OVC Program, Nigeria: Recruitment for Household Economic Strengthening Specialist

JOB VACANCY:

The OVC program will focus on service delivery including: food and nutrition services, health services, economic strengthening services, shelter and care services, psychosocial support services, education/learning services, and protection services.

JOB SUMMARY:

• Pact seeks a Specialist in Household Economic Strengthening for a USAID Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) umbrella grants program in Nigeria,
• Recruitment is contingent upon successful award of the project,
• Candidate experience should center on economic strengthening.

Potential activities that the Specialist would develop or support include:

• Facilitating access to a full range of economic strengthening options depending on the needs and resources available to households (i.e. market opportunities assessments, group savings, income generation, micro-enterprise development training, other vocational training opportunities, etc.),
• Building awareness of key Household Economic Strengthening (HES) concepts and principles among local partner organizations,
• Developing and instructing partners in more effective methodologies for identifying appropriate HES interventions for specific households, depending on the needs and resources of specific households,
• Establishing and instructing local partners in principles and standards for designing and implementing economic strengthening activities (Applying a growing evidence base to further refine and extend principles and standards, as needed),
• Instructing partners to use HES resources, tools, processes and methodologies (including tools to facilitate market assessments, manage group savings programs, access micro-finance, support households to develop and scale-up businesses and identify value chains, etc.),
• Facilitating relationships between partners, market actors and organizations with special expertise in HES activities (i.e. micro-finance, micro-enterprise development , etc.),
• Inventorying methods and survey instruments for measuring priority indicators along with criteria and guidance to help partners choose appropriate criteria for measuring the effectiveness of HES activities,
• Equipping partners with skills and resources to assess outcomes, as well as strengths and weaknesses of HES activities,
• Financing pilot or demonstration projects to test and adopt specific HES activities,
• Facilitating staff exchanges among partner organizations to foster peer-to-peer learning,
• Engaging in regular monitoring visits to evaluate the success of HES activities,
• Delivering intensive technical assistance to mentor partners as they re-engineer activities or undertake new activities.

EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS:

• Effective written and oral communications skills. These are essential to building relationships with donors, host country counterparts, and partner organizations,
• Knowledge of local languages a plus,
• Ability and willingness to travel,
• Flexibility to live and work outside Abuja, potentially in Kaduna or Enugu,
• Fluent English language skills, both written and spoken,
• Nigerian candidates strongly encouraged to apply.

EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATION & EXPERIENCE:

• Bachelors Degree in a related subject area or equivalent work experience required,
• Masters Degree or higher in a related subject area preferred,
• minimum 5 years of experience,
• Experience with OVC development programming.
  

 

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 20th of January 2012.

 

METHOD OF APPLICATION:  

 

Please visit us at: www.pactworld.org