Junior Community-Based Planning Officer
Internal/External Vacancy Announcement #173/2018
GIZ- SDR Programme
Background
As an international cooperation enterprise for sustainable development with worldwide operations, the federally owned Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH supports the German Government in achieving its development-policy objectives; and in Ethiopia, GIZ has been working for more than 40 years in bilateral cooperation on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and on commission of the Ethiopian government and international donors.
The Strengthening Drought Resilience (SDR) support Programme of GIZ was initiated in 2013 as a response to the Ethiopian Government’s appeal to end drought emergencies. Thus, SDR Program is closely linked to the Country Programming Paper (CPP) to End Drought Emergencies in the Horn of Africa and anchored in the over-arching Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP). This programme is implemented under the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Resources (MoALR), the respective decentralised bureaus and the GIZ.
The SDR-Programme of GIZ supports the Ethiopian government’s endeavours to strengthen the drought resilience capacity of pastoralists and agro-pastoralists in selected pilot areas in Afar and Somali regions, by allowing them to adapt their livelihood system to a changing natural and socio-economic environment context in order to get a higher and more secured income.
For its SDR program activities, GIZ is looking, for a Junior Community-Based Planning Officer as per the detail below: -
Position: Junior Community-Based Planning Officer
Place of Work: Afar (Chifra / Gullina)
Required Candidate: One
Application deadline: November 13, 2018
Responsibilities:
· The key responsibility of the local planning (junior) expert, will be to support public service providers (Development Agents, DA) and communities in the development of local activity plans for natural resource management, which feed into planning processes at Woreda level.
· The expert will support participatory processes and further introduce Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools on the local level with the communities.
· Through the facilitation and support of the planning process, the expert will promote the rehabilitation of degraded soils and prevent further erosion by supporting User Agreements for resources and identifying suitable measures.
· The expert will strengthen resource mapping exercises to support site selection for technical interventions under the responsibility of PADO and SDR.
· The expert will identify with the public service providers and the community options for land use as well as complementary vegetative measures before and after the physical rehabilitation to secure rehabilitation structures and spread the effects.
· The activity plans will entail maintenance by the community, e.g. through user groups, which shall derive benefits from the structures.
· The expert will support coordination of the activity plans between the responsible Kebele and Woreda officials to feed them into their development planning processes.
· The expert will coordinate with the SDR land use planning team, in order to integrate bottom up / local activity planning with landscape planning processes at Woreda and regional levels.
Tasks:
· Support to community sensitization activities (in coordination with community facilitators)
· Support implementation of PRA tools which have proven useful in the pastoral context
· Support data collection on production systems, traditional land use patterns, socio-economic baseline data etc. during the community discussions
· Support to data collection for land use planning and transfer of data to next higher administration level
· Facilitation of community meetings and development of community activity plans regarding natural resource use and protection
· Discuss and support development of by-laws with the communities on land use options for sustainable natural resource usage
· Support implementation in coordination with GIZ technical teams (livelihoods, engineering) according to community activity plans
Competences:
· Knowledge of natural resource management processes and erosion control
· Educational background to support land use options (e.g. agriculture, agronomy, NRM, rural development)
· Practical experience with area-based planning processes implementation of participative rural appraisal (PRA) methods
· Practical experience in the technical production of data, spatial data and maps/plans
· High degree of initiative, integrity and accountability
· Capacity of team work with internal and external partners
· Good communication skills
· Willingness to travel frequently in the project region and to work under challenging conditions
Qualifications and Experience:
· University degree in social sciences, agriculture, agronomy, NRM, rural development or related matters
· Minimum of 3 years proven practical experience in community sensitization and facilitation of planning processes
· Previous work experience in the dryland / agro-pastoral context,
· Work experience in Afar is considered an asset
· Basic knowledge of spatial data and GIS
· Fluency in Amharic, fluency in Afarina is considered a strong asset
· Good level of English language is considered an asset
· Previous experience in working with international development organisations, in particular German Development Cooperation, is considered an asset