Agriculture/Livelihood Engineer – WFP Ethiopia

Introduction

The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) is looking for Agriculture/Livelihood Engineer, based in Ethiopia.

World Food Programmes (WFP) is helping Somalia with resilience assistance and it is oriented around efforts to build the ability of people and communities to withstand shocks. They also test mechanism and support structures to lift people out of extreme poverty and reduce food security and malnutrition in the country. Somalia have experience frequent cycles of conflict and natural shocks, as drought.

Duration of the project is 12 months, with start in January 2021, but we can be flexible with the date if needed.

The MSB strives to apply gender equality in terms of recruitment to our roster.

Duties

 Contribute to the implementation of WFP policies, standards, norms and practices ensuring compliance with the wider WFP policies, procedures, guidelines and operations.
 Review policies, standards operating producers and systems for implementing livelihood approaches working with rural communities in the Somali Region of Ethiopia and recommend specific improvements that can be deployed to enhance implementation and align activities to the Government priorities;
 Provide engineering and project management services, apply best practices, standards and innovative technologies that comply with WFP standards and processes to ensure that all infrastructural development activities are of acceptable standards and all agribusiness initiatives are of meaningful profitability to the targeted beneficiaries.
 Provide technical guidance in design, development, planning, implementation, and capacity building for agriculture, livelihoods and/or market systems components of programs. Including (but not limited to) food security programming; household food access; nutrition; household and community resilience; poverty reduction; rural economic development, agricultural development, agribusiness, market systems or value chain development;
 Contribute to the collection, documentation and dissemination of relevant data and information related to agriculture, agribusiness, food value chains and systems, including for example, trends and developments, approaches, impacts, lessons and good practices. contribute to preparation of accurate and timely reporting on outputs to facilitate informed decision-making and consistency of information presented to stakeholders including information for a database and website.
 Support the design of activities that increase smallholder agricultural production and market linkages that lead to increased profitability of on-farm enterprises and ensure that Cooperating partners and all relevant stakeholders implementing these different components are well coordinated to achieve the intended results; Review technical inputs into monthly, quarterly and annual reports based on the notable outputs in the field. Provide content to success stories and other project documents;
 Assist with supervision and management of all agricultural, livelihoods and market development activities while working to identify issues and risks related to project implementation in a timely manner, and provide technical suggestions/advisory services
 Undertake capacity gap needs assessment of the partners and organize capacity building programmes (workshops, training, exchange visits etc.) to address these gaps, especially focusing on storage facilities, construction of irrigation canal and other rainwater harvesting systems
 Contribute towards analysis of project proposals from Cooperating partners to enable effective decision making on project technical feasibility.
 Monitor the implementation of the projects through field visits and provide necessary technical support.
 Work closely with Head of Sub Office and Addis Ababa livelihood/Resilience team, provide technical guidance that support procurement of quality non-food items and ensure they are supplied to the communities for effective implementation of projects.
 Participate in technical or design review, exchange of knowledge and experience keeping abreast of Irrigation, water harvesting technologies and engineering technologies in general, to facilitate implementation of innovative engineering solutions.
 Support building of partnerships with other UN agencies, NGOs & Government to improve synergy and impact of the projects.
 Prepare evidence-based recommendations on measures to improve facilities / infrastructures suitability to operational purpose, safety, and efficiency of structures and equipment including support in development of project guidance materials (e.g. manuals) on project implementation.
 Support the Head of Sub Office and Addis Ababa team in organize field missions for donor/media/Senior WFP management and ensure that WFP staff, partners’ agencies and Government staff are informed on time and provide sufficient relevant information including inputs for donor briefs.
 Represent WFP in meetings and conferences, that focus on livelihoods / resilience building at the Sub office level
 Review items accounting documents for Non-Food Items (NFI) from the partners to ensure completeness and accuracy before submitting to Head of Sub Office for review and onward submission to Addis Ababa.
 Perform other related duties as required.

Qualifications

Experience

At least five years field experience in working at field level implementing community-based development projects


Other knowledge & Skills
 Understanding of community based participatory planning approaches
 Ability to conduct capacity gaps needs assessments and design programmes
to fill these gaps.
 Experience in working in arid and semi-arid parts of Africa, working in Ethiopia will be an added advantage.
 Familiarity with Irrigation, water harvesting technologies and pastoral livelihood approaches
 Excellent communication skills - both written and oral in English
 Skills in workshop facilitation.
 Strong organization and planning skills coupled with good interpersonal skills.
 Good analytical skills; resourcefulness, initiative, maturity of judgment, tact, negotiating skills;
 Ability to work in a team and establish effective working relations with persons of different national and cultural backgrounds.
 Ability to deal patiently and tactfully with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in the following fields; Irrigation Engineering, Water Engineering, or Agricultural Engineering, from a recognized university.
Competent in MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Languages

Fluency in both oral and written communication in English. Knowledge of the local language is added advantage.

Other requriements

In order to be recruited for an international project, you also need to undergo a health examination and MSBs induction course before departure.
If you have a regular employer, you should inform them of your possible involvement with the MSB.

A registration on our roster is initially for three years and as registered you will continuously receive interesting international job opportunities and invitations to stimulating and valuable trainings and exercises.
Employed by the MSB on an international mission you will receive a monthly salary as well as a comprehensive allowances and benefits package, ranging from free home leave travel to access to psychosocial support.
The MSB highly values the well-being of our staff and whilst on mission you will have access to health and safety support from the MSB 24 hours a day.

Profile

•We are looking for persons with a strong commitment towards humanitarian relief and disaster operations.
•It is of utmost priority that you understand, respect and act in the spirit of the mandate and core values of the MSB.
•You must possess a high level of professional and personal maturity together with an ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with colleagues, managers and external partners, such as UN organisation, recipient governments and host populations.
•You are expected to have excellent analytical and communicative skills as well as excellent skills in technical writing, able to talk in public and negotiate with counterpart government officials.
•You must show initiative and take both a hands-on and an analytical approach to tasks and problems.

Contractual conditions

Working with the MSB on international operations means that you are temporarily employed by the MSB. The MSB pays salary as well as a comprehensive allowances and benefits package to field staff on international operations, ranging from free home leave travel to access to psychosocial support. In addition, participants on induction training and relevant specialist training courses receive remuneration from the MSB.
When you are registered on the MSB roster you can continuously receive interesting international job opportunities and invitations to stimulating and valuable trainings and exercises.
A registration on MSB roster is valid for three years. After this period your registration will be evaluated and you may be offered an extended registration. After being registered on the roster you need to conduct the MSB induction training and any specialist training courses required.


How to apply
The MSB applies a policy of equal opportunities to avoid any form of discrimination. We strive for gender balance and qualified women are strongly encouraged to apply.
If you wish to apply for the position please press the apply button and register your details on MyPages. Please note; the information that you provide on MyPages will form the basis for your CV. After registering on MyPages do not forget to apply for the position by submitting your application through MyPages.
It is your responsibility as an applicant to document your skills in a way that allows an objective and qualitative assessment. As a government agency we are subject to the principle of public access to official records. This means that if someone requests copies of application documents, we are obliged to disclose them.

Application deadline

2021-01-07

Point of contact

Sandra Engström
Sandra.Engstrom@msb.se
0046 102405469