Project Officer – Livelihood

Project Officer – Livelihood (SB 4 / Peg 2) (For Nepalese Nationals Only)

LOCATION : Project Implementation Unit, Okhaldhunga, NEPAL
TYPE OF CONTRACT : Other
STARTING DATE : 01-Feb-2024
APPLICATION DEADLINE : 30-Dec-23 (Midnight New York, USA)
POST LEVEL : Other
DURATION OF INITIAL CONTRACT : Till end of November 2024
LANGUAGES REQUIRED : English
EXPECTED DURATION OF ASSIGNMENT : Till end of November 2024
UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

The High Mountain catchments of Nepal are particularly prone to drought, landslides and floods, due to coincidence of seasonal snow melt with the summer monsoon season. In these highly vulnerable mountain regions warming trends are increasing and the impacts are magnified by the extreme changes in altitude. Around 85% of rainfall occurs during the four monsoon months of June to September and results in extensive flooding annually. Climate change is intensifying the monsoon rainfall and increasing snow and glacial melt rates, which is contributing to increased frequency and severity of flood and landslide disasters which result in extensive economic, life and livelihood losses annually. At the other extreme, water scarcity and droughts also pose a threat to the agriculture-reliant livelihoods of these regions. Climate change is increasing the temporal and spatial variability of rainfall and runoff, thus intensifying the problem of excess water during the monsoon and water scarcity during the dry season, increasing economic damages to agriculture, property, and the environment, disrupting lives and livelihoods and threatening food security.

A long-term solution to this climate change problem is to rehabilitate and maintain functional integrity of watersheds that have critical functions of water storage and release, infiltration, drainage control, and soil moisture retention. Using watersheds as organizing units for planning and implementation of natural resource management and resilient livelihood development is an approach to effectively tackle an immediate and long-term climate risk reduction issues, in relation to floods and droughts. Taking watershed management concerns into consideration the proposed LDCF project on “Developing climate resilient livelihoods in the vulnerable watershed in Nepal” will embed Integrated Watershed Management approaches in Nepal through policy and practice at the national and sub-national levels. It will do so through establishing the legislative and institutional framework for integrated watershed management to address climate change induced hazards and introducing and scaling up integrated adaptive watershed management practices covering 844km2 of watershed areas and benefiting 121,606 vulnerable people. The project interventions in the legislative and institutional frameworks will be at national and sub-national level, project investment in adaptive management practices will be done within sub-watersheds of the Dudh Koshi river basin which is vulnerable to floods and droughts.

Against this background, DCRL project wishes to recruit a Project Officer – Livelihood to support the day-to-day results-based implementation of its livelihood activities to ensure the quality and standard service.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall direction of National Project Director (NPD), and National Program Manager (NPM), and day to day supervision of the Field Coordinator (FC), the Project Officer – Livelihood will be responsible for the designing, planning, and results-based implementation of livelihood activities at the field level. The Project Officer – Livelihood will work along with the team members and will be responsible to coordinate and establish the linkages amongst all the project team members, groups, stakeholders, line agencies, and with local and provincial level concerned officials. The Project Officer – Livelihood will provide the timely, accurate, reports to the PMU through the Field Coordinator.

Overall Roles and Responsibilities:

1. Project implementation:

• Develop and provide technical support in livelihood resilience development activities, initiatives in line with the project program strategy including necessary preparation of design, technical support, stakeholder consultation, preparation of terms of reference, concept notes, action plan, identifying appropriate implementation modalities so as to operationalizing activities;
• Develop livelihood options through suitable farming systems, conservation farming, NTFP, green enterprise for the development of resilience of vulnerable communities;
• Design capacity development materials on livelihoods; provide technical support in conducting capacity building, formulation of policies, strategies guidelines, tools;
• Support the development of initiatives and partnerships that facilitate knowledge-management on livelihoods, poverty alleviation and particularly, their linkages;
•  Generates new ideas and approaches, researches best practices and proposes new, more effective ways of doing things;
• Develop an integrated and coordinated plan of action based on proven evidence that identifies demonstrative opportunities of the project activities;
• Develop internal monitoring and operational plan, undertake capacity-development of partners and stakeholders including guidance to area-based staff on field implementation;
• Monitor programs implementation of partners (contractors, consultants, grantees) in accordance with agreements, work-plans, deliverables and timelines;
• Ensure timely and quality progress and financial reporting by partners in line with agreed templates and schedules; review reports; provide feedback to UNDP and partners;
• Provide inputs and feedback to reporting; ensure systematic documentation and filing;
• Oversee the implementation of livelihood-related components of project to ensure the delivery of all the targets with desired outputs;
• Regularly liaise with relevant government institutions, UN agencies, INGOs, NGOs and CSOs to understand ongoing policy initiatives and identify UNDP’s potential role and contribution to policy initiatives;
•  Organize and facilitate training, information-sharing and knowledge-sharing events on the initiative as thematic expert on livelihoods;
• Documents and analyses innovative strategies/best practices/new approaches, formulate case-studies, knowledge management, and dissemination;
• Assesses project performance to identify success factors and incorporates best practices into project work;
•  Monitors specific stages of projects/program implementation and establish the research/evidence based linkages/integration across programs;
• Maintains an established network of contacts for general information sharing and to remain up-to-date on partnership related issues;
• Analyzes and selects materials for strengthening strategic alliances with partners and stakeholders;
•  Play the active role to bring all the project activities with coherent and harmonized relationships among diverse actors through building effective partnerships;
• Review the Action Plan annually, and update and revise corresponding work plans as necessary;
• Plan the actions with close coordination and guidance of the PIU and PMU.

