Job Title: Climate Resilience & Livelihoods Advisor

Reporting to : Manager of Programme Quality, Uganda

Location: Uganda, based at the ZOA office in Kampalla

Starting date: early-mid June 2024

Purpose of the position

The Climate Resilience & Livelihoods Advisor will be responsible for the development of high-quality implementation strategies, planning, and monitoring, providing technical expertise in climate resilience & livelihoods for the ZOA Uganda programme.

Technical support areas include: crop production, agri-business development and agriculture-related income generating activities, skilling, green energy, financial inclusion, Climate Smart Agriculture, Sustainable Land Management, Natural Resource Management, and Nature Based Solutions.

The Advisor will ensure the integration of climate resilience into non-CRL specific programming such as Education and Land Rights. The Advisor will be a champion for “greening” of ZOA Uganda’s operations internally.

The Advisor contributes to the development of high-quality proposals demonstrating technical integrity and expertise in climate resilience and livelihoods. The Advisor also reviews and contributes to ensure timely and impactful reporting on projects. They lead representation of ZOA Uganda in relevant technical fora, foster collaborative relationships with local partners and donors, and raise the profile of the organisation’s work in this area.

The Advisor is critical in supporting the achievement of ZOA’s global strategy and ZOA Uganda’s country strategic annual plan.

Place in organisation and characteristics of the role

The Advisor will be a member of the Programme Quality team within ZOA Uganda. He/she is in regular contact with the Programme Managers of ZOA’s regional offices in West Nile, Acholi and Karamoja Regions, as well as Project Managers managing ZOA CRL projects. The Advisor will have regular contact with counterparts in ZOA HQ and in other ZOA countries, to ensure alignment with ZOA policies, and share learning and thought leadership across the organisation.

The Advisor will be based in Kampala, regular visits to project locations and other districts are anticipated, for several days at a time.

The role is full time, at an average of 40 hours a week. Some flexibility on working hours is required, e.g. for travel at weekends or when there are tight deadlines.

Detailed responsibilities and activities

Programme quality

• Provides high quality technical support to the implementation of ZOA Uganda’s climate resilience, livelihoods, food security and renewable energy and environment programme; supporting projects throughout the project management cycle, including technical review of procurement tasks, workplans, and activity descriptions;
• Develops and upholds a coherent ZOA Uganda CRL strategy in line with national and/or international trends, approaches and standards.
• Promotes innovation in the CRL sector through varied partnership models
• Provides additional oversight to high-risk activities in the CRL sector to ensure technical integrity throughout implementation
• Produces technical guidelines and tools as required to facilitate technically sound implementation
• Provides direction and support to the design, testing, and evaluation of innovations to advance CRL programming
• Supports project teams to integrate climate resilience approaches into their implementation

Learning and capacity strengthening

• Contributes to the development and implementation of CRL Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEAL) plans
• Contributes to learning and knowledge development for ZOA (worldwide) specifically related to CRL with a specific focus on food security and livelihoods, crop production, agri business development and agricultural related income generating activities, skilling, green energy, and climate resilience, NRM and SLM
• Builds capacity of CRL project staff on key project concepts and build capacity and ensures capacity strengthening of co-implementing partner(s) in line with identified needs;
• Rolls out the Environmental Stewardship Tool (EST) across ZOA Uganda projects
• Recommends strategic training opportunities for project staff.
• Stays abreast of technical developments in the CRL field,
• Leads or participates in maintaining updated capacity statements, program descriptions, or other documentation useful in articulating CRL approaches and achievements

Proposal development

• Identifies new funding opportunities for ZOA Uganda;
• Leads or participates in development of high quality CRL project proposals;
• Collaborates with, Programme Managers, Project Managers, Field based staff, and finance department for proposal development.

Reporting

• Reviews, and where required leads, the writing of donor reports in line with contractual obligations;
• Contributes to ZOA’s quarterly and annual reports, the annual Country Plan (CP), and new strategy development (the current country strategy runs 2023-2025).

Stakeholder management

• Builds and upholds relationships with key CRL stakeholders in Uganda
• Represents ZOA Uganda externally in relevant CRL planning and coordination meetings, specifically at national level – e.g. the Sector Working group and applicable task teams.
• Links with stakeholders active in ZOA’s sectors and promote ZOA’s approaches

Localisation

• Leads on the identification of strategic local partners working in CRL
• Initiates and builds partnerships with local partners for collaboration on proposals and implementation
• Provides capacity building in technical livelihood, food security and climate resilience areas to local partners
• Documents successes and lessons learned in localisation, climate resilience and livelihoods

Other activities

• Champions greening of ZOA Uganda’s operations internally
• Provides input to communication and visibility efforts, e.g. online, printed materials, ZOA’s international website;
• Supports the recruitment of project staff; when necessary reviewing the job descriptions, participating in job interviews;
• Any other duty assigned by the Manager of Programme Quality or Country Director.

Who you are

Knowledge and experience

• Bachelors or Masters degree in a relevant sector;
• Minimum of seven years’ work experience in a relevant sector, including at least one year in a similar position;
• Strong background on livelihoods specific to climate resilience, including for example crop production, agri-business developmnet, agricultural-related income generating activities, renewable/green energy, green skoilling, natural resource management, sustainable land mangaement, Nature Based Solutions;
• Understanding of the local context, culture and language(s);
• Experience with implementing projects funded by institutional donors is an added advantage
• Having worked in projects/consortia in collaboration with (local) partners is an added advantage;
• Excellent spoken and written command of English.

Skills

• Excellent facilitation, communication skills and writing ability;
• Innovative, creative and enthusiastic;
• Provides regular feedback, acknowledges success and the need for improvement with colleagues;
• Result oriented and possession of learning power;
• Good computer skills: Ms Excel and Ms Word;
• Self-motivator, able to take initiatives with limited supervision.

Attitude/behaviour

• High level of personal integrity;
• Flexibility and adaptability;
• Interpersonal and cross-cultural sensitivity;
• Able to work under pressures and meet deadlines;
• Able to work in a sometimes fluid and innovative environment;
• Commitment to ZOA’s mission, vision and values (see https://www.zoa-international.com/corporate-identity)