CARE is an international NGO with local staff and community partners in more than 90 countries. We create local solutions to poverty and inequality and we seek dignity for everyone every day and during times of crisis. These solutions have a broad range, from clean water to access to education; from
microfinance to ensuring that everyone has nutritious food; from
agriculture and
climate change to
disaster response. CARE puts women and girls at the center of everything we do because they have proven to be the best hope for creating lasting change in the world. Our staff live where they work, which makes us effective at understanding the challenges they face. We’ve been doing this for over 70 years, since World War II. It started with the world’s first CARE Package® of food for the post-war hungry in Europe. Our work today is as important as ever, we believe that poverty and inequality are historic injustices that we can end within a generation, for good. If you share our core beliefs: poverty is an injustice; poverty is solvable; and together, we have the power to end it, join us, and fight with CARE.
CARE is seeking a
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Advisor who’ll be responsible for providing the overall strategic direction and performance of the CARE FSL Sector in South Sudan. The range of duties include playing a critical role in defining the sector’s programs, principles, objectives and operational strategies in line with the country office strategy; setting standards for
program implementation,
monitoring and evaluation; overseeing project planning and budgeting; giving
technical assistance to staff (including recruiting and hiring specialists as needed where required); ensuring collaboration with counterpart agencies; representing the CO to external organizations.
The FSL advisor shall provide technical approaches, guidance and oversight to field teams during the full length off the project cycle. S/he will be responsible for technical
quality assurance for these projects and ensuring that reports from field teams are reviewed and meet the technical requirements and comply with donor guidelines before submission to different stakeholders.
The FSL Advisor will be responsible for new
project development starting with the identification of program initiatives appropriate to both the sector and country office strategies, all the way through submission of quality proposals. The FSL advisor assures synergy among projects within the sector as well as Gender and GBV, Health,
Nutrition and Peacebuilding. The FSL advisor shall represent CARE in all relevant
coordination meetings such as the FSL cluster meetings, donor meetings and line ministry meetings coordinated by the government of South Sudan.
This position is based in Juba, South Sudan with regular visits to other project locations.
Working or volunteering on behalf of CARE often means holding a position of power and trust. CARE has a zero-tolerance approach toward any kind of abuse, exploitation or harassment. We expect all staff, volunteers, partners, interns and consultants to conduct themselves in a way that defends the dignity and respect of every individual. We are all expected to follow the CARE Core Values, which can be found at care.org/about/mission-vision.
Program strategy and development
- Develop and lead the implementation of the CARE Food Security and Livelihoods sector strategy and portfolio.
- Proactively seek new business development in FSL, including cultivating relationships with donors, proposal writing, etc. in line with CO strategy and the CARE mandate to serve the needs of women and girls.
- Provide technical leadership and strategic direction to the team in the development of proposals and program planning.
- In collaboration with the Gender and Protection advisor, ensure mainstreaming of gender & protection in all proposal development, theory of change and budget development.
- Coordinate with program support and finance to ensure adequate budgeting for new initiatives.
- Promote adherence to standards and best practices taking into account the need for local adaptation.
- Ensure that humanitarian FSL needs are identified by planning and coordinating joint, inter-cluster, initial rapid assessments which are adapted to the local context.
- Contribute to the identification of critical issues that require multi-sector responses and coordinate with other CARE South Sudan sectors, with sector working groups and clusters (where applicable) to develop appropriate responses.
- Provide support in negotiation and review of funding contracts.
- Coordinate external technical assistance and draw on the resources of program support in new program development exercises
- Serve as the focal point for donor liaison, in technical areas of FSL, in close collaboration with senior management.
Technical Leadership and Capacity Building
- Provide technical oversight to ensure the quality of CARE South Sudan’s FSL and cash and voucher assistance (CVA) programing and promote adherence to global FSL standards.
- Supervise and support the timely and effective implementation of FSL projects and activities across operational areas, in line with budgets and work-plans.
- Provide technical support to the recruitment of FSL-related staff (i.e. JD review based on existing standard JDs, technical short-listing, technical interviews).
- Coordinate with other CARE South Sudan sectors to integrate livelihoods related activities/ indicators, especially through awareness raising and mainstreaming protection and cash aimed at enhanced well-being and access to food amongst beneficiaries
- Oversee the production of FSL-related research papers including advising on research design and methodology in collaboration with the MEAL team, recruiting required expertise where necessary.
