I. Job Context:

ICCO Cooperation (www.icco-cooperation.org) is an international organization, whose mission is to end poverty and injustice in the global south, in partnership with enterprising people. We invest in the power and dreams of entrepreneurial people, stimulate their entrepreneurial spirit, and connect them with businesses, governments and social organizations. 

ICCO Cooperation is planning to implement EU funded “Sustained Opportunities for Nutrition Governance (SONGO) project” to improve maternal and child nutrition in Kurigram and Gaibandha districts. The SONGO project is 5 years duration with 4 inter-linked outcomes; (1) establishing upazila nutrition governance, (2) improving maternal and child health, nutrition (3) improving WASH practices (4) enhancing availability and access to safe and nutritious food.

Under the outcome 4, SONGO will promote overall food production, with a specific focus on homestead food production (HFP) and income generating activities among (extreme) poor HHs through training and facilitating access to necessary inputs. Besides promotion of specific crops attention will be given to Heifer principle based poultry rearing. The aim of this is two-fold. Firstly, homestead food production equips disadvantaged HHs, especially women with the tools and skills to produce staple food, fruits, vegetables and small livestock that have been carefully selected for their nutritional content and ability to grow well in local conditions. Secondly, if HHs are able to improve their homestead production beyond their family’s needs, they can sell or exchange surplus production at local markets, leading to more economic stability and particularly access to income for women.
SONGO project is seeking an experienced Livelihoods Advisor to design technical strategy and guiding the team to increase household’s income and to enhance year round availability and access to safe and nutritious food of target households.

II.            Responsibilities and Tasks:

• Contribute to the design and validation of intervention strategies, based on different types of research (e.g. desk, action, formative) at different levels;
• Provide technical support, capacity building, leadership and strategic direction to technical expert, PNGO staff to meet quality standards in delivery.
• Form, sensitize and train inclusive Homestead Producer Groups, including (extreme) poor HHs members, promoting climate resilient production of divers and nutritious food, primarily for own consumption through direct and intensive skills and knowledge dissemination.
• Develop training materials and train to staff and other stakeholders for effective livelihoods development.
• Train particular women, youth, and people with disabilities on skills that could improve their (self)employment Where and where possible, women, youth and PwD will be provided with basic income generation training e.g. poultry shed making, food processing (drying/smoking) or other off-farm skills.
• Initiate MOU singing with government line department and Private Sector for qualitative service provision.
• Establish linkage with the government and NGOs to get social protection services for extreme poor/vulnerable HHs
• Climate resilient local food production, productivity and diversification enhanced
• Provide training to public agents (DAE, DLS, DoF) on the provision of incentives, technical and input support that improves climate resilient agricultural production and leverages the effects of the existing demonstration plots
• Train private sector extension agents and create linkage between producers, input and output market actors for better price and farmer centre at Federation level
• Advocate to private sector, NGOs, Public Health sector, government, and other stakeholders on topics approved by the project.
• Build capacity of producers and community leaders on disaster (flood, river erosion, drought, severe cold wave) coping mechanisms for disaster preparedness and management
• Build capacity of producers and community leaders on disaster (flood, river erosion, drought, severe cold wave) coping mechanisms for disaster preparedness and management
• Introduce farmer mobile app to ensure aggregation or products through fair and transparent transactions
• Maintain regular coordination with the consortium partners, project manager and ICCO Dhaka team to ensure supports to the project.
• Establish strong working relationships with all consortium members and develop an in-depth understanding of the activities, support needs and strengths of each partner with regards their respective implementation.
• Develop action plans on partnerships activities for the project on annual basis through coordinating with consortium members at the districts levels.
• Establish networking relationships with the public-private sectors and other partner organizations.
• Ensure that planning and monitoring tools are developed and standardized, and that data is regularly collected, based on the overall PMEL mechanism.
•  Compile and analyses monitoring data and produce monthly monitoring reports.
• Conduct and coordinate regular monitoring covering operational issues (finance and compliance), capacity strengthening and overall partnership at field level

IV.          Working Conditions:

• Working days from Sunday to Thursday with 40 hours per week. This position may be required to work some overtime hours to attend meetings such as the Annual Audit.
• Any other tasks assigned by the supervisor from time to time.
• Yearly renewable the contract based on fund availability and performance.
• Have to follow ICCO HR, Admin and Finance related policy.

V.       Key contacts:

Project Manager, Operation Lead, Head of Programs, PNGOs, Manager, HR & Admin and Finance department of ICCO

VI.    Key Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in Agricultural Sciences, Animal Husbandry or in a related area of study;
• Minimum of 7 years’ experience of working with livelihoods and inclusive market development/value chain related activities with the extreme poor, preferably in char areas in Bangladesh.
• Extensive experience in designing and implementation of livelihoods development projects with NGO staff and beneficiaries.
• Candidates having prior working experiences with government line department (Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Health and Nutrition ) will be an advantage for the candidates;
• Capacity to coordinate and liaison with local government officials, PNGOs and ICCO senior management
• Experience in staff management and capacity building and ability to solve project related problems and to work in any circumstances
• Management experience of nutrition / health projects in developing countries and interest in market-led approach and a feeling with business aspects
• Ability and willingness to manage project implementation and team-player with good interpersonal skills; aptitude for community mobilization and capacity-building
• Excellent communication skills (written and oral) in English.
• Skill in training materials development and training conduction.
• Experience in coordination with government and different stakeholders.
• Excellent in activity monitoring and reporting.
• Excellent interpersonal communication skill, problem solving skills, strong value based commitment to right based approach
• Good computer skills in MS Office.