I.             Job Summary:  

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. In CARE, we 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 has shifted 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 Bangladesh’s Humanitarian and Climate Action Program is committed to provide people affected by disasters and conflicts with life-saving assistance, with a special focus on women and girls, who are disproportionately affected by disasters. Our action also includes preparedness and early action, emergency response and recovery, resilience and adaptation to climate change and equitable development.

People living in the char and haor areas of northern Bangladesh are exposed to frequent and intense climatic disasters- recurrent flooding, riverbank erosion, and other hydro-meteorological hazards-which affect their lives and livelihoods. The recurrence of monsoon flooding causes loss and damage of lives, assets and infrastructures and the Government of Bangladesh has prioritized mainstreaming climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) into national planning through 8th Five Year Plan. CARE has been working in the northern Bangladesh prioritizing women’s empowerment in food security and livelihoods, health and nutrition, agriculture, climate change adaptation, civil society strengthening, DRR, and emergency response. Among them, Piloting and Expansion of Flood Preparedness Program (FPP), funded by the National Resilience Program-NRP- Department of Disaster Management Part, is focused on building flood resilient community through enhancing flood preparedness, coping and response capacity of the community for reducing flood risks, loses and damages in line with the changing trends of flood incidents. CARE’s Strengthening Household Ability to Respond to Development Opportunities (SHOUHARDO) III, funded by the USAID, includes a disaster and climate risk management component, that aims to build the resilience of people, households, communities, and local level institutions to mitigate, adapt to and recover from man-made and natural shocks. One activity in particular––raising the earthen mounds/foundations of household and community structures above flood levels in a process known as ‘plinth raising’––has proven to be highly effective. Plinth raising leverages long-practiced local knowledge and local building culture, and can be a durable shelter solution in rural areas when carried out with proper technical oversight. Efforts and interest are growing to replicate and scale this solution The USAID’s Northern Bangladesh Disaster Preparedness (NOBADIP/নবদীপ) Activity of CARE Bangladesh has also successfully implemented these best practices in selected unions of Kurigram, Gaibandha and Jamalpur.

The USAID’s Strengthening Household Ability to Respond to Development Opportunities (SHOUHARDO) III-DRR Activity will foster locally led, gender-inclusive and policy-informed community resilience in the most vulnerable 29 unions in the 06 flood-prone char and haor districts of Lalmonirhat, Kurigram, Gaibandha, Jamalpur, Netrokona and Sunamganj. SHOU lll (DRR) aims to reach more than 50,000 people over 37 months through flood resilient housing and community structures, climate smart agriculture, as well as building the capacity of community volunteers for advanced disaster preparedness. It will scale SHOUHARDO and NOBADIP’s plinth and preparedness activities and FPP’s community flood preparedness, coping and response capacity enhancement, SuPER (Sustainable, Productive, Equitable and Resilient) Agriculture and expand geographic targeting beyond present CARE project areas. As a whole, SHOU lll-DRR will achieve its goal by reducing the risks of most vulnerable flood-prone char dwellers through scaling-up flood-resilient shelter improvements, adaptive agricultural practices, and flood preparedness initiatives.

The Senior Specialist – Agriculture, SHOUHARDO III DRR Activity will be based in CARE Kurigram Hub Office and directly report to Program Manager-DRR. Overall, s/he is responsible for planning all interventions related to agriculture, support CARE and partner front line staff to implement the agricultural VSLA group capacity building activities across the project areas in Char and Haor. S/he will technically support community level preparedness and flood management planning in relation to agriculture in coordination with partner organizations. S/he is also responsible to produce high quality, reliable, and efficient information and reports tailored to the needs of different levels of management and operational staff and report for the donor and GoB.

II. Responsibilities and Tasks:

% of Time

Responsibility # 1: Technical supervision of the agriculture interventions and related Capacity Building Activities

40%

• Prepare a detailed implementation work plan in consultation with project staff/partners and line management and maintain regular tracking with necessary adjustments to ensure timely completion of all Agriculture related activities.
• Develop agriculture intervention-related capacity-building training modules as per the project work plan.
• Provide necessary orientation and training to the project personnel in relation to DRR-focused agriculture interventions and relevant Capacity Building of the target audience.
• Ensure supportive supervision and guidance to the staff members/partners for quality and timely completion of capacity and awareness-building-related project activities.
• Nurture team environment and cooperative attitudes among project personnel and project stakeholders.
• Provide technical direction and ensure training learnings are implemented to a high-quality standard where activities matched with the proposal.
• Conduct and ensure quality delivery of capacity-building training on DRR-friendly agriculture, animal husbandry, and homestead gardening including implementation of DRR interventions such as plinth raising, early warning dissemination, etc.
• Guide forming or reforming WDMC and UDMC ensuring FPP volunteers’ membership in the committees in coordination with the project partners.
• Extend technical support to the partners’ staff, community supervisors, and the PICs as and when required.
• Support partners in executing community mobilization plans e.g. early warning dissemination and awareness sessions in coordination with the partners.
• Preparing preparedness and awareness-related activity plan, rolling out the plan and documenting them and generating reports (e.g. early warning dissemination planning with UDMC & Relevant UP Standing Committee and rolling out the plan accordingly)
• Technically guide partner to conduct a comprehensive Community Risk Assessment (CRA) and develop a community led Risk Reduction Action Plans (RRAP) applicable for all the target communities, preparing tools and techniques and providing guidance to project/partners’ staff and project participants to apply the tools. Generating CRA report and Flood Management Plan and validating them through UDMC’s.
• Preparing Agriculture inclusive DRR materials in accordance with USAID’s regulations and rolling out at field level.
• Liaise and collaborate with relevant local authorities and other key stakeholders to ensure smooth completion of capacity building and awareness activities.
• Organize learning –sharing and coordination workshops in coordination with partners at district and upazila level.

