Community Resilience Officer At SEED Madagascar

Position Overview

SEED Madagascar is a British Charity working in partnership with communities in the southeast of Madagascar. We integrate high quality community health, rural livelihoods; education infrastructure and conservation programmes to support long term, sustainable change and add to international best practice through research and publication across all of our programmatic areas.

Our Rural Livelihoods programme concentrates on livelihood development and support, including fishery management, beekeeping, and traditional reed weaving. We use community-led, participatory approaches, working with local communities to identify and implement projects that meet their needs and priorities.

The Financial Resilience Officer will work closely with both national and international staff members to develop a cohesive financial resilience approach for SEED Madagascar’s Rural Livelihoods department. They will develop financial resilience pilot projects; recommend adaptation of ongoing programme activities to strengthen rural livelihoods; support in preparing funding proposals and reports for external stakeholders; and support monitoring and evaluation of current projects.

This is a superb opportunity for a development professional with 2-4 years of experience of supporting livelihoods, financial development and/or resilience building programmes in developing contexts.

*Title:*Financial Resilience Officer
Location: Fort Dauphin, Anosy Region, Madagascar

Timeframe: 18 months (probationary period 3 months)

Terms and conditions: Local salary, contribution to a return flight to post of £1000 and to insurance of

£650

Core Duties

• Evaluate SEED’s past and current financial resilience initiatives and existing project areas through the lens of financial resilience and provide recommendations to apply international best practice in ongoing implementation across a range of different livelihood projects.
• Conduct independent research, literature reviews, and evaluation of comparable external programmes, methods, and activities used to improve financial resilience in rural communities.
• Identify which of these methods and activities are contextually compatible with SEED’s programme portfolio across the Rural Livelihoods, Conservation, Community Health, and WASH and Schools departments, with a focus on Rural Livelihoods.
• Support the development of scalable, context-appropriate pilots to strengthen financial resilience, either adapting existing programme activities or scoping new activities based on local needs.
• Ensure a collaborative approach to project development, working closely with national staff and adopting participatory methods with local communities to ensure inclusive dialogue throughout.
• Collaboratively develop context-appropriate capacity building, skill sharing and training activities on the topics of savings, financial management, and financial planning for different demographic groups and communities across the Anosy region.
• Work alongside the Head of Programmes and Head of Department in problem-solving and providing additional support in line with emerging issues from project implementation.
• Foster essential cross-cultural collaboration, providing support to both national and international staff to increase their skills, knowledge and capacity to develop and implement financial resilience initiatives, providing mentoring or training where appropriate.
• Ensure effective implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of activities to promote behavioral change and build longer-term financial resilience.
• Assist in data collection and basic analysis where required and where there is an Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Officer in post assist them in developing monitoring and evaluation tools and completing MEL reports for projects.
• Produce research reports, to a high standard of English, that clearly demonstrate the successes and challenges of SEED’s financial resilience initiatives.
• Take an active role in project management meetings, leading these where appropriate.
• Take an active part in international team meetings and support to other members of the team.
• Ensure all of SEEDs policies and procedures are evident throughout the work of the department, including those for safeguarding, whistleblowing and anti-corruption, and undertake continual training to ensure these are promoted at all times.
• Form part of the team representing projects or SEED when required.
• Complete other ad-hoc tasks as required by the Head of Department, Head of Programmes, or Director of Programmes and Operations to further the aims and work of the organization.

Person specification

• Degree-level qualification in or relating to international development, rural livelihoods, development economics, or financial resilience, or equivalent experience.
• Minimum of 2 years’ professional experience with similar programmes, including project development, monitoring, evaluation and learning, and reporting.
• Demonstrable experience of capacity building and/or education programmes, particularly in rural settings or covering topics such as financial management, savings schemes and strategies, or strengthening livelihoods.
• Demonstrable expertise and experience of multidisciplinary, independent research of rural development challenges and opportunities.
• Fluency in written and spoken English with excellent written communication skills.
• Demonstrate an understanding of and commitment to SEED’s ethos and approach and be a good ambassador for the organisation at all times.
• Have passion, curiosity and motivation for the job and the ability to enthuse others.
• Experience of living and working in a developing country with the ability and desire to work with teams from different economic and cultural backgrounds and across multiple language barriers.
• Demonstrate proven ability to recognise and appropriately deal with challenging situations and problem solve.
• Demonstrate an awareness of and comfort with increased social and professional responsibility, working at all times with cultural sensitivity and respect.
• Demonstrate the ability, social skills and confidence to give clear guidance and support to other members of the team in respect of the philosophy and procedures of SEED in order to protect both their safety and the reputation of the NGO.
• Be able to work to and advocate for all of SEEDs policies and procedures, safeguarding those that SEED works with and reporting any concerns appropriately.
• Be punctual and be able to work to tight deadlines in an organised manner and to a high standard.
• Be able to work both independently and as part of a team.
• Excellent listening and verbal communication skills and a flexible and patient attitude.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Practicalities

The successful candidate will be able to financially support themselves for the full duration of this post and need to have their own laptop computer (non-tablet).