Household Economic Strengthening Specialist, Nigeria OVC Program

The OVC program will focus on service delivery including: food and nutrition services, health services, economic strengthening services, shelter and care services, psychosocial support services, education/learning services, and protection services.

Position Summary: Pact seeks a Specialist in Household Economic Strengthening for a USAID Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) umbrella grants program in Nigeria. Recruitment is contingent upon successful award of the project. Candidate experience should center on economic strengthening.

Potential activities that the Specialist would develop or support include: • Facilitating access to a full range of economic strengthening options depending on the needs and resources available to households (i.e. market opportunities assessments, group savings, income generation, micro-enterprise development training, other vocational training opportunities, etc.) • Building awareness of key Household Economic Strengthening (HES) concepts and principles among local partner organizations. • Developing and instructing partners in more effective methodologies for identifying appropriate HES interventions for specific households, depending on the needs and resources of specific households. • Establishing and instructing local partners in principles and standards for designing and implementing economic strengthening activities (Applying a growing evidence base to further refine and extend principles and standards, as needed). • Instructing partners to use HES resources, tools, processes and methodologies (including tools to facilitate market assessments, manage group savings programs, access micro-finance, support households to develop and scale-up businesses and identify value chains, etc.). • Facilitating relationships between partners, market actors and organizations with special expertise in HES activities (i.e. micro-finance, micro-enterprise development, etc.). • Inventorying methods and survey instruments for measuring priority indicators along with criteria and guidance to help partners choose appropriate criteria for measuring the effectiveness of HES activities. • Equipping partners with skills and resources to assess outcomes, as well as strengths and weaknesses of HES activities. • Financing pilot or demonstration projects to test and adopt specific HES activities. • Facilitating staff exchanges among partner organizations to foster peer-to-peer learning. • Engaging in regular monitoring visits to evaluate the success of HES activities. • Delivering intensive technical assistance to mentor partners as they re-engineer activities or undertake new activities.

Qualifications: • Effective written and oral communications skills. These are essential to building relationships with donors, host country counterparts, and partner organizations. • Knowledge of local languages a plus. • Ability and willingness to travel. • Flexibility to live and work outside Abuja, potentially in Kaduna or Enugu. • Fluent English language skills, both written and spoken. • Nigerian candidates strongly encouraged to apply.

Education and Experience Requirements: • Bachelors Degree in a related subject area or equivalent work experience required. • Masters Degree or higher in a related subject area preferred. • minimum 5 years of experience. • Experience with OVC development programming.

How to apply:

to apply please visit us at: www.pactworld.org