Responsibility # 2: Quality implementation of agriculture-related activities, MEL and Accountability system

25%

• Support design/ improve MEL framework for the project in consultation with SHOIII DRR KML Team, IDEAL team at CBDO and roll out the plan in the project.
• Preparing Climate Risk Management Plan (CRM) for the Activities and tool development for monitoring and implementation.
• Support Specialist, Shelter and Settlement in preparing construction/ plinth raising quality assurance and safety plan.
• Work with projects' staff/partners in designing and implementation of the project level MEL plan and indicator tracking for the project’s Agriculture part.
• Support drafting TOR for conducting studies, end line survey and guide consultant and enumerators group for baseline/end data collection and reporting for Agriculture part.
• Develop participant selection criteria for different actions/schemes and developing and maintaining database of project participants both online and hard copy.
• Guide partners to ensure that an effective complaints feedback and response mechanisms. (CFRM) system is functioning at all levels of projects implementation.
• Responsible for validating and providing field data on a regular basis for donors and other reporting.
  
• Work closely with SHOU-III DRR project partners for developing post-activity effectiveness monitoring and outputs, which provide information for management decision.
• Capturing and developing knowledge materials e.g.- CRA reports, monitoring reports, progress sharing reports etc. and ensure remote access to these materials.

Responsibility # 3:   Compliance of Government, Donor and CARE requirements

15%

• Carefully follow all CI and CARE Bangladesh requirements in the implementation of the MEL system.
• Regularly monitor implementation of the MEL system/tools, EMMP and CRM to ensure all compliance issues are being maintained.
• Ensure that necessary compliance and standard are incorporated in the monitoring tools and standards are followed in structural and non-structural work- refer to the BoQ and plinth raising guidelines provided to the Donor.
• Ensure environmental issues are incorporated in the monitoring tools, collected appropriate data and addressed environmental concern in the project activities.

Responsibility # 4: Timely reporting to Government, donor and stakeholders

20%

• Support preparing monthly, bi-monthly, semi-annual, annual donor reports as per reporting calendar.
• Work closely with the Knowledge Management Coordinator and the IDEAL team to identify initiatives of interest, and to provide information around these areas to produce quality case studies, web updates etc.
• Ensure top-line findings from monitoring activities, anonymized and summarized analysis of Complaint Response Mechanism data and any relevant project updates are communicated in an accessible way to the target communities.
• Mechanisms are in place in the project to record knowledge and experience and make it accessible throughout the organization through and/or in coordination with Knowledge Management Coordinator.
• Organize periodic review and learning session to capture key lessons and good practices from the project.

Responsibility # 5 Adhere to and support CARE Bangladesh’s Safety and Security policy and systems

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.

Responsibility # 6 Safeguarding

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.

III.           Reporting to:  

Program Manager, SHOUHARDO III DRR Activity, Humanitarian & Climate Action Program

IV.          Working Condition:  

Based in CARE Bangladesh Kurigram Hub Office

Qualification:

• Bachelor’s in Agriculture/Livestock with 5 - 6 years working experience in the areas of agriculture and livelihoods and rights based programs. Master’s degree in agriculture/Livestock will be given preference.
• Knowledge in gender, youth and children focused approach to development in the context of DRR and resilience.
• Demonstrated capacity to work with teams
• Experience in DRR program, in community mobilization and organizing learning sharing events involving community, practitioners and researchers and policy makers.
• Experience working in shelter and or DRR program is an added advantage.
• Excellent interpersonal and team management skills.
• Gender awareness and a commitment to gender equality.
• Experience in maintaining stakeholder relations with local government, administration and civil society actors.
• USAID MEL, EMMP and CRM Training, Cash Based Programming, Emergency Market Assessment, Humanitarian Accountability Partnership, SPHERE etc.
• Strong communication, report writing and presentation skill in Bangla and English.
• Computer proficiency in MS words, MS-Excel, MS Access, MS PowerPoint