Program Officer at Nuru Nigeria

Nuru Nigeria - Founded by a former US Marine, formed at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, and fueled by angel investors from Silicon Valley. Nuru Nigeria is a locally Led NGO with affiliates in the US, Kenya, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso. Nuru equips local leaders with tools and knowledge to lead their communities out of extreme poverty by integrating impact programs that address the most prevalent and fundamental challenges of extreme poverty around four areas of need: Hunger, Inability to Cope with Financial Shocks, Preventable Disease and Death, Lack of Access to Quality Education for Children. Nuru Nigeria design training-based poverty solutions that promote self-reliance and service-mindedness to enable local leaders to continue scaling impact long after Nuru Nigeria staff has exited the project.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Program Officer

Location: Borno
Employment Type: Full-time

Position Summary

• The Program Officer will provide technical support to the field team in key programmatic areas such as agricultural productivity and sustainability, Horticulture, and financial inclusion
• She/he will provide technical expertise in resilient agriculture with a special focus on climate-smart agricultural production, agricultural extension, agribusiness & value chain development, and smallholder farmer financial inclusion
• She/he must have extensive experience in smallholder agricultural intervention, farmer training, and extension services.

Position Responsibilities

• Design and implement strategies to enhance agricultural productivity through sustainable practices and conducting training of trainers (ToT) to community structures
• Support the project coordinator to coordinate and implement all Nuru impact & agricultural program activities in the intervention communities with a focus on achieving Nuru’s vision and strategic objectives
• Facilitate and guide farmers on appropriate cropping patterns, and farming techniques through the establishment of demo plots to promote the adoption of good agricultural practices and savings & loan activities to promote social cohesion and increase income.
• Directly responsible for managing assigned Nuru intervention communities and integrating Nuru organization within the assigned communities ensuring organizational acceptance by the communities.
• Facilitate the establishment of farmer associations and provide support in their transitioning into well-structured farmer's organizations.
• Directly responsible for providing the technical content on all agricultural extension training materials, training curriculums, and financial inclusion training materials.
• Deliver one-on-one extension services to farmers and provide other on-farm extension advisory support services to the farmers.
• Establish and maintain successful relationships with Market actors, implementing partners, community leaders, and other key stakeholders within implementation field sites.
• Prepare high-quality monthly Activity Progress Reports and ensure they are submitted on time, document and share lessons learned, success stories as well as the general situation and community updates and feedback
• Exemplify the servant leadership philosophy of Nuru Nigeria and work with other team members to build an organizational culture of service and a farmer-first principle.
• Foster organizational development through strict adherence to Nuru’s values and principles ensuring accountability and high performance at all times.
• Perform any other duties as required by and instructed by the Project Coordinator

Qualifications and Job Requirements

• Minimum of Bachelor’s degree or its equivalent (MSc is an added advantage) in general agriculture, animal husbandry, agricultural economics, agriculture extension, rural livelihoods, etc.
• Minimum of 3 years working experience in relevant fields with a local or international NGO
• Experienced and exposure to field operations in both emergency and recovery programs
• Experience in agricultural extension services
• Experience working with farmer associations/ groups or village savings and loan clubs
• Experience and comfortable working in rural areas and with rural people, who have low literacy level
• Sustainable agriculture production and natural resource management knowledge
• Proficient in computer skills (MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, Google Drive & Applications, Internet, etc.)
• Excellent presentation skills, and capacity to deliver appropriate and relevant training to a target audience
• Very good communication, analytical, and reporting skills
• Ability to work in a cross-cultural, cross-functional environment and across departments
• High motivation for improvement and ability to deliver in a challenging environment
• Excellent Written and spoken English Language
• Proficient in local languages such as Hausa or Bura.

Application Closing Date
25th September, 2024.