- Regularly assess and strengthen the capacity of CARE South Sudan’s FSL team, ensuring that team members are able to access training and professional development resources appropriate to their capacity gaps/needs.
- Coordinate the dissemination of key technical material and organize trainings with a special focus on standards and best practice.
- Build the technical capacity CARE staff, partners, NGOs and government counterparts as required.
External Representation and Communication
- Establish and maintain communications with key FSL stakeholders (including national, state and county FSL authorities, FAO, WFP, national and international organizations and civil society actors) and engage actively with existing coordination mechanisms.
- Represent the organization in relevant working groups, sector fora, conferences, and high-level meetings and FSL humanitarian cluster meetings.
- Engage proactively with donors and other stakeholders for the purposes if advocacy and fund raising. Ensure strong donor relations with current and potential donors.
- Lead and support the implementation of positioning strategies for CARE, including the cultivation of partners, events, publications / materials, etc.
- Coordinate with CARE’s Global and Regional FSL Technical Advisor(s)/teams and other technical and operational staff. Supply necessary information to ensure timely reporting and communications with CI members, donors, government and other key actors.
- Seek support and technical assistance from relevant technical units at CARE USA or other CARE international partners, as needed
- Support strategic partnerships for advocacy and work effectively in coalitions, networks and social movements, forming and nurturing, research and resource mobilization with peer INGOs, NNGOs, Academic institutions
Monitoring and Reporting
- Work closely with the MEAL team in the monitoring of FSL interventions; ensuring the collation, analysis and sharing of data related to project activities and broader South Sudan food security context for the purposes of designing new interventions, donor advocacy and fund raising.
- Support and design assessments i.e needs assessments, market assessments, livelihood and IPC surveys and conduct in-depth analysis of the data collected through the use of these tools.
- Support the MEAL team and field teams in ensuring that robust monitoring systems are in place and that reviews are undertaken periodically.
- Lead on the review of FSL and CVA components of project reports – contributing both in terms of narrative reporting and data analysis.
- Ensure timely submission of quality donor reports within the FSL portfolio in collaboration with the MEAL team
- Regularly review and improve FSL programming (emergency response, recovery and resilience programming) performance and assess coherence with prevention and mitigation components in other programs/sectors
- Conduct monitoring visits to project locations, develop field reports and follow up on critical issues in a timely manner.
- Participate in grant start-up and close out workshops to ensure collegial understanding of donor expectations and integration of learning from projects in subsequent designs.
Research Innovation and Learning
- Lead on the development of FSL related position, policy and research papers relevant to the CARE South Sudan context.
- Lead in identifying and documenting, lessons and promising practices from CARE’s portfolio for
- Lead in identifying themes for operational research within CARE programming focus and opportunities for collaborative research with other partners.
- Participate in “communities of practice” to remain abreast of latest development and professional norms, upcoming project models, standards, tools and methodologies within FSL sector for inclusion in program development and sharing with FSL teams.
Qualifications:
- Master’s Degree in International Development, Agriculture, Economics or any FSL related field
- FSL program design and development, most notably for UN Agencies such as FAO and WFP, USAID, DFID, ECHO and other bi-lateral donors
- Technical writing for FSL proposals and reports.
- Design and implementation of FSL programs in fragile states and for refugee and IDP populations.
- FSL programming in emergency, protracted crisis, and development settings in the following sub-sectors: General Food and NFI distribution (livestock, seeds and tools), Village Savings and Loans associations (associations (VSLAs), Income generating activities and broader resilience and livelihoods programming
- Eight years’ experience working on FSL programming in humanitarian contexts, including experience of field-level management of complex humanitarian response and resilience programs with proven experience donor-funded projects
- Five years’ experience in a coordination role requiring provision of support to multiple offices/locations/teams
- Two years’ experience working in a fragile state like South Sudan or similar context
- Proven experience of successful capacity-building of humanitarian field staff and partners, with experience in remote training
- Proven experience supporting project teams on full project cycle technical needs (design, implementation, M&E, lessons learned), experience in emergency. or protracted crises setting.
- Excellent communication and writing skills in English
- Strong networking capability
- Ability to organize and facilitate training sessions
- Ability to develop capacity building frameworks and work plans
- Ability to work in multi-cultural teams
- Culturally aware and respectful
- Commitment to CARE core value and principle
- FSL programming experience in refugee contexts
- Experience in gender and protection mainstreaming in FSL programming
