Summary
Date Posted: Monday, November 21, 2022 , Base Salary: Not Disclosed

JOB DETAILS:
Organizational setting
Integrated Seed and Sector Development Uganda (ISSD Uganda) is an independent local NGO in Uganda, which aims to be a leading agricultural development organization in fostering resilient seed and food systems for sustainable agricultural production. ISSD Uganda builds on the impactful outcomes and experiences of the successfully implemented seed projects that focused on; seed sector transformation; capacity building and knowledge transfer; partnerships and sector coordination, as well as supporting fragile communities including refugees.

Project overview
Restoring Resilience of highland farmer communities and watersheds in Uganda is a 4-year project funded by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Kampala. The project is a land restoration and farming systems project in the Western and South Western Highlands of Uganda, implemented in a collaborative partnership between Wageningen Environmental Research (WENR) as lead partner, and ISSD Uganda, as the local implementing partner. The project works through three pathways to achieve its goal to build resilient farmer communities and watersheds in the highlands of Uganda. In Pathway 1 “resilient farming systems” the project focuses on empowerment and motivation of farmer households to work towards establishing resilient farming systems through the PIP approach; Pathway 2 “watershed restoration” focusses on restoring natural resources and ecosystem functioning to enable restored watershed resilience; and Pathway 3 “improved marketing” focusses on improved marketing opportunities for all farmers directly engaged in the project, and the wider community. The project headquarters will be in Fortportal.

Position overview
The Community Development Expert focuses on community empowerment and strengthening work in Pathway 1 (household and village level) and Pathway 2 (sub-watershed level). The position will provide overall technical leadership in the rollout of the Integrated Farm Planning (PIP) approach within farmer communities to stimulate ‘resilience-based stewardship’ in the watersheds. S/he will provide technical backstopping and supervision to the 16 PIP Field Officers in household and community engagement, organizing and mobilization processes while implementing PIP related activities. S/he will also be responsible for monitoring the change process at both household and village level across the selected watersheds and linking the PIP activities to the other project pathways.

Main Duties and Responsibilities
The Community Development Expert has the following duties and responsibilities:
• Coordinate the implementation, scaling and further development of the PIP approach and related community development strategies, in close collaboration with the PIP Field Officers and other experts of the project
• Provide technical backstopping and supervision to PIP Field Officers in conducting awareness and capacity building on the PIP approach among the farmer households and communities
• Develop and/or review and avail the PIP Field Officers with the relevant training manuals and other context-specific knowledge products relevant to implementing the PIP approach
• Develop training materials which are needed for community strengthening and the further upscaling of PIP and social resilience topics;
• Coordinate resource scheduling between project HQ and field teams to ensure that field staff have the resources they need to perform assigned tasks
• Support the project HR department in contracting of subject matter specialists that will train PIs and other (PIP) farmers on a diversity of social resilience topics to create changes in mindset and practice e.g., family planning, nutrition, hygiene & sanitation, savings and financial literacy
• Support the PIP field staff to organise training of trainers’ workshops and learning visits for PIP- scaling trainers
• Schedule stakeholder meetings and facilitate communication between the project team at the project HQ and stakeholders operating at the project sites throughout the project life cycle
• Develop periodic activity workplans and budgets participatorily with the PIP field staff and ensure their alignment to the other activity pathways and the overall project proposal
• Actively engage with local development partners to strengthen partnership and collaboration on the PIP approach
• Work with the project MEL team in establishing baselines, monitoring of project indicators targets against achievements and validation of data collected by PIP field staff
• Systematically document experiences and lessons learned across regions, districts, watersheds and facilitate information sharing and learning with the rest of the project team
• Compile and prepare periodic reports highlighting progress with PIP and community development actions based on project periodic plans
• Support the preparation of knowledge products for project visibility and information dissemination including research and synthesis and editing of information

Experience, Qualifications, and Skills
• Minimum of Master’s degree in Community Development, Social Science and/or relevant field
• At least 10 years of work experience in rural community development initiatives and with actively implementing bottom-up participatory approaches (preferably experience with the PIP approach)
• Experience in working in the Uganda highlands and with the socio-technical challenges of farmers, having been involved in providing technical assistance (crop and land management practices)
• Demonstrated capacity to support, advise and guide institutional networking processes with Local Government and other stakeholders
• Strong communicator with proficiency in English (both verbal and written); knowledge of local languages is an added advantage
• Strong leadership and interpersonal skills, commitment to team work and working across disciplines and stakeholders
• Proven ability to use tools such as Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint
• Flexible approach to take on additional responsibilities as assigned/delegated
• Excellent organisational, negotiation, influencing and advisory/coaching skills
• Proven ability to produce high quality reports
• Ability to work independently with minimal supervision

Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months: 120

Level of Education: Associate Degree

Job application procedure
To apply for a position of your interest, please find the respective detailed job description on the ISSD Uganda website via: www.issduganda.org. Then email your application (Cover Letter and CV maximum 4 pages) to hr@issduganda.org while indicating the job title and desired location in the email subject, not later than 4th December 2022 at 5:00pm EAT. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

All Jobs

QUICK ALERT SUBSCRIPTION