County Project Coordinator at Sustainet Group

Duty station: Kakamega with regular travel to Kisumu

Background:

Sustainet Group Limited (SGL) is a consulting company established in Nairobi in 2012. SGL offers development consulting services to facilitate effective agricultural market-oriented and private sector-led development to clients including governments, international development organizations and agro-businesses. As part of our compliance and operational support services (COSS) business, we provide logistic, event management, HR, finance, legal and other management ‘outsourcing’ services to international development organizations and agro-businesses interested in implementing projects and programmes in the region. We also operate the Shiriki House Office Community to offer an effective and collaborative co-working environment for development companies, projects and NGOs sharing our desire to foster commercially viable, environmentally resilient and socially inclusive rural development. We are headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya and operate a Country Office in Kampala, Uganda.

GFA Consulting Group is an international consulting firm based in Germany with a partnership arrangement with Sustainet Group Limited (SGL) for the provision services for the project “Soil Protection and Rehabilitation (Prosoil)” in the counties of Bungoma, Kakamega and Siaya in Western Kenya for GIZ, in close cooperation with the County Governments and WRMA. 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.

SGL is recruiting a County Project Coordinator for Kakamega County for a period up to end of July 2021, starting 1st June 2020 [1]). The successful candidate will coordinate the implementation of this project in Kakamega County and support the overall project.

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 a 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 Kakamega County will be an advantage;
• Socio-cultural competence: specific working experience with farmers, local groups and county-, ward- and village level government institutions of Kakamega county will be an advantage.
• Experience managing rural development projects with local partners, Partner and customer oriented, efficient action;
• Interdisciplinary thinking.
• Depending on Covid-19 related easing of home work and transportation restrictions by the Government of Kenya