Program Officer – Community Development and Livelihoods (Lodwar). at Practical Action Kenya

As part of its climate resilience strategy, Practical Action supports vulnerable communities in partnership with stakeholders to implement adaptation interventions in Turkana County. In this regard, Practical Action seeks to recruit a capable and focussed Program Officer within its Program to be based in Lodwar, Kenya.

Under the overall supervision of the Project Manager/ Area Coordinator, the incumbent will be responsible for the technical expertise on approaches and methods for organizing broad scale community engagement and support for the EWASSA project. Through his/her work the Community Development and Livelihoods Officer will seek to increase community (local authorities and beneficiaries) involvement through working with all institutional arrangements agreed upon in the project. The selected candidate will also provide inputs to the development of training materials relevant to community mobilization.

S/he will be expected to directly support the development of community resilience and work with technical experts within the organization.

The main responsibilities of the Community Development and Livelihoods Program Officer will include but not limited to the following:

Project Implementation, Reporting and Learning

• Directly implement the project interventions and ensure the active and meaningful participation of men, women and youth in resilience interventions
• Support community led initiatives and ensure timely, quality delivery of program activities as designed
• Identify and profile potential candidate communities for climate change adaptation work through climate change vulnerability, capacity and risk assessments.
• Directly capacity build, mentor, train and empower communities in the project location areas ensuring that support to the communities is timely and as per project expectation. Building partnerships with Project stakeholders and partners
• Lead the work to expand cooperation between communities and the local authorities for the implementation of the project and to ensure local needs, priorities and initiatives are integrated into the planning of the local authorities
• Ensure close coordination with the activities of other development actors within the project area
• Ensure awareness about project priorities, strategies and approaches

Achieving Change Ambitions

• Play a role in contributing to Practical Action’s change ambitions and the Strategic Business Plans.
• Apply a community focused lens to analyze the nature, causes and scale of the problem we want to address, using a systems approach.

As an experienced Community Mobilizer, you will be a holder of a First degree in Community development/disaster risk reduction/Climate change/Development studies or any other relevant qualification from a reputable university or institution. A diploma in these will be considered with relevant work experience of minimum 3-5 years’ in NGOs on community mobilization. Ability to work with, support and influence others and ability to innovate, initiate and accept challenge with fluency in both English and Swahili are essential. Good understanding of the local language (spoken & written) will be an added advantage while experience working with multi-faceted teams and coordination with government, donors, partners and multilateral agencies coupled with excellent networking and communications skills is desirable.