Senior Project Officer- Agriculture- West Pokot- Kenya At ACTED

Department: Project Implementation

Position: Project Officer (Agriculture)

Contract Type: Fixed

Duty Station: Kapenguria with regular travels to the field

Starting Date: November, 2021

ACTED background:

ACTED is a French humanitarian NGO, founded in 1993, which supports vulnerable populations, affected by humanitarian crises worldwide. ACTED provides continued support to vulnerable communities by ensuring the sustainability of post-crisis interventions and engaging long-term challenges facing our target populations, in order to break the poverty cycle, foster development and reduce vulnerability to disasters. Their interventions seek to cover the multiple aspects of humanitarian and development crises through a multidisciplinary approach which is both global and local, and adapted to each context.

Job purpose: The Project Officer ensures the implementation of agriculture project activities and prepares written materials and progress reports on agriculture field activities. He/she contributes to effective and timely completion of agriculture activities, delivery of quality outputs and achievement of outcomes with maximum impact for beneficiaries. He/she reports directly to the Project Manager and works closely with the field team.

Main Objective

To implement agriculture activities in a timely and professional manner, according to objectives, goals and indicators and in line with donor requirements and based on beneficiary needs.

1. Duties and Responsibilities

1. Programming

1.1 Project Planning

a) Prepare the work plan and time schedules for implementing the agriculture activities;

b) Support the identification and planning of technical skills and requirements to implement the project as per relevant standards.

1.2 Project Implementation Follow-up

a) Coordinate and implement day to day agriculture activities with stakeholders in field ensuring that technical quality and standards are considered and respected during project(s) implementation;

b) Ensure agriculture activities are on time, target and budget, using effective M&E systems to reach desired impacts;

c) Assist the Project Manager to trouble-shoot any unforeseen challenges during the project implementation;

d) Provide regular and timely updates on progress and challenges to the Project Manager and other team members;

1.3 Documenting and Compliance

a) Keep record of all agriculture activity documents, in particular beneficiary list, completion certificates, attendance sheets, etc.;

b) Help maintaining a beneficiary master database containing all beneficiary registration and baseline information as well as the agriculture activities from which the beneficiaries benefited ensure the data is protected from misuse in line with ACTED’s data protection policy;

c) Ensure staff awareness of, and respect of, ACTED’s code of conduct, FLATS procedures and donor requirements.

1.4 Beneficiary Engagement and Accountability

a) Adhere to ACTED’s Code of Conduct and treat all beneficiaries with respect and without any distinction or discrimination based on nationality, race, ethnicity, tribe, gender, religious beliefs, political opinion or disability;

b) Select the beneficiaries benefiting from agriculture activities;

c) Communicate ACTED’s Complaints and Response Mechanism target communities and participate in solving complaints related to the project in coordination with the AMEU.

1.5 Internal Coordination

a) Participate in project coordination meetings with the whole project team.

1.6 External Coordination and Stakeholder Engagement

a) Undertake communication and liaison activities to actively consult and involve beneficiaries, key informants, actors, partners and stakeholders in all stages of project design and implementation;

b) Cultivate good relations with key humanitarian actors – local and international, including government authorities and non-state actors, through regular attendance at technical meetings and bilateral meetings;

c) Identify opportunities to collaborate and coordinate efforts with other organizations to ensure our activities build upon – rather than replicate – the work of others.

1.7 Partner Management

a) Provide support to partners in project implementation and ensure timely and qualitative implementation of projects by partners in line with ACTED and donor requirements;

b) Refer partners to relevant ACTED staff to support and/or train them in FLATS procedures where relevant;

c) Participate in review meetings with partners, with particular attention given to the relationship aspects of partnership collaboration, and ensure that any issues or disputes are resolved in a timely manner.

1.8 Security

a) Ensure that each member of the agriculture team is aware of security issues, policies, SOPs and they follow them accordingly.

2. Human Resource

a) Participate in the recruitment of agriculture technical staff (development of organigrams, ToRs, elaborating the tests and reviewing them; interviews etc.);

b) Ensure that agriculture staff understand and are able to perform their roles and responsibilities;

c) Follow-up the work plans and day-to-day activities of the agriculture staff;

d) Manage the project staff in cooperation with the Project Manager;

e) Ensure a positive working environment and good team dynamics among [sector] staff;

f) Ensure capacity building among staff in agriculture.

3. Logistics

a) Contribute to the development of procurement plans;

b) Send accurate and precise order forms in a timely manner;

c) Ensure a proper management and use of the project assets and stocks;

d) Plan agriculture team movements based on available fleet and applicable policies

4. Finance

a) Forecast monthly cash requirements for [sector] activities and submit to the PM

5. Quality Control

a) Assess the agriculture activities undertaken and ensure efficient use of resources;

b) Undertake regular field visits to provide technical guidance and supervision as well as regularly monitor the progress of agriculture activities;

c) Assists with monitoring the agriculture activities implemented by partners (if any) in the field;

d) Document lessons learned and best practices and share them with the Project Manager so they can be reflected in project planning and decision making.

6. Grant Management

a) Ensure adherence to donor procedures by project staff;

b) Support the Project Manager in the preparation of progress and final reports, ensuring the quality and accuracy of technical information for [sector] activities

c) Participate in communication activities through the regular collection of pictures and stories related to project activities;

d) Participate in new proposal development processes through the provision of expert programmatic advice related to contextual knowledge.

1. Other

a) Offer technical support and inputs to other projects in similar sectors (e.g. BOQ design);

b) Any other tasks as assigned by the Line Manager.

Requested profile

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent in agriculture, drylands farming and agronomy.
• At least 3-5 years of relevant experience in a related position preferably in an international (development) context with good appreciation of agriculture sector;
• Demonstrated experience in Agriculture management in an NGO/INGO is highly preferable.
• Able to manage a high workload and meet tight deadlines
• Good numerical, report writing and administration skills; committed to consultative and servant-minded leadership; able to set clear objectives for staff and to delegate; able to enforce procedures
• Knowledge and understanding of humanitarian standards
• Ability to train, mobilize, and manage national staff
• Flexibility and ability to multi-task under pressure
• Good inter-personal skills, commitment and motivation
• Ability and willingness to travel to other regions where ACTED is operating when requested