Economic Empowerment Officer

Scope of Work

The Economic Empowerment Officer will be responsible for lead all aspects of the formation of community groups of Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs), Managing and delivering the principle to the community and teach the members of the groups to acquire skills on the day to day operations and book-keeping. The IRC seeks to build community access to capital and later get involved in small entrepreneurships and livelihoods. Economic Empowerment Officer will encourage the efforts and support the startups and expansion of entrepreneurs and aid clients in developing their businesses plans, distribution of startup grant, acquire skills and gain access to finance. You will also responsible for mobilizing the community, leading trainings on business and life skills, and providing ongoing support to these community savings groups.

Major Responsibilities

• Developing detailed activity plans in line with program objectives, ensuring that those plans are implemented and any expected delays and/or modifications are communicated and raised in a timely manner with line Manager.
• Support small business owners to develop business plans, including providing inputs in the IRC cash grant application process.
• Provide training sessions and Business Development Services/business coaching to micro-entrepreneurs/ERD program beneficiaries.
• Contribute to development of program related documents including Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for micro-enterprise support, as needed.
• Supervise and participate the selection process of beneficiaries, review business plans and conduct social & technical feasibility for selected business.
• Ensure effective mobilization of communities to participate in VSLA and entrepreneur skills training activities.
• Identify new Community Based Trainers (CBTs) and train them on VSLA methodology and rules; Plan with and supervise CBTs in training VSLA on methodology and principles.
• Conduct regular monitoring and visits to VSLAs, collect data from VSLA groups on a monthly basis and enter it to the database.
• Supervise and data management of the VSLAs' sessions operations data collection and entry in the tracker database.
• Support monitoring and evaluation for business skills training and business support activities.
• Conducting market and area related assessments and data collection, while participate in the design and implementation, supervise teams and ensuring accurate and standard methodologies.
• Project related reports as required by line manager.

Coordination & Representation:

• Build and maintain respectful and constructive relations with partner organizations, local authorities and humanitarian actors.
• Attend field level meetings when required and providing detailed reports to the line Manager as the need arises.
• Close coordination with Food Security & Agriculture (FSAC) cluster and Cash & Market working group (CMWG).

Other duties:

• Other duties as assigned by the supervisor to enable implementation of the IRC programs.
• Raise Purchase requests as and when required.
• Work constructively within the team and lead initiative on new tasks.
• Promptly report concerns or incidents to the IRC management and collaborating closely with community leaders and other external parties as the need arises to maintain/improve the security environment for the ERD program.
• Coordinate with the MEAL & CRA staff and the wider ERD team as necessary to identify program quality issues. Maintain open and professional relations with team members, promoting a strong team spirit and providing oversight and guidance to enable staff to successfully perform in their positions.