Assistant Livelihoods Officer

Mercy Corps is a global humanitarian aid agency engaged in transitional environments that have experienced some sort of shock: natural disaster, economic collapse, or conflict.


Program / Department Summary 

With funding from USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), Mercy Corps’ Nawiri Program is leading a consortium of Kenyan and international partners on a five-year journey to sustainably reduce persistent acute malnutrition in Turkana and Samburu Counties of Kenya. Through a phased approach that emphasizes evidence gap analysis, as well as partnership, learning, and co-creation, the program takes a robust county-centered design with government leadership, active engagement from communities, the private sector, and civil society. Mercy Corps’ consortium brings together the global leadership, research capacity, technical expertise, and implementation experience necessary to partner with local institutions to test, adapt, and scale evidence-based solutions. Together we will sustainably reduce persistent acute malnutrition for vulnerable populations in Turkana and Samburu counties.

General Position Summary 

The Assistant Livelihoods officer will be a member of the USAID Nawiri Resilient Livelihoods Team and directly responsible for implementing nutrition-sensitive resilient livelihood interventions at sub-county (prioritized wards) level. These include Climate Smart Agriculture (crop and fodder) production, market systems linkages, private sector and financial inclusion support. S/he will work alongside other USAID Nawiri team members in layering interventions for collective impact at household and community level

Specifically, S/he will be supporting small scale irrigated crops & fodder production for diversified household access to nutrient-dense foods, private sector engagement for access to farm inputs & finance, markets linkages, households economic strengthening that aims at increasing sustained access to incomes (financial inclusion), Climate smart agriculture technologies and improved ecological practices that support Natural resources management. The position is based at the USAID Nawiri sub-county (sub-office) office level supporting interventions within the sub-county and prioritized wards - that continuously experience high rates of acute malnutrition. S/He will work closely with relevant county officials, CSOs and private sector players involved in livelihoods and food security & nutrition within their areas of operation.

Success factors for this role include: A technical person with knowledge in agronomy and dry land agriculture production techniques including marketing, farm inputs access and financial inclusion in Kenya ASALS.  S/he must have a good understanding of the interrelationship between natural resources management and agriculture production systems in ASALs. The position requires good understanding of the local context, excellent community mobilization and facilitation skills using local language / dialects.  The most successful Mercy Corps staff members have a strong commitment to teamwork and accountability, thrive in evolving and changing environments and make effective written and verbal communication a priority.

Essential Job Responsibilities 

Program Management

Facilitate community / Household visioning process for resilient livelihoods using community participatory appraisal tools
Coordinate with the Ward/ sub county level of County Government to mobilize actions and ensure effective communication channels.
Coordinate with community leadership to facilitate activity integration and targeting of participants / groups within selected irrigation schemes.
Coordinate with County government to build capacity for poor HHs on appropriate crop production systems and relevant climate smart agriculture approaches and technologies
Facilitate business to business linkages for targeted small scale irrigation schemes / farmers associations / groups that include poor and ultra-poor for increased access to farm inputs, finance and markets.
Facilitate Increased access for poor and ultra-poor HH to productivity enhancement inputs, climate smart agriculture and post-harvest technologies
Facilitate identification of youth and women agri-preneurs and lead support them establish interventions; i.e. establish fruit tree nurseries.
Support small-scale vegetable production gardens utilizing home garden techniques (permaculture) to promote nutrition dense vegetables for enhanced household consumption and income generation targeting poor households
Participate in monitoring and evaluation of project activities
Coordinate with the livelihoods officer to develop activities work plans, directly implement and report for each activity undertaken
Mobilize communities and support SBC initiatives for transformed practices at household level
Coordinate with public and private service providers (crop husbandry, inputs suppliers, aggregators, local financial institutions etc) to reach USAID Nawiri participants.
Collaborate with Nawiri health and nutrition staff to integrate messaging into crop and livestock production training curriculum.

COMMUNITY AND COUNTY ENGAGEMENT 

Mobilize sub-county and ward level meetings with relevant stakeholders.
Lead community engagement and mobilization activities within the Ward(s) of operation
Support the facilitation of planning meetings and workshops with government, NGO, private sector, and community partners to revise and customize implementation plans.
Conduct community mobilization and sensitization meetings with ward and community-level leaders to enhance investment in crop production.

INFLUENCE & REPRESENTATION 

Assist livelihoods and food security officers in activity coordination with local government and other implementers at the Subcounty level.
Participate in planning meetings and workshops with government, NGO, private sector, and community partners to develop and deliver capacity building of farmers
Conduct himself/herself both professionally and personally in such a manner as to bring credit to Mercy Corps and to not jeopardize its humanitarian mission

OTHER

Promote and adhere to the principle and objectives of the project and Mercy Corps.
Participate in other USAID Nawiri livelihoods program activities (Livestock and NRM)
Other duties as assigned.

Organizational Learning  

As part of our commitment to organizational learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve, we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Mercy Corps as well as themselves.

Accountability to Participants 

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

Supervisory Responsibility: N/A

Accountability 

Reports Directly To: Livelihoods and food security officer

Works Directly With: Water resources officer, alternative livelihoods officers, REAP for nutrition officers, Health & nutrition officers, NRM / conflict officer, and Sub-office M&E officers.

Knowledge and Experience 

A Diploma in Agriculture (Crop & Livestock) related field (i.e., Agronomy, Agro-ecology, Horticulture, Dry land agriculture, Agricultural Economics, Agriculture Education & Extension).
Advanced technical certificate holders from reputable institutions plus proven experience of over 5 years will be considered.
Minimum 3 years of direct implementation of agriculture development activities.  Experience working directly with small scale irrigation is an added advantage.
Good spoken and written English required.
Must be able to work independently once in the field and show initiative.
Experience in farmers needs assessment and report writing.
Demonstrable experience in farmers training and community mobilization
Experience in community participatory appraisal tools
Practical experience in partnership building and collaboration with government and other partners
Computer and basic administrative and organizational skills is a plus.
Willingness to travel extensively throughout the project area.