Livelihood and Economic Inclusion Specialist at Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is a non-governmental, humanitarian organization with 60 years of experience in helping to create a safer and more dignified life for refugees and internally displaced people. NRC advocates for the rights of displaced populations and offers assistance within the shelter, emergency food security, and water, sanitation and hygiene sectors.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Livelihood and Economic Inclusion Specialist

Location: Maiduguri, Borno
Reports to: Head of Programme (HoP)
Supervision of: N/A
Grade: G9
Job Category Coordination
Duty station: Maiduguri
Travel: Up to 40 %
Project number: NGFM2301/NGFM2302
Contract duration: 12 months

Background

• Since 2015, NRC Nigeria has been working to help displacement affected communities meet their basic needs, improve their livelihoods, access essential services, and enhance their resilience to future shocks through our six core competencies: water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), Shelter, Education, Information, Counselling and Legal Assistance (ICLA), Livelihoods and Food Security (LFS), Camp Management, and Protection. NRC provides immediate assistance during the onset of emergencies through the rapid response mechanism (RRM). In 2021, NRC reached over 269,000 people with assistance.
• The crisis in Nigeria is marked by brutal violence against civilians causing acute humanitarian needs and displacement. In the north-east, the 13-year conflict has shattered lives, infrastructure, basic services, and social fabric.
• Two million people are internally displaced across Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states. Approximately half of these are living within local communities, putting increasing pressure on scarce resources. Access to food is limited, particularly in Borno state where most families are already facing crisis levels of food insecurity. Civilians, including aid workers, continue to be the target of deadly attacks by non-state armed groups and transport corridors are persistently insecure.
• In the north-west and north-central regions, violence and displacement are rooted in disputes over land and resources, which has been worsened by climate change. Criminality is on the rise.
• Livelihood opportunities are scarce, and children face an uncertain future, unable to access quality education. Many families have either lost identity papers while fleeing or never obtained them, hindering their ability to access essential services

Role and Responsibilities

• The purpose of the Livelihood and Economic Inclusion (LEI) Specialist position is technical development of the Livelihood and Economic Inclusion strategic direction and quality assurance. The LEI Specialist is responsible for mentoring, training, capacity building staff, programme development and coordination.

The following is a Brief Description of the role.
Generic responsibilities (max 10)

• Develop Livelihood and Economic Inclusion strategy, technical guidance and mainstream Livelihood and economic inclusion into all other CC’s.
• Work closely with Livelihoods and Food Security team to align economic inclusion initiative to the Livelihood strategy
• Compliance with and adherence to NRC policies, guidance and procedures.
• Contribute to fundraising, develop, and revise funding proposal, budgets, and donor reports.
• Identify trends technical standards and donor priorities.
• Follow up on compliance with contractual commitments within Livelihood and economic inclusion, ensure high technical quality and synergies in project implementation.
• Provide technical direction and project implementation support.
• Ensure that key learnings are extracted from relevant core competency(ies) (CC) implementation, and incorporate them in specific thematic area and staff development processes
• Provide systematic training and build capacity of technical staff.
• Represent NRC in relevant forums/clusters, including with national authorities and donors.
• Promote the rights of IDPs/returnees in line with the advocacy strategy.

Specific Responsibilities

• Improve the enabling environment for IDPs, returnees, and host community to work including through advocacy on the right to work as well as access to economic opportunities and services.
• Seek new and strengthen existing partnerships including with the private sector, development actors, government institutions, and specialized agencies to advance the economic inclusion
• Enhance ongoing livelihoods and economic inclusion programming through evidence-based and market-driven approaches to improve economic inclusion outcomes
• In a consultative process take lead of development and periodic update of the Livelihood and Economic Inclusion programme at Country Office level and ensure the management and implementation of the program activities in line with LEI policies, strategies, and procedures.
• Promote and coordinate the development of new initiatives and responses to emerging enterprise development such as integration of the principles of green economy development, value addition and access to Finance.
• Promote use of technology in the Livelihood Economic inclusion program including digitalization of Saving groups, market linkages and attachment to entrepreneurships.
• Facilitate the implementation of specified project development plans, providing overall partnership and technical support in the conceptualisation, design, planning, budgeting, and implementation.
• Promote digital financing, financial literacy, credit plus activities, Food security entrepreneurship and commercial village concepts in all the LEI programs.
• Ensure job creation, green skilling, financial inclusion, and improved livelihoods through training marginalized and vulnerable Youth and women (including people with disability) in green skills.
• Develop plans, procedures, criteria of eligibility, systems or appropriate tools for timely initiation, monitoring, reporting and evaluation of the EI programme.
• Work closely with the M&E staff and partner mentors to conduct regular monitoring of program activities to ensure quality and provide timely feedback to partners on issues for follow up.
• Together with the partners, target group and other stakeholders build / facilitate the development of the LEI programme by developing and integrating other relevant green economy and credit-plus activities of high impact on the lives of the most vulnerable
• Ensure that all the LEI interventions are based on the Community Based Approach principles.
• Prepare LEI related programme reports and documentations on the intervention as per the requirement of the country office, donors, head office and other stakeholders.
• In Liaison with the HOP, Grants team and other specialist work on resource mobilization following the frameworks / guidelines / formats of the organization / donors through participatory processes involving primary stakeholders of the programmes / projects. This includes the thematic proposals for the whole country operation.
• Work closely with the Area and field offices to provide oversight and management of the LEI and Food security budget.
• Establish strategic and collaborative working relationships with the national entities and private sector
• Active participation in Livelihood, Environment & Energy, Food Security and Economic inclusion forums at national levels.