2. Providing quality assurance and support to implement project activities

• Maintain close coordination/linkages with targeted local level agencies, I/NGOs, and CBOs, user groups focusing on livelihood specific on-going work and opportunity for complementarity;
•  Provide backstopping on field activities implemented by local project partners;
•  Provide management and technical inputs to the implementation of the livelihood programme activities and outputs – including organizing and participating in meetings, trainings, workshops and other events and by providing analysis of results;
• Organize and coordinate livelihood specific programme activities aimed to enhance capacity of local partners in compliance against programme and fiduciary standards;
• Take active role to develop and support the overall Monitoring and Evaluation Plan, knowledge management, publications, documentation to capture all the data, information storage, lesson learned and success stories.

3. Monitoring and reporting of field based activities

• Ensure that all project data, information on physical and financial progress are duly maintained transparently, expediently, and effectively in line with UNDP rules and regulations;
• Plan, coordinate and regularly organize joint monitoring of the livelihood specific activities in the field;
• Ensure timely preparation and submission of livelihood specific, and other required reports, as per the requirements of GON, UNDP and Global Environmental Facility (GEF);
• Support to the Project Implementation Unit, for the regular meetings of line agencies, provincial and local level partners, stakeholders groups;
• Facilitate spot checks of the implemented activities at the field level.

4. Develop and maintain strong relationship with government counterparts, user groups and community based organizations

• Establish and maintain good working relationships with key stakeholders, government officials, (provincial and local), non-government organizations, academia and private sectors;
• Maintain close coordination with provincial and local level government, other line agencies, stakeholders in livelihood specific planning, implementation, monitoring (joint) and sharing (reports).

5. Gender and Social Inclusion (GESI) Sensitivity:

• Ensure alignment of programmatic policy, processes and procedures as per the GON, UNDP’s strategy;
• Prioritize selection of consultant process as per the UNDP strategy;
• Provide active support to GESI focal to deliver the results of the project;
• Respect the local community’s culture, diversity, norms and values.

Impact of Results:

Effective delivery of field-based livelihood specific activities in accordance with the agreed work plan; supervise activities; effective coordination and maintaining good working relationship with governments counterparts and all relevant stakeholders; organize capacity needs of community and partner agencies to ensure compliance with UNDP norms; proper documentation and dissemination of success stories and lesson learned for replication of project activities.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Serves and promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Good inter-personal skills;
• Clear and upfront communication skills;
• Treats all people fairly without favouritism;
• Display cultural and gender sensitivity and adaptability;
• Collaborates effectively in a team environment;
• Organized and good with following-up on pending issues and meets deadlines;
• Promote learning and knowledge management/sharing;
• Focuses on delivering results by taking calculated-risks and problem-solving approach;
• Fair and transparent decision making; regularly shares information with team members;
• Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development.

Functional Competencies

• Skills, knowledge and understanding on forest policy, environment policy, climate change policy, agriculture policy, agroforestry policy, water resources policy, and other sectoral policies and harmonize them in line with integrated planning and implementation;
• Demonstrate knowledge and experience in working on policy advocacy, and strong ability to work with local governments, communities, groups, indigenous people;
• Experience in project management, with ability to keep track, deal effectively with problems and fulfil reporting requirement in timely manner;
• Promotes sharing of knowledge and experience, and actively works towards continued learning and development on personal level as well as for supervisees;
• Good practical knowledge of inter-disciplinary development issues;
• Ability to go beyond established procedures and models, propose new approaches which expand the range of projects;
• Strong inter-personal skills, communication, networking, and team building skills; competent in leading teams and creating team spirit, management of inter-group dynamics and conflicting interests of various actors, stimulating team members to produce quality outputs in a timely and transparent manner;
• Strong knowledge / experience in results¬-based management and results–oriented approach to project delivery;
• Demonstrates strong problem solving, numerical and analytical skills;
• Excellent oral communication skills and excellent written communication skills;
• Maturity and confidence in dealing with senior and high ranking members of government and stakeholders;
• Results driven, ability to work under pressure and to meet strict deadlines; remains calm and in control under pressure;
• Has experience working with Monitoring and Evaluation tools;
• Experienced in delivering training and other needed capacity/ institutional building support to a wide range of stakeholders;
• Demonstrates excellent organizational and administrative skills;
• Identifies and communicates relevant information for a variety of audiences for advocating UNDP’s mandate;
• Analyse and selects materials for strengthening strategic alliances with partners and stakeholders;
• Understands and applies fundamental concepts and principles of a professional discipline or technical speciality relating to the position;
•  Possesses basic knowledge of organizational policies and procedures relating to the position and applies them consistently in work tasks;
• Demonstrates good knowledge of information technology and applies it in work assignments;
• Effectively networks with partners seizing opportunities to build strategic alliances relevant to UNDP’s mandate and strategic agenda;
• Assesses project performance to identify success factors and incorporates best practices into project work;
• Monitors specific stages of projects/programme implementation;
• Researches linkages across programme activities to identify critical points of integration.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree in agriculture, forestry, watershed management, natural resource management or related area.

Experience:

• Demonstrated understanding on livelihood development activities with at least 5 years of practical working experience;
• Proven experience in integrating different components of resources management in line with community development, livelihood resiliency development;
• Previous experience with similar UN projects will be an asset;
• Demonstrated understanding of the links between sustainable development, community development, social and gender issues;
• Experience with project development and results-based management methodologies is highly desired/required;
• Excellent analytical, writing, advocacy, presentation, and communications skills;
• Excellent language skills in English (writing, speaking and reading) and in local languages;
• Experience in programme design, monitoring and evaluation is an asset;
• Experience working for the government of Nepal and UN is an asset.

Language Requirements:

• Good knowledge of English, fluency in the language of the duty station.

Tagged as: NGO INGO, Okhaldhunga, Project Officer, UNDP Job Vacancy