SNV is a non-profit, international development organization, established in the Netherlands in 1965, being present on the ground in developing countries for over 40 years, and now operate in 36 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Balkans. SNV aims at alleviating poverty by enabling those on the lowest incomes to be part of social and economic networks and so increase their income and employment opportunities. More than half of SNV’s work focuses on economic and private sector development. Alongside this, SNV focuses on three sectors – Agriculture, Water, Sanitation & Hygiene, and Renewable Energy. By focusing on three key roles, in combination with our local presence, SNV aims to boost the effectiveness, scale and sustainability of its work in three roles i.e. Advisory services - through which SNV create solutions with local impact; Knowledge networking - which expands knowledge bases for sustainable poverty reduction; and Evidence-based advocacy - which improves the enabling environment.
Background of the assignment:
“Gender and youth Empowerment in horticulture Markets” (GEM) is a project funded by Comic Relief (charity organisation based in the UK). The project is targeting women and youth to be integrated in profitable horticulture values chains. The horticulture sector in Ethiopia is growing and it offers both business and market opportunities for women and youth provided there is a clear program for strengthening this target group. Despite its potential, there are challenges for the further growth of the sector such as access to inputs, finance, value addition, which affect smallholder farmers in general and even more so women. GEM will facilitate women and youth empowerment so that they can enhance their participation in the horticulture sector and increase their benefits accruing from these activities.
Empowering women means addressing the power imbalances that prevent them from fully participating in every activity part of their responsibilities on household or community level. If women are being marginalized, huge inefficiencies result which impacts the welfare of the households. Studies and experience show over and over again that if women’s needs are equally on the agenda as men’s needs, it increases the health, education, productivity and income of the whole family. On top of that, better production and income perspectives help ensuring that more young people stay in farming and related activities.
The overall goal of the project is to enhance women’s and youth’s social and economic empowerment through improved control over assets and benefits from horticulture activities on household level. This means that:
o Cooperative members, with a focus on women, attain higher income and control over income from their horticulture activities;
o Unions and cooperatives improve their performance in output marketing;
o Unions and cooperatives improve the services to their members in a gender balanced way;
o Youth enhance their participation and income in horticulture value chains;
o The communities, unions and cooperatives promote women participation and decision-making power in horticulture value chains.
A. Purpose:
One big part is to coach the gender champions, who are trained during the PALS (Participatory Action Learning for Sustainability) workshops In November 2016 and March 2017. They are the ones sharing the planning tools with their peers and ensuring that gender is addressed in such a way that men and women live and work happily and efficiently together. Next to that the planning tools are introduced at cooperative and union level so that cooperatives and unions vision together with the members what they want to achieve in terms of production and marketing of horticulture crops and how they do this in a gender equitable way. The other main part is to coach the youth in developing and implementing their business plans, developing leadership skills and link them to markets (cooperatives and their members). This means the project officer has:
1) To facilitate the PALS/GALS (Participatory/Gender Action Learning for Sustainability) training in terms of translation and facilitation contextually in order to make sure that the tools/experiences are appropriately delivered, shared and up scaled among the farmers and the cooperatives/unions
2) To follow-up on the champions, the changes they are able to make, what works well, what doesn’t work so well
3) Assist in the youth component of the project: assessing business plans and coaching youth groups in order for their businesses to become profitable
4) To document project lessons and results and compile reports
B. Responsibilities:
The main responsibilities of the project officer are:
· Conduct field visits to gender champions/cooperative sites and monitor their sharing and changes they made at individual and cooperative level
· Assist meetings with champions and cooperatives: to share experiences and to upscale the approach
· Compile reports of all workshops/trainings related to PALS/GALS/FALS in the field
· Co-facilitate gender workshops with gender champions
· Support the business cases of youth groups
· Assess opportunities for youth businesses
· Review business plans of youth groups and help refining them
· Guide the youth groups in becoming profitable and sustainable in their businesses
· Participate in business linkage activities and market information update
· Participate in different business and technical trainings sessions to be familiarized by youth
· Organize project team and management visits to project sites
C. Develop networking, planning, organizing skill in multi actor system and other professional competences
-BSc/MSc in agribusiness, agricultural economics, marketing, sociology or business management or related fields with three years experience
- Good English speaking and writing skills and background in communication
- Prior experience and passion for case writing and documentation
- Knowledge of business planning and management
-Prior experience in working in /or with NGO or related project
- Ability to coach individuals and groups in the achievement of their goals
-Knowledge on gender and youth challenges, specifically in Ethiopia
-Knowledge of local languages is a plus
- Computer literate and knowledge of the use of Microsoft office
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