CARE is one of the world's leading international humanitarian and development organisations, committed to helping people in poor communities improve their lives and alleviate poverty. Founded in 1945, CARE is working across 104 countries to fight global poverty and marginalization. CARE has been active in Bangladesh since 1949 being one of the largest country offices of CARE. CARE works to help people achieve social and economic well-being, while being among the best in their fields. CARE put women and girls at the center of our work because we know that we cannot overcome poverty until all people have equal rights and opportunities. CARE Bangladesh is currently shifting towards a program approach, where it has developed longer-term impact visions to have more sustainable changes in the lives of the extreme poor and marginalized.

CARE 2030 Vision includes the recognition that CARE and partners can contribute to change in more ways than just the direct work with communities. For this, we commit to advancing on 6 Pathways for Impact at Scale: Gender equality (GE); Humanitarian Assistance (HUM); Right to Food, Water and Nutrition; Women’s Economic Justice; Right to Health and Climate Justice.

CARE Climate Justice goal is about a future, in which the poorest and most marginalized people, particularly women and girls, have strengthened their resilience and adaptive capacities to the effects of climate change and are contributing to the energy transition. In achieving this goal CARE theory of change has adopted a three dimensional approach e.g. create agency, change relation and transform structure as well as strengthened collective voice and action of communities and civil society. We learnt from our long experience that it is not be possible to achieve this goal unless we adopt innovative approach, tap technology and digital transformation the world is going through. Consequently, we have adopted a gender equal, locally led but globally scaled model. CARE Bangladesh Humanitarian & Resilience Program has undertaken some climate adaptation innovation challenge to accelerate achieving our climate justice goal. Our innovation challenge will support in identifying new solutions and ways to address identified gaps, scale and multiply impact. We apply CARE’s rigorous decision process (e.g. identification, ideation, solution/prototype development, proof of concept/testing, and transition to scale) for impact at scale, and brings capabilities in design thinking, rapid feedback loops and validation. To ensure acceptability and sustainability, the innovation process will follow the framework for human-centric design (e.g. desirability, feasibility and viability). Moreover, the entire innovation cycle will follow the principles of empathy. In achieving our innovation challenge we are looking for Program Manager, Green Innovation who can assist program team in the step-wise innovation process in critical impact region of CARE Bangladesh, especially in southwest and southeast coastal region, northwest char and northeast hoar region, keeping the climate shocks and stresses in consideration.

CARE Bangladesh Humanitarian & Resilience Program is currently implementing multiple projects covering the northern char region, norther-eastern haor region, south-central and southeastern coastal regions of Bangladesh. Recurrent flooding, erratic rainfall, riverbank erosion are key innovation challenges in northern char region. On the other hand, salinity intrusion, water scarcity, intense and frequent cyclone are key challenges for south-central coastal region. Cox’s Bazar is hosting the world largest refugee camps, the Rohingya Crisis where climatic and anthropogenic pressures (mainly over extraction) has created tremendous pressure on natural resources, especially on timber or fire-wood.

The Program Manager – Green Innovation will support different project teams of CARE Humanitarian & Resilience Program in development of climate adaptive solutions, advancement in product design, process and business model development following a human centered/Bottom of Pyramid (BoP) designed approach. The Program Manager will lead and be responsible for developing frugal climate adaptive solutions to specific innovation challenges in order to support community with sustainable livelihood (nature-based solutions (NBS), drinking and irrigation water services, agriculture- crop, aquaculture, livestock, poultry etc.) models with a market-based approach (MBA).

• Leading the team in community mobilization, problem identification and solution scouting.
• Meeting with community and stakeholders at different levels to identify areas of innovation and growth.
• Lead problem framing for innovation focus areas. Identify innovation challenges in the context of northern char region (Gaibandha, Kurigram, Jamalpur, Nilphamari), south-central (Khulna, Satkhira, Bagerhat and Patuakhali), norther-eastern haor region (Sylhet, Sunamganj, Netrokona) and southeastern coastal (Cox’s Bazar, Bandarban) regions of Bangladesh.
• Organize “Youth Innovation Hackathon” to capture the youth and women spirit and ideas in solving community challenges.
• Capture learnings from ongoing project activities for facilitating the process of innovation.
• Engaging with internal and external stakeholders to enhance innovative thinking around the community innovation challenges.   

• Facilitate the development of adaptation solutions through a process of ideation, prototyping, testing and scaling up.
• Develop appropriate prototypes –in coordination with grassroots innovators, community, public sector and private sector stakeholders –for different innovation challenges, e.g.  1) salinity intrusion and water crisis; 2) climatic and anthropogenic impacts on natural resources and fire timber crisis; 3) recurrent flood and erratic rainfall; 4) Loss of productivity and livelihood due to different climate shocks and stresses. 
• Capacity development of grassroots innovators and project staff on human centric innovative solution designing, prototyping and testing.
• Managing the planning, development and implementation of incubation initiatives.
• Developing external partnerships to enhance organizational impact of initiatives revolving around business incubation and entrepreneurship.  

• Identifying innovation trends and business opportunities innovative ideas and products in the market system.
• Creating and overseeing a comprehensive long-term innovation strategy for CARE Bangladesh.
• Ensure to interpret business strategy and determine innovative solutions supporting Market Based Approach (MBA) and sustainability.
• Develop go-to-market plan, implementation plan and roadmap for scaling offering.
• Coordinating with relevant departments and private sectors to facilitate the implementation of new products or services.

• Regular upgrading and updating of innovation markers, innovation progress log, end user feedback, and other tools.
• Designing key indicators and contribute to improve impact measurement as well as management processes.
• Leading the process of innovation learning, documentation and sharing
• Conduct business financial analysis, including forecasting, monitoring and reporting.
• Support MEL Manager and KML Coordinator in project progress report preparation, especially in the context of innovation
• Analyzing data to identify opportunities for improvement in existing processes.
• Presenting new ideas and approaches to CARE senior management and high-level stakeholders

As part of this role, the job holder will be expected to adhere to and support CARE Bangladesh’s Safety and Security policy and systems as part of their day to day duties, and comply, at all times, to safety & security protocols and directives, including reporting. Staff must maintain situational and self – awareness and be aware of the safety – security related consequences of their actions upon themselves, their team and the organization as a whole.

CARE is committed to preventing any type of unwanted behavior at work including sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse, lack of integrity and financial misconduct and expects staff to promote the welfare of children, young people and adults at all times.  CARE expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment through our Code of Conduct.  We place a high priority on ensuring that only those who share and demonstrate this commitment are recruited to work with us.

This position based at Dhaka with more than 50% time to travel fields, especially in northern char and haor region and southwest, southeast and southcentral coastal regions of Bangladesh.

• 6 to 7 years’ of working experience in community led innovation in the context of climate justice & adaptation/ resilience, humanitarian response and recovery.
• Masters in development studies, Social Science, Natural Resource Management and MBA in any business discipline from reputed public/private university.
• Experience in developing and implementing Market Based Approach (MBA) to address and mitigate climate change challenges.
• Highly proficient at project planning, budgeting, and oversight.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Computer proficiency in MS words, MS-Excel, MS Access, MS PowerPoint.