Critical Interfaces

• By interfaces, NRC means processes and projects that are interlinked with other departments/units or persons. Relevant interfaces for this position are:
• Programme development: Programme Development & Support section (Country and Regional Offices), Regional CC Advisers, Regional Cash & Markets Adviser
• Proposal development: Area Managers, Project Managers, CC Coordinators, Regional CC Adviser
• Quality control/ support: Area Managers, M&E, HoP, Finance, HR, Logistics
• Capacity development: Project staff, Area Managers.
• Technical support and guidance: Regional CC Advisers, Regional E&I Advisor, Regional Cash & Markets Adviser

Scale and Scope of Position

• Staff: None
• Stakeholders: UN agencies, INGOs, local NGOs, local partners, civil society, governmental bodies
• Budgets: No Budget responsibilities
• Information: Working with GORS, Agresso/budgeting tools, and Intranet
• Legal or compliance: NRC terms of employment, NRC Security policy, NRC Code of Conduct

What you will Bring

• Minimum 6 years of experience within Livelihood & Economic inclusion while Cash & Markets programming in a humanitarian/ recovery context
• Solid experience from managing and implementing Livelihood and Economic Inclusion related responses including cash-based programming, in both volatile and recovery contexts.
• Highly experienced in programme management associated to natural resource protection and socio-economic recovery, particularly relating to renewable energy and Innovation, financial inclusion and employment support including apprenticeship schemes.
• Strong capacity in leading proposal development.
• Documented experience working with donors and conversant with their technical frameworks, strategic priorities and reporting requirements (e.g. ECHO, WFP, Unicef, NMFA, Sida);
• Understanding and experience of carrying out Livelihood, Market and Cash & Voucher assistance monitoring and analysis, with the ability to devise and adapt tools to context. 
• Behavioural competencies in Strategic thinking;Empowering and building trust;Influencing;Working with people

Competencies:

• Competencies are important in order for the employee and the organisation to deliver desired results. They are relevant for all staff and are divided into the following three categories:

Professional Competencies:

• These are skills, knowledge and experience that are important for effective performance.

Generic professional competencies for this position:

• Minimum 6 years of experience within Livelihood & Economic inclusion while Cash & Markets programming in a humanitarian/ recovery context in added benefits.
• Experience working in complex contexts.
• Solid experience form managing and implementing Livelihood and Economic Inclusion related responses including cash-based programming, in both volatile and recovery contexts.
• Highly experienced in programme management associated to natural resource protection and socio-economic recovery, particularly relating to renewable energy and Innovation, financial inclusion and employment support including apprenticeship schemes.
• Strong capacity in leading proposal development.
• Documented experience working with donors and conversant with their technical frameworks, strategic priorities and reporting requirements (e.g. ECHO, WFP, Unicef, NMFA, Sida);
• Understanding and experience of carrying out Livelihood, Market and Cash & Voucher assistance monitoring and analysis, with the ability to devise and adapt tools to context.
• Experience from leading multi sector assessments and analysis.
• Ability to work closely together with other field staff and across sectors.
• High level of communication, representation, flexibility, and negotiation skills.
• Documented results related to the position’s responsibilities.
• Knowledge about own leadership skills/profile.
• Fluency in English, both written and spoken

Context / Specific Skills, Knowledge and Experience:

• Knowledge of the context in Niger is a plus
• Experience with market assessment, analysis and market based approaches;
• Experience of developing and implementing resilient livelihood and Economic Inclusion approaches adapted to conflict or protracted crisis contexts;

Behavioural Competencies (max 6):
These are personal qualities that influence how successful people are in their job. NRC’s Competency Framework states 12 behavioural competencies, the following are essential for this position:

• Working with people
• Handling insecure environments
• Strategic thinking
• Empowering and building trust
• Influencing
• Initiate action and change
• Analyzing

Performance Management

• The employee will be accountable for the responsibilities and the competencies, in accordance with the NRC Performance Management Manual.

The following documents will be used for performance reviews:

• The Job Description
• The Work and Development Plan
• The Mid-term/End-of-trial Period Performance Review Template
• The End-term Performance Review Template
• The NRC Competency Framework

Application Closing Date
12th December, 2022 (08:59 PM).

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

Click here for more information - DOC

Note

• Employment with NRC may lead to employment in or deployment to Regions, Countries, Areas or Offices that may be host to considerable health, safety and security risks. NRC takes this very seriously and we have procedures in place to reduce known risks, but will never be able to take away all risks.
• NRC is an equal opportunities employer and aims to have staffing diversity in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, nationality and physical ability.