Technical Advisor I – Community Engagement (RFSA)

Job Summary:

As a member of Ifaa, you will facilitate the achievement of program objectives through coordinating community engagement and capacity building initiatives. You will provide technical advice and support to a range of program design and implementation issues in relation to community engagement and capacity building in line with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices to CRS’ Resilience Food Security Activity (RFSA)/Ifaa program to advance the delivery of high-quality programming to the poor and vulnerable. In addition, you will ensure new community structures such as the  Community Technical Coordination Forum (CTCF) are established and that members of those community structures and other stakeholders receive the appropriate capacity building support. Facilitation of trainings to enhance the performance of groups and ensure their sustainability, such as group dynamics and conflict resolution, leadership and management, financial management, etc.

You will also work with Ifaa consortium members to develop agendas/curricula, conduct trainings and workshops, and coaching appropriate for each group. This role will cut across Ifaa sectors: Agriculture and Livelihood, Health, PSNP System, WASH, IWM+, Gender, Youth and Social Dynamics. In addition, the position holder will work with multiple Ifaa staff to make sure that partners and stakeholders, working with Ifaa have an appropriate community engagement plan in place (including capacity building, localization and subsidiarity) in place.  The overarching goal of Ifaa is Improved food security of vulnerable households in targeted PSNP communities, contributing to a sustained reduction in rural poverty in Oromia. Your advice, knowledge, and support will contribute to determining how effective, adaptive, and innovative CRS programming is within the RFSA/Ifaa.

Job Responsibilities:

• Initiate and lead community engagement and informal community structure capacity building activities (including support community visioning and participation, capacity assessment and capacity building plan) in line with Ifaa program quality principles and standards, donor requirements, and good practices.
• Support the development and contribute to the implementation of Ifaa strategies, standards, tools and best practices in relation to capacity building of informal community structures  and enhance community engagement across structures working with Ifaa.
• Provide advice and support to project teams on community engagement and community visioning strategies, review engagement plans and progress reports.
• Lead Ifaa community structures mapping to track progress, inclusion of women and youth, overlap of Ifaa purposes, and alignment with the PSNP.
• Lead establishment, capacity assessment and capacity building of community technical coordination forum (CTCF) and facilitate buy-in from local governments.
• Lead informal community structures capacity assessment to determine unique support needs as well as areas for capacity strengthening.
• Conduct technical trainings to Ifaa staff to support capacity strengthening initiatives for informal community structures. In addition to ensuring that all Ifaa established community structures receive the appropriate technical trainings.
• Support the facilitation of trainings to enhance the performance of community groups and ensure their sustainability, such as group dynamics and conflict resolution, leadership and management, financial management, etc. Work with other consortium members to develop agendas/curricula, conduct trainings and workshops, and coaching appropriate for each group.
• Collect and analyze program data, capture and share lessons learned and best practices for specific projects to facilitate improvements in decision-making and contribute to the community engagement/local community structure capacity strengthening learning agenda.
• Working closely with Ifaa Gender Officers and Experts to ensure a cross-sectoral approach integrating gender and protection mainstreaming into community engagement.
• Working with Ifaa frontline staff to ensure each informal community structure develop transparent, confidential, and accessible feedback response mechanisms to enhance positive group dynamics and ownership of group activities.
• Prepare Job Aids and necessary materials on community engagement  to allow informal community groups/structures to keep organized records to help with leadership transitions and institutional memory.
• As a cross cutting role, support other sector teams in their efforts in developing capacities of their teams, gov’t stakeholders and project participants around community engagement.
• Supervise and perform ad-hoc inspections of various processes and resources at project sites to ensure timely project activities implementation and adherence to established process standards and procedures.
• Ensure proper tracking of resource use for project activities through periodic budget reviews and follow-up with and assistance to implementing partners.
• Work with local government partners to ensure that GoE officials support the activities of informal community structures. Ensuring government buy-in is essential to continued functionality and effectiveness of these groups.
• Support Ifaa’s M&E team to include capacity building perspective in research, mid-term and end line evaluations with good emphasis on informal community structures and engagements; and include indicators that capture informal community structures capacity and contributions.
• Contribute to maintaining relationships with USAID, peer organizations, research, and other institutions, represent Ifaa in forums around community engagement and  community structures capacity building and share best practices and promote CRS’s work.