Program Officer at an International Company

An International company is recruiting suitably qualificed candidates to fill the position below:

Job Title: Program Officer

Location: Akure, Ondo
Employment Type: Full-time
The position will report to: The Project Deputy Chief of Party

Job Brief

• The Program Officer will lead the development and implementation of zonal work and will ensure strong local stakeholders' engagement.
• The Program Officer will provide technical guidance, capacity strengthening and supervise Agriculture extension Officers in each zone.

Roles and Responsibilities
Project management:

• Contribute to developing a realistic annual project work plan, ensuring plans are implemented; and targets met for their zone.
• Facilitate and coordinate with technical partners and relevant government agencies, anticipate, and resolve potential issues and notify hierarchy of issues requiring appropriate attention.
• Provide technical guidance, supervise, and manage the agriculture extension Officers in the implementation in accordance with the timetable indicated in the project document.
• Conduct regular field visits to monitor project implementation status.
• Monitor the project's budget at the zonal level and anticipate requests for fund transfers.
• Represent LWR in the cocoa program and related forums.
• Collaborate with the Business Development Expert tasked with strengthening farmer-owned businesses for building functional producer organizations.

Monitoring and evaluation:

• In coordination with the MEL Director and Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning Analyst, implement the monitoring and evaluation plan and ensure timely and quality capturing of MEAL data on the project.in the zone in compliance with LWR and donor requirements.
• Provide technical assistance and review of detailed M&E plans during project implementation.
• Write monthly and quarterly technical reports with the agriculture extension Officers team and submit them to the supervisor.
• Collaborate with the Communications Specialist to document success stories, learning agenda discussions, and updating information on the website and other external communication channels.

Policy and Advocacy:

• Keep informed and report on social, political, environmental, and economic trends in the zone.
• Work with the supervisor to guide and strengthen LWR's advocacy work through information sharing.

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s Degree in Development, Agronomy, and a related field preferred or equivalent experience.
• 3 - 4 years demonstrated experience in Development, Agriculture sectors or cocoa value chain activities.

Qualifications:

• 3 - 4 years of demonstrated experience in implementing cocoa agricultural value chain programs, monitoring, and evaluating rural development projects. Experience in an international organization would be an asset.
• Proven experience in structuring farmers' organizations and supporting producers for their compliance.
• Skills and proven experience in participatory planning, monitoring, evaluation, learning systems, quantitative analysis or statistics would be an asset.
• Excellent facilitation skills in conducting meetings, training workshops, conferences, and experience in applying direct participatory methods with community organizations.
• Good knowledge of common computer hardware of the Microsoft Office package.
• Experience in market development approaches such as cocoa agricultural value-chain development (linking producers to market) programming.
• Experience in NTIC for agricultural extension would be an asset.
• Good communication skills and the ability to manage a team of several people.
• Proven experience in participatory planning, monitoring, evaluation, learning systems, methods, and tools.
• Ability to solve problems creatively and logically. Synthesize easily, grasp the issues and the means to respond to them and translate ideas into action with a strong results orientation.
• Experience in managing service providers, development partners and technical services to ensure good quality and timely deliverables.

Application Closing Date
23rd January, 2023.

Method of Application
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Note: The position is a local position open to Nigerian nationals.