Markets and Cash Adviser at Concern Worldwide

Job Title: Markets and Cash Adviser

Reports to: Senior Adviser Food and Nutrition Security & Livelihood Team Lead

Liaises with: Other units in the Strategy, Advocacy and Learning department, Country Offices, International Programmes and Emergency Directorates

Manages: N/A**

Job location: This position is based in Dublin HQ (remote working for COVID). The position qualifies for a base location outside of Ireland (assessed on critical skills required). Therefore an exception may be made for the successful candidate to be based in the UK (and work from our office in London – remote working for COVID).

Substantial (30%) overseas travel is a part of this role

Pay Band: Band 5 (Adviser) €49,167 – €57,843**

Contract: Permanent**

Job Purpose:

Concern Worldwide is a non-governmental, international, humanitarian organisation dedicated to the reduction of suffering and the elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries. Concern is headquartered in Dublin with other principal offices in London, New York, Belfast, Seoul and in each of the countries of operation.

Concern Worldwide works to develop and scale up effective, evidence-based interventions to promote sustainable livelihoods, particularly among the extremely poor and vulnerable. The organisation actively supports integrated programmes in 25 countries in the Livelihoods, Health (including WASH and nutrition) and Education sectors. Concern currently supports livelihood programmes in emergency, transition and development contexts in all countries of operation.

The Markets and Cash Advisor will sit within the Strategy, Advocacy and Learning (SAL) team and closely liaise with the other Livelihood Advisers in the head office (Agriculture, Food Security, Social Protection, Climate and Environment). The adviser’s primary responsibility is to ensure that Concern country programmes are enabled to deliver high-quality Markets and Cash interventions. S/he will be expected to provide high quality technical support to Concern’s Market Systems Development work across the range of countries in which Concern works—emergency, fragile/ transitional and stable development contexts— with a special focus on the inclusion of those living in extreme poverty. S/he also contributes to organizational learning through documentation of best practices and development of tools/ resources designed for Concern programme staff in the field.

The Markets and Cash Advisor will be an active part of Concern’s global Livelihood team. Up to 30% international travel is anticipated for this position. Focal countries currently include Bangladesh, Burundi, Chad, DRC, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Lebanon, Malawi, Niger, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria (but are subject to change).

Key Responsibilities:

• Provide technical and strategic support to country teams on multi-sector market-based programmes, private sector engagement, and cash transfer programmes to ensure programmes are designed, implemented, monitored and evaluated to ensure optimum impact on the extreme poor.
• Provide technical direction to the organisation in terms of its policy and strategy on market-based programmes and how best to engage with the private sector, in line with international policies and best practice.
• Build the technical capacity of Concern and partner staff through formal training, webinars, remote mentoring, and production and sharing of key technical resources to support the transition to market based approaches.
• Synthesize and document practical evidence and learning from our programmes; identify ways to apply it in a timely fashion to improve policy and practice within and beyond Concern.
• Support and develop relationships across Concern’s various departments and with agencies, including research institutes, technical working groups and represent Concern in national, regional and international fora as required.
• Support Fundraising and the New Business Development Directorates to develop relationships with donors and support the development of new proposals in line with the organizational strategic plan.
• Support the Advocacy unit to feed into international policy discussions related to market systems development including the provision of cash and voucher assistance.
• Support the prioritization, design, implementation and dissemination of operational research undertaken within Concern programmes – in collaboration with field teams and research partners.
• Support the recruitment of country programme staff and engage in multi-sectoral/ inter-departmental initiatives such as staff induction, M&E guidance, etc.
• Potentially be deployed to support emergency responses for up to six weeks.

Skills and Experience Required:

Essential:

• A postgraduate degree in economics, food security, entrepreneurship, business, finance or related field.
• A minimum of five years’ experience working in the area of market development, private sector engagement, cash transfer programmes in an NGO, development agency or the private sector, three of which should have been based in a developing country in Sub Saharan Africa or Asia.
• Experience in various approaches and tools used in market and cash transfer programmes such as market and value chain analysis, income generating activities, community-based saving and loan groups, and business and vocational training and how it fits within the wider framework of promoting resilience and livelihood security.
• Strong understanding of the barriers extreme poor face when interacting with markets; and programmes aiming for financial inclusion of the extreme poor.
• A strong understanding of inequality issues in relation to food security and livelihoods programmes and practical ways to promote gender equality within them.
• Ability to work both as part of a team and independently. Adaptable to evolving work priorities and schedules.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication, and writing skills in English and French.
• Prior experience in emergency, conflict settings, or fragile states.
• Ability to travel internationally up to 30% in poor and fragile contexts, sometimes on short notice.

Desirable:

• Experience working across sectors including social protection, livelihoods, nutrition, health, and WASH for identifying the multiple needs that can be met through cash and market based assistance in humanitarian and development contexts.
• Experience working on Early Warning Early Action (EWEA) and the role cash and market-based assistance can play building community resilience.
• Experience working on poverty reduction programmes such as graduation.
• Experience working with research institutions, and relevant national and international institutions and networks. Experience working with private sector actors is considered an asset.
• Experience with measuring the impact of Market-Based Programmes e.g. through multi item indicators such as the material deprivation index.
• Prior work experience with Concern either in one of the head offices or country programmes.

Concern has an organisational Code of Conduct (CCoC) with three Associated Policies; the Programme Participant Protection Policy (P4), the Child Safeguarding Policy and the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Policy. These have been developed to ensure the maximum protection of programme participants from exploitation, and to clarify the responsibilities of Concern staff, consultants, visitors to the programme and partner organisation, and the standards of behaviour expected of them. In this context, staff have a responsibility to the organisation to strive for, and maintain, the highest standards in the day-to-day conduct in their workplace in accordance with Concern’s core values and mission. Any candidate offered a job with Concern Worldwide will be expected to sign the Concern Code of Conduct and Associated Policies as an appendix to their contract of employment. By signing the Concern Code of Conduct, candidates acknowledge that they have understood the content of both the Code of Conduct and the Associated Policies and agree to conduct themselves in accordance with the provisions of these policies.

Your Personal Data

During this job application, you will provide Concern with your personal data. Concern takes its responsibilities towards this personal data very seriously and is committed to complying with all relevant data protection legislation.

Concern receives a substantial amount of funding from external donors each year. Increasingly donors are introducing requirements whereby future funding is conditional on ensuring that the name of any employee or volunteer (existing or new), does not appear on terrorism lists generated by the European Union (List of person, groups and entities to which Regulation (EC No. 2580/2001 applies), the US Government (Office of Foreign Assets Control list of specially designated Nationals and Blocked Persons) and the United Nations (Consolidated List).

Any offer of employment (either paid or voluntary) with Concern Worldwide will only be made following a successful clearance check being conducted on the applicant and such checks may be updated periodically during the course of the period of employment.

By submitting a formal application for paid or voluntary employment to Concern, you agree to Concern carrying out a clearance check as outlined above and that Concern will not proceed to recruit you should your name appear on any of the aforementioned lists**

In certain circumstances, donors may request that personal data relating to employees to work on the activities that they fund be provided directly to them – so that they can perform their own counter terrorism checks. This may involve transferring some basic personal data outside the EEA. It will be a condition of your employment contract that Concern be allowed to share this information with institutional donors for these purposes.

For additional information please consult our web site or contact the Human Resource Division in our Head Office.

You have certain rights under data protection legislation. For more information on how to exercise those rights please visit www.concern.net/about/privacy

Please only apply for this position if you are satisfied with the proposed processing of your personal data as outlined above.