Bungoma County Project Coordinator - Soil protection and soil rehabilitation at Sustainet Group

The project aims to improve agricultural production and climate resilience and reduce land degradation through the promotion of conservation agriculture and soil conservation technologies with farmers in the project areas. Sustainet is recruiting a County Project Coordinator for Bungoma County for a period up to end of July 2021, starting mid August 2020 ). The successful candidate will coordinate the implementation of this project in Bungoma County and support the overall project.

Duty station Bungoma with regular travel to Kisumu

Tasks

• Implementation of soil conservation and rehabilitation measures in close coordination with local, state and private service providers (especially advisory services), local water user groups and other initiatives (group-based approaches);
• Support the county authorities in agriculture and natural resource governance in designing and implementing their soil conservation and rehabilitation goals in exchange with local authorities at local and regional levels;
• Planning, design and implementation of biophysical soil protection and soil restoration measures at farm level;
• Coordination of the local NGOs involved in the implementation;
• Quality assurance in the implementation by third parties in accordance with the agreement on the technology packages to be implemented (Conservation Agriculture, Integrated Soil Fertility and Pest Management, Agroforestry etc.);
• Mobilization and support of individual and group initiatives to implement soil protection measures (adult learning principles);
• Promotion of participative processes in the planning and implementation of soil protection measures in water catchment area management;
• Activity monitoring according to specified formats;
• Support digitization and youth employment initiatives as part of the country package.

Qualifications

• Education: Degree (Higher National Diploma or Bachelor) in relevant subject (e.g. agriculture, rural development, natural resources management);
• General professional experience: 5 years of professional experience in the agricultural / rural development sector, as well as in advising local (user communities etc.) and / or municipal structures (e.g. technical services);
• Specific professional experience: 2 years of professional experience in advising agricultural authorities and working with the agricultural advisory service;
• Development cooperation experience: 3 years of professional experience in international development cooperation;
• Other: In-depth knowledge in the areas of soil protection, plant cultivation, access to and use of production resources (e.g. integrated pest management, organic and inorganic fertilization), water catchment area management or similar;
• Expertise in the adaptation of biophysical soil protection measures as well as mulch and ground cover systems (e.g. conservation agriculture) to the respective agro-ecological production systems; Expertise in physical and biological measures to protect against erosion and soil fertility.

Team member soft skills In addition to their professional qualifications, the team members should also have the following qualifications:

• Strong ability to work in a multicultural team with various employer constellations;
• Initiative;
• Strong communication skills. Knowledge and understanding of the local cultural and social and economic conditions and language in Bungoma County will be an advantage;
• Socio-cultural competence: specific working experience with farmers, local groups and county-, ward- and village level government institutions of Bungoma county will be an advantage.
• Experience managing rural development projects with local partners, Partner and customer oriented, efficient action;
• Interdisciplinary thinking.