senior management team.

Specific Responsibilities
The post holder will be responsible for the following:

North East Recovery:

• Collate all data and information gathered by the Programme in the NE relating to both geopolitical / security and Programme with specific reference to existing and proposed activities of key actors / partners including Government/ Donors / INGOs / NGOs and Private Sector.
• Provide support and strategic direction for interventions and activities within the three Tier I & Tier 2 states including monitoring and quality assuring activities and resulting outputs.
• Support with identification of viable market development opportunities with the aim of growing the market recovery portfolio in the NE whilst ensuring that they meet a donor and Programme requirements;
• Support market-related value chain analysis, that enables adequate level of Due Diligence designs for interventions in Tier I & 2 states; quality assure the final market opportunity reports as well as all other weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual reports.
• Provide guidance to Tier 1 Senior Market Managers in stakeholder analysis of the selected market systems, geopolitical areas (LGAs and Communities), if appropriate, as well as identifying and contacting potential agents of change within agreed value chains, markets and/or specific states / LGAs and Communities.
• Support with identifying strategic partnerships within the market/market chain as well as managing these partnerships.
• Quality assure reporting on all intervention activities, progress reports, on and off field feedback and lessons learnt from each intervention in close collaboration with the Senior Market Managers and staff in NE states.
• Ensure knowledge sharing and identify cross-cutting opportunities between Tier I and Tier II/DFID partner states.
• Keep abreast of ongoing activities of other development partners in NE states, and identify opportunities for partnership for the delivery of agreed milestones.
• Collate intelligence related to Security for analysis by SMT, the SFP in the Support team and Palladium’s Security Team

Gender & WEE:

• Lead the integration of gender and WEE in the Programme in close collaboration with the Technical Team, through ensuring implementation of the Programme’s gender and WEE strategy across all interventions;
• Provide gender expertise and technical support in all other markets and interventions including through gender sensitive market analysis, interventions monitoring and evaluation systems;
• Ensure that appropriate practices, in relation to WEE are adhered to, and provide guidance and leadership on how to meet them;
• Support in capacity building of Propcom team members in gender and WEE as it moves into the extension phase, from the training of new staff to the refresher training of continuing staff.
• Manage working relationships with WISE Development International gender and WEE team, DFID gender focal point, and other relevant development partners.

General:

• Contribute to overall Programme strategy as part of the senior management team (SMT) with the delivery of/ or contributions to milestones;
• Work closely with the Support team to ensure smooth implementation of interventions in NE states;
• Work with the project communications team members to develop materials that promote Propcom Mai-karfi’s interventions and that disseminate its learning as widely as possible across a diverse set of media channels.

Working Relationships
The North East Recovery & WEE Director will report to the Team Leader and Market Group Director/ Deputy Team Leader. S/he will be a key strategic member of the Programme staff and will form part of the senior management team contributing to the overall programme strategy delivery and its monitoring & evaluation.

S/he will also be expected to work closely with the Results Measurement team as well as other members of the Propcom Mai-karfi team, including the Support team and the Communications and Knowledge Management personnel.

Essential Qualifications
The North East Recovery & WEE Director should have:

• A Master's degree or similar qualification in Business, Economics or Development Studies, WEE Studies, Post-conflict Studies;
• A minimum of 5 years’ experience in implementing and managing projects with a diverse team composition with at least one year spent on the field on market research or community projects;
• Experience in business strategy development with focus on agricultural value chain analysis;
• Experience in market development activities in post-conflict environments would be a distinct advantage;
• Experience in women’s participation and women’s economic empowerment programming (enterprise development, gender and trade, social protection etc.)
• Strong written and oral communication skills, effective in representation and liaison with external parties;
• Previous experience using the market for the poor (M4P) approach would be of advantage;
• Knowledge of the institutions and organisations and/or businesses that provide services to the agricultural sector or rural development sectors in Northern Nigeria and at the state level;
• Experience of working in the Northern / North-East Nigeria is desirable;
• Enhanced interpersonal skills and the ability to form strong working relationships within INGOs and within the state structures;
• Good understanding of DFIDs policies on VfM, fraud, due diligence etc;
• Fluency in English and Hausa.

Location of Post:

• The post is domiciled in Abuja, however the incumbent will be required to travel within Nigeria and particularly to the North Central and North East States.

Competencies
Communication:

• Confidently delivers tailored messages to various audiences using various media and tools.
• Asks insightful questions, validates a speaker’s feelings and points, and encourages the speaker; leaves the speaker feeling ‘heard’.
• Reports concisely and proactively with observations, analysis, and implications of the observations on project work and has the ability to present such findings to a variety of stakeholders in a concise and effective manner.

Relationship Builder:

• Quickly develops pragmatic and trusting relationships with others; proactively assesses and manages trust with others.
• Maintains industry, government and corporate networks and consistently forges new business and key relationships to fit strategic priorities with Privet Sector, Donors, INGOs and Government.
• Identifies shared goals and develops effective strategies around those goals; follows-up on connections to catalyze positive relationships.
• Demonstrates neutrality and helps parties come to creative agreements and solutions, while keeping ownership with the parties.

Coach:

• Regularly engages with market actors and stakeholders to uncover and identify specific WEE needs; builds desire in the coachee to address the needs.
• Offers specific, constructive feedback to others; leaves the coachee feeling empowered to improve; actively seeks out feedback to improve; uses feedback in reviewing intervention strategies.
• Creates buy-in from the coachee to improve; helps develop action plans; provides support, while ensure coachee ownership over the process.
• Acts as a mentor for the staff he/she line managers.

Innovator:

• Tests out new ideas on an ongoing basis; reports failure when recognized in a timely and evidenced based manner; encourages greater future effort; often demonstrates creative thinking; uses innovative approaches in the execution of work; actively searches for solutions beyond traditional boundaries.
• Makes time to reflect and codify learning; seeks out sources of learning; regularly adjusts actions based on comparing expected results against actual results; makes informed decisions based on lessons learnt from other interventions within the sector or geo-political area.
• Proactively shares both successful and unsuccessful endeavours; actively identifies issues that may hinder effective collaborations and devises means of minimizing these; takes a leadership role in a team

Political Economist:

• Critically analyses institutions and the context in which they are operating using a visual model, objectively allocating roles and functions.
• Can prescribe an agenda to improve the institutional arrangements for the benefit of poor people.
• Rigorously analyses the way power and politics affects markets and poverty; can model the power relations; and can prescribe improvements for the benefit of poor people in challenging institutional and environmental contexts.
• Collects and arranges complex evidence for the Results and Monitoring Team; inputs in cost-benefit analysis of economic options; prescription and argument for pro-poor improvements in markets.

Business Person:

• Understands the idea of the marketing mix (the 5 ‘P’s); can gather market info and provide collegiate advice on specific marketing strategy which encapsulates WEE parameters.
• Advises on building and keeps WEE and engendered records in more complex business environment/ interventions and geopolitical areas; Advises risks of exclusion / inclusion and “do no harm” of key decisions; considers the economic value and cultural impact of markets before financial / programmatic decisions are made.
• Delivers training workshops. As part of the SMT advises on selecting and recruiting staff; appreciates the importance of incentives for performance in thin markets and fragile states.

Application Closing Date
26th March, 2018.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should send their CV's (maximum of three pages), full details of their 3 referees and a 1 page Covering Letter outlining how their skills and competencies match the requirements of this post to: [email protected] Kindly state the role applied for in the subject of your e-mail.

Note: Applications are encouraged from all those who can clearly demonstrate the required skills and experiences, as well as a passion for development in Nigeria.