Global Communities is seeking a qualified Collaboration, Learning and Adapting (CLA) ProgramOfficer for the USAID/Kenya Cooperative Development Program (CDP). The program will be designed to 1) promote the adoption and implementation of cooperative legislation and policies that support and strengthen cooperative businesses (CBs) in 25 counties; 2) strengthen the business acumen and performance of CBs while integrating and empowering youth and women within CBs structures in targeted urban and peri-urban markets in order to increase economic participation and county revenue growth; and 3) improve understanding of the psychosocial behavioral impacts associated with membership in CBs in order to determine whether those behaviors contribute positively to household and community resilience strategies.
The CLA Program Officer will report to the USAID/Kenya CDP Chief of Party (COP) at Global Communities Headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
The CLA Program Officer will be expected to serve as the in-country lead for the development and implementation of a CLA plan under the USAID/Kenya CDP Program. In collaboration with the Program Team Lead and HQ leadership, the CLA Program Officer will engage project staff, project beneficiaries and other stakeholders in identifying, collecting, analyzing and disseminating good practices and lessons learned emerging from program implementation. Specific responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
- Developing a detailed CLA plan in close collaboration with COP and Cooperative Specialist and Team Lead to identify ways to strategically collaborate with key stakeholders, regularly identify and capture lessons learned from the program activities and disseminate them in various platforms such as the program learning website, reports, blogs, and relevant media outlets;
- Facilitating regular knowledge-sharing events through roundtables, workshops, and online discussion forums among program staff, donors and other cooperative stakeholders at the national and county level;
- Coordinating and leading regular stock-taking exercises such as pause-and-reflect sessions, before-action reviews, after-action reviews, and opportunities to give and receive stakeholder feedback;
- Supporting the country team, consultants, key partners, and collaborators in developing a regular pipeline of partner collaboration activities, learning opportunities and adaptation strategy sessions on all aspects of learning;
- Keeping a consistently updated database of partners and stakeholders who enrich the cooperative community of practice and reaching out to them for collaboration opportunities on a regular basis;
- Participating in program research efforts (i.e. participating in survey collection, focus group discussions and post survey debriefs) in coordination with Kenya CDP and Research Partner teams;
- Participation in monitoring and evaluation activities in collaboration with Kenya program team, as needed;
- By drawing on existing and ongoing industry practice and research, support efforts to identify key research questions and engage in the design of studies that generate evidence on best practices and lessons learned;
- Using project-generated evidence, develop innovative thought pieces, publications and products contributing to the technical evidence base in the areas of social capital, cooperatives, CLA and community resilience;
- Ensuring that lessons learned and best practices are documented in innovative formats and that programmatic evidence-based knowledge and evaluations are gathered, extracted, managed and disseminated on an on-going basis;
- Contributing to production of key program reports, blogs and publications drawing on innovative use of technology for maximum consumption;
- Performing administrative duties up to 15% of the time to assist with the writing of reports, communicate with HQ leadership team, and other tasks as assigned.
The duties listed above are not inclusive of all the duties of the position at Global Communities. Global Communities reserves the right to change and update position descriptions at any time.
EDUCATION AND QUALIFICATIONS
- Bachelor’s degree in Communication, Journalism, Public Relations, or related field;
- Creative, results-oriented, and guidance self-starter with preferably at least two (2) years of experience working in progressively junior roles in learning, knowledge dissemination and/or communications in a development, humanitarian, academic, professional network or similar environment;
SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
- Excellent writing skills in English required. Proven ability to draft and publish mid to high-level thought provoking, well researched materials.
- Excellent planning/organizational skills, including the ability to prioritize and manage simultaneous critical tasks;
- Strong ability and history of successfully facilitating outcome-oriented roundtable discussions, networking discussions, workshops and forums, with the aim to contribute to the knowledge management and learning strategies of the program;
- Experience evaluating training and capacity building interventions, and/or experience in evaluation in the co-operative development;
- Ability to process and present information in creative ways to generate appropriate formats for different audiences;
- Ability to build consensus among peers and way forward among peers;
- Ability to meet deadlines under pressure, and work successfully with a diverse team and stakeholders.
- A strong interest or understanding of cooperative enterprises and inclusive businesses a plus;
- Knowledge of USAID’s CLA approaches and tools;
- Ability to travel domestically at least 20% of the time;
- Kenyan National strongly preferred.
LANGUAGE SKILLS
- Fluency in written and oral English and Swahili
WORKING CONDITIONS
- Based in Nairobi office with travel within and outside the country as required to perform duties.
- Able to work at a computer keyboard for extended periods of time.
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