Background on ACTED

ACTED is a French humanitarian NGO, founded in 1993, which supports vulnerable populations, affected by humanitarian crises worldwide. ACTED provides continued support to vulnerable communities by ensuring the sustainability of post-crisis interventions and engaging long-term challenges facing our target populations, in order to break the poverty cycle, foster development and reduce vulnerability to disasters. Their interventions seek to cover the multiple aspects of humanitarian and development crises through a multidisciplinary approach that is both global and local and adapted to each context.

ACTED is looking for a professionally confident, self-motivated, experienced, and committed team player to fill the FSL Project Officer position in Semera, Afar.

Position Profile:

Under the supervision of the THRIVE Project Manager, the FSL Project Officer will be responsible for ensuring that the project’s activities are fully implemented in accordance with proposals, ACTED rules, regulations, and donor requirements. The FSL Project Officer will be responsible for the implementation of the Thrive/Revive activities and is required to supervise FSL Project Assistants in giving the necessary capacity-building and guidance. The PO will be the focal point on the ground for ACTED to help in coordination and collaboration with local authorities when required.

Duties and Responsibilities:

·       Oversee the implementation of all project activities to ensure the project is completed in a timely and accountable manner.

·       In collaboration with Revive project manager and Community, leaders select the sites of Farmers Field School (FFS) communal demonstration plots.

·       Maintain proper records and documentation related to FFS groups at the field level in respective villages.

·       Participate in the design, and assessment of livelihood and food security components of the project activities.

·        Identify the strategic locations for specific interventions (e.g., areas for the rainwater harvesting practices and establishment of vegetative barriers, gully rehabilitation/stream bank protection, and other soil and water conservation methods) for soil stabilization and minimization of soil erosion.

·       Identify training needs of the field staff and farmers at various levels, conduct training, and document the trial’s outcome and farmer adoption levels.

·       Coordinate ACTED Agriculture field activities with other partners, NGOs, local community, and relevant Government departments in line with THRIVE/REVIVE projects.

·       Ensure ACTED's participation in inter-agency livelihood coordination meetings and represent ACTED in National Agriculture Co-ordination meetings when needed.

·       Take the lead on planning agricultural extension services targeting small-scale farmers within key agro-food value chains and local partners and extension services.

·       Take a lead in the establishment and running of farmer field schools in coordination with relevant stakeholders to ensure the sustainability of the approaches.

·       Conduct agriculture-related training for farmers to ensure effective productivity of appropriate information on GAP (soil management, water management, IPM, green compost production efficiency and safe use of pesticides and urea pest control, land-use efficiency, harvesting best storage practices, and Market linkages).

·       Collaborating with the project team organizing field days and exposure visits among Farmers Field Schools (FFS) groups on demonstration and trial plots and updating the progress regularly.

·       Conduct value chain and market assessment to identify potential farming groups for developing value chain and marketing projects.

·       In collaboration with field staff, extension workers and target farmers conduct seasonal crop harvest assessment.

·       Link farmer’s kitchen gardening and livestock beneficiaries to the local markets to generate income.

·       Identification of the needs of farmers and the farming practices used and formulation of an available achievable strategy to improve agricultural production within the limited resources to farmers.

·       Identify appropriate agricultural seed and small-scale agricultural tools relevant to the locality and target community in collaboration with farming comparatives and local authorities.

·       Assess farmer innovation and acceptability of new Agriculture technologies and practices.

·       To ensure all activities undertaken are appropriately documented (agreement/MOUs with relevant authorities, attendance sheets and training circular, beneficiary Registration lists, work plans, and accounts when relevant, etc.)

·       Help in the development and updating of monthly Project Management Framework (PMF) sheets to ensure smooth tracking of the assigned projects.

·       Coordinate with the field team and the MEAL department to prepare and implement project monitoring and evaluation plans.

·       To budget and monitor project expenditures to ensure they are in line with ACTED and donor requirements.

·       Liaise with the FLAT team in the field and area office to coordinate procurement and other needs for project implementation and organization base support.

·       Protection Mainstreaming: promoting and adhering to Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse policy and guidelines (for site residents, ACTED staff, partner agencies, and casual laborers).

·       Prepare/Compile the monthly, quarterly, and annual and Contribute to the preparation and collection of case studies to demonstrate program impact and share with the Revive Project Manager.

Any other tasks required by the line manager/ Thrive/Revive project manager

Job Requirements

Essential qualifications and experience:

·       A minimum of Bachelor’s Degree in Agriculture, Agronomy, Rural Development, Agricultural Extension, NRM or related field

·       A minimum of 3- 5 years of work experience in FSL and Agricultural relevant interventions.

·       Proven experience in administration, including staff and financial management.

·       Ability to work under difficult circumstances in remote locations with limited supervision.

·        Proficiency in MS Word, MS Excel, PowerPoint, or other computer-aided design packages, email/internet communication, etc.

·       Good spoken and written skills in English and Afar Languages.

·       Ability to frequently travel to the target communities in the districts.

Essential knowledge and skills:

·       Fluency in English and Afar languages, both oral and written.

·       Extensive knowledge of Afar farmer’s context

·       Excellent communication skills.

·       Excellent interpersonal and team-playing skills.

·       Highly flexible, with the ability to use initiative.

·       Ability to work in a multicultural environment.

·       Commitment to humanitarian principles and values.

·       Understanding of gender, protection, and human rights.

·       Commitment to promoting gender equality.

Preferred experience:

·       Managerial experience, including leading/supervising subordinate staff, organizing activities, and report writing.

·       Experience in training and capacity-building of staff.

·       Experience in FSL, including Introduction to FSL Training.

·       Knowledge of logistics and procurement processes.

How to Apply

1. Application Procedure:

Qualified national persons with the required skills are invited to submit their applications accompanied by detailed curriculum vitae and cover letter as a single document i.e. with the cover letter being on the first page and the CV starting on the second page, detailing three work related referees and contacts to ethiopia.jobs@acted.org and received on or before 5.00PM on 25TH April 2023 with the subject line “FSL PROJECT OFFICER - Ethiopia”

Please do not attach any other documents while sending your applications, if required they will be requested at a later stage.

Please note that only the shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

ACTED will at no stage of recruitment process request candidate to make payments of any kind. Further, ACTED has not retained any agent in connection with recruitments.

ACTED is committed to protecting beneficiaries within our programmes from exploitation and abuse and any kind of misconduct. ACTED has specific policies, including PSEA and Child Protection, which outlines the expected behaviour and the responsibility of all staff, beneficiaries, consultants and other stakeholders and has zero tolerance towards misconducts. Any candidate offered a job with ACTED will be expected to sign ACTED’s organizational Policies and Code of Conduct as an annex to their contract of employment and agree to conduct themselves in accordance with the provisions of these documents.

ACTED is an Equal Opportunity Employer.