Livelihoods and Food Security Assistant Afghanistan Kabul Central

Purpose of the Job:

The livelihood and food security Assistant (small-enterprise development mentor) will support NRC’s small-enterprise development projects, as well as other livelihoods projects as needed. He/ will work under the direct supervision of Livelihoods & Food Security (LFS) Officer. The assistant will be responsible for providing ongoing business-skills and life skills mentoring young people (in small groups), with the aim of helping them start and run successful small businesses. He will be responsible for helping select the youth enrolled in the programme, mentoring them for approximately 5 months, and ensuring that they spend the start-up cash grants provided by NRC appropriately.

The livelihood and food security assistant/ business mentor will be expected to spend about 90% of his time in the field (in and around Kabul), providing mentoring sessions in small groups near the beneficiaries’ homes, monitoring beneficiaries’ shops/ businesses once they have been set up, accompanying beneficiaries to the bazar to conduct market surveys or buy equipment for their business, participating in community engagement meetings.

For more details please click here: Job Description and NRC Grade Stracture.

Generic responsibilities:

• Adhere to NRC policies, tools, handbooks and guidelines.
• Assist with the implementation of the support function portfolio according to plan of action.
• Prepare and develop status reports as required by management.
• Ensure proper filing of documents.
• Promote and share ideas for improvement of the support function.
• Development of holistic and needs based programmers, including cash-based interventions and marked based programs.

Specific responsibilities:

• Provide business and life skill trainings to beneficiaries enrolled in small-enterprise development project, in small groups (at beneficiaries’ houses or in communal spaces within the community). Helping beneficiaries identify what type of business they want to establish, where, and with who.
• Assist LFS officer in drafting a business plan and budget for this business; spend the start-up cash grants in the most effective way.
• Help LFS team find new clients; develop new products more tailored to the demand, etc.
• Provide Life-skills and business skills training to the BNFs.
• Provide data to day mentoring of BNFs including conflict resolution, communication and presentation skills, etc.

Start up cash grants:

• Help beneficiaries prepare the application for a start-up cash grant from NRC and review the application before submitting it to the LFS team.
• Track how the start-up cash grants are spent and how the businesses are progressing, and regularly report to the LFS team.

Technical mentors:

• Help LFS team  identify and recruit professionals from the sector in which beneficiaries have started businesses (e.g. plumbers, carpenters etc.), who will provide regular technical, sector-specific support to beneficiaries, once they have started their business.
• Organize the schedule for these technical mentoring sessions, by assigning mentors to the appropriate group, and determining how many days of technical mentoring each group needs.
  Help monitor the attendance and performance of these technical mentors.
• Organize beneficiaries into groups for the formal business skills training provided by a specialized business training company.
• Help beneficiaries obtain any necessary administrative/ legal documentation such as a business registration license.
• Liaise/ consult regularly with private sector actors to identify areas with high potential for small business development or employment – in order to properly advise beneficiaries on realistic business development opportunities.
• Maintain clear and up to date records of beneficiaries and activities (beneficiary numbers, locations, contact details, activity progress).
• Ensure proper filing of documents.
• Help the M&E and LFS teams to collect baseline and monitoring data by conducting interviews with beneficiaries and key informants.
• Immediately report any challenges or implementation delays to the LFS Officer – including beneficiaries dropping out of the programme, conflicts between group members which could jeopardize the success of the business, misspending of the cash grants, problems with receiving the cash grants etc.

Generic Professional competencies:

• Minimum 2 years of experience from working as in income generation activities, business mentorship, business development or similar role in a humanitarian/recovery context with i-NGOs or private sector.
• Fluency in both local languages (Pashto and Dari).
• Good understanding of the displacement in Afghanistan.
• Certified business start-up trainers will be preferred.
• Good knowledge of Microsoft Excel and Word.
• Experience establishing and managing a small business.
• Bachelor Degree from economy, business Administration, agriculture, diploma or certification from business management.
• Experience of conducting soft skills training.
• Experience of providing mentorship to mentees particularly for job seekers and start-up businesses.
• Experience  in mentoring youth and people with basic education levels.

Behavioural competencies:

• Planning and delvering results.
• Communicating with impact and respect.
• Handling insecure environment.
• Empowering and building trust.
• Team player & working with people.

We Offer:

• Monthly Salary based on NRC Afghanistan Salary Scale.
• NRC has medical coverage for staff plus 4 dependents. 
• Eid Bonus once per year.
• Leave and Holidays accordingly Afghanistan Labour Law.
• Top up Credit card on monthly basis.