Reference number: Rec/002/21

 Closing Date: 07-October-21

 Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Employment Type: Full time

Salary: As per the organization scale

Organization Profile

Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO Cooperation) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1964 in the Netherlands and implements programs with partners in Central, Eastern and Southern Africa since the 1980s. We work towards a world in which people can live in dignity and well-being, a world without poverty and injustice.

To strengthen its operations in Ethiopia, ICCO would like to invite qualified applicants for the position of Program Officer Resilience Building/PMEL -RESET Plus Innovation Fund The RESET Plus Innovation Fund for Resilience (RESET Fund) within the EU Resilience Building Ethiopia (RESET) program is aimed to foster innovative approaches in resilience-building that are generated from the grass-roots level and that complement existing interventions and strategic planning and, if the innovations are proven successful, following the Theory of Change, they are incorporated in larger systems to support the medium and long-term growth and transformation of Ethiopia’s most at-risk population. This Fund has been designed considering the context of RESET Program and its multi-sectoral, multi-level and multi-partner approach in 8 cluster regions - Wag Himra (Amhara Region), Afar (Afar Region), Siti and Liben (Somali Region), Bale and Borena (Oromia Region), Wolayta and South Omo (SNNP Region) and it targets the same RESET program areas.

This is a program officer for the RESET Plus Innovation Fund. The RESET Plus Innovation Fund is designed with the objective of promoting a social innovation system that enables poor and vulnerable people in realizing more sustainable and resilient livelihoods.

The program officer is responsible to provide technical support to RESET Plus Innovation Fund implementing partners. She/he will assess the potential contribution of proposed innovations towards resilience building and provide regular technical support to the partners in the field of resilience building. Moreover, the program officer will have planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning (PMEL) roles. This means the program officer is expected to have adequate knowledge and experiences in resilience building and in PMEL.

She/he will closely work with the fund management team and shall provide support to ensure efficient and effective management of the fund. She/he will work to ensure quality and timely completion of innovation and research projects. Ensuring complementarity between innovation and research projects will also be among the key roles of the position holder.

The position holder will undertake regular monitoring and data collection. Moreover, she/he will have active roles in the timely coordination of mid-term review and final evaluation.

The Program Officer reports to the RESET Plus Innovation Fund Manager. The Program Officer will work closely with the fund management team and the country office team in general.

The Program Officer Resilience Building/PMEL will provide technical assistance in the areas of resilience building to RESET Plus Innovation Fund implementing partners and will undertake planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning tasks for the fund.

Duties and Responsibilities:-

• Take part in the RESET Plus Innovation Fund management system set-up and keeping it up-to-date;
• Undertake lobby and advocacy for effective system influencing, especially at national, regional and cluster levels;
• Be the point of contact for implementing partners and report their progress on a regular basis;
• Keep record and update partner organizations’ profiles and progress of implementation in the database and make them available for intuitive and easy use;
• Mentor partner organizations with special focus on resilience building and PMEL;
• Ensure timely design and management of robust M&E plans;
• Actively participate in coordination of fund management cycle including timely facilitation of call for proposal for action research;
• Work on mapping of relevant stakeholders;
• Managing of and engaging with those relevant stakeholders to achieve the goals of the program’s objectives;
• Facilitate capacity building events for innovators in the field of resilience building and other themes;
• Organize and conduct capacity development trainings to RESET Plus Innovation Fund implementing partners in areas of resilience building and PMEL;
• Support in effective and transparent management of the fund;
• Work towards timely contracting and fund transfers;
• Actively take part in timely facilitation of midterm review and final evaluation;
• Ensure fund indicators are being reported on and targets are met;
• Establish project database;
• Collect, organize and analyze data in a systematic way to be easily retrieved and utilized whenever it is needed;
• Prepare high standard timely progress reports for innovative and research projects;
• Assess potential action research project applications;
• Ensure complementarities between action research and social innovations in the field of resilience building;
• Assess, identify and approve interesting and successful RESET Plus Innovation Fund financed innovation initiatives, for promotion and further replication and scaling up;
• Undertake organizational scan of potential partners and update partners profile in the database;
• Closely work with the Fund Management team to ensure prioritized geo-coverage and thematic/value chain areas are addressed in the selection process of research projects;
• Identify new models of working together and implementing partnerships, keeping in mind how they benefit ICCO’s work, especially in relation to RESET Plus Innovation Fund project;
• Draw lessons of best practices and develop communication materials to be used for wider knowledge dissemination;
• Ensure effective communication and visibility of the program as per the EU communication guideline and ICCO’s visibility policy;
• Contribute to fundraising and acquisition activities for the organization;
• Perform other duties assigned by the Fund Manager.

Key result areas

• Full, timely and quality implementation of the program;
• Efficient and effective implementation of partners capacity building activities;
• Creating better resilience building and PMEL capacity of partners;
• Ensure up-to-date database for financed projects and profile of implementing partners;
• Regular and effective resilience building technical support to innovators;
• Supporting successful implementation of research activities of the research partners;
• Ensure identification and promotion of successful innovation projects;
• Actively contribute to system influencing for resilience building in Ethiopia by undertaking evidence-based lobby and advocacy;
• Effective monitoring and evaluation of the fund.

Job Requirements

• Master's or Bachelor's Degree in disaster risk management, development studies, agriculture, agricultural economics, business management, economics or other related fields coupled with at least ten years of relevant experiences for bachelor's degree or at least seven years for masters degree.
• Knowledge and experience in lobby and advocacy
• Excellent organizational skills and experience using MS Office 365
• Experience in partnership management with donors and implementing partners
• Excellent communication skills, including intercultural communications
• Knowledge and experience in social innovations
• Proven track record in resilience building
• Knowledge and experience in PMEL
• Skills and experiences in designing robust PMEL system
• Negotiation, networking and facilitation skills
• Experience in managing EU grants
• Experience in working with international NGOs, private sector actors, research/knowledge institutions
• Experience in knowledge management and learning

How to Apply

Interested and qualified applicants can submit their application letter and CV written in English, with email contact details of at least 3 professional references including immediate line manager to the following email hr.ethiopia@cordaid.org. The vacancy reference number along with the title of the post needs to be written in the subject of the email.

Please note due to urgency of the vacancy, the selection will be done on a rolling basis.

ICCO is an equal opportunities employer and women are strongly encouraged to apply.

All applications submitted cannot be returned. An integrity check will be part of the recruitment procedure. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.