Research Officer at International Rescue Committee

General Responsibility

Responsible for maintaining program quality and compliance across all business enterprise activities, ensuring program approaches are clearly documented, understood by the program teams and implemented including conducting direct business skills training to clients and guiding clients in developing business plans.

Detailed Responsibilities

• Train program beneficiaries/clients on Business skills and life skills
• Support beneficiaries in developing business plans to be funded.
• Prepare payment list and verify MPESA or bank details of the clients to ensure funds are transferred to the correct recipients.
• Support Research monitors in planning and monitoring client’s business and implementing the Randomized Control Trial (RCT) interventions as per the study protocol.
• Follow up on clients whose businesses have been funded to offer support in areas of business sustainability and other areas of concern.
• Liaise with the protection team to ensure refugees who are facing protection challenges are supported.
• Prepare periodic reports of progress of program activities.
• Assist in context and stakeholder mapping and analysis to contribute to the conceptual development of Livelihoods Resource centers and mobile services.
• Help conduct outreach to community and local leaders, private sector partners and other stakeholders as directed by ERD management.
• Deliver training material to clients as the main trainer/facilitator, and schedule other trainers as necessary for specific cohorts or sessions.
• Support other program staff in delivering business and life skills sessions.
• Working with and training program staff to register clients, recommend clients for placement in RCTs
• Provide introduction sessions to RCT (micro enterprise) clients, including on attendance requirements and protection related issues, drawing in other staff as necessary
• Conduct bi-weekly meetings with beneficiaries in the form of calls, interviews or focus group discussion as appropriate. Helps ensure that payment of beneficiaries is accurately processed.
• Under the direction of the Senior Research Officer /Manager, conduct individual business development sessions with clients and coach them through the development of a business plan and grant application where applicable.
• Support monitoring of activities, conducting site visits and helping to troubleshoot any issues from clients.
• Coordinate closely with M&E and data staff on targeting, data collection, data systems and information management.
• Contribute to baseline, interim and end line assessment efforts and program reporting, providing clear input on business training, microenterprise development research activities.
• Coordinate closely with IRC logistics, finance, and grants focal point to ensure timely and compliant program activities and expenditures.
• Linkages of RCT clients to the Urban Savings and Loans Association and Financial Service Providers for business growth support (where applicable).

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in social sciences, Public Administration, business administration or equivalent
• At least 3 years of experience in micro enterprise development livelihoods or community engagement programs.
• Demonstrated experience and capacity in training clients and groups and working with vulnerable populations.
• Strong ability to work independently, organize work, meet deadlines, maintain composure, prioritize work under pressure, coordinate multiple tasks and maintain attention to detail.
• Experience working with Refugees in livelihoods programming.
• Experience managing data collection and concrete knowledge of open-source tools such as ODK collect, KoBo Toolbox, Survey CTO or CommCare platforms.
• Experience collecting Qualitative data e.g., Focus group discussion (FGD), Key informant interviews (KII) and transcription of audios.
• Experience supervising field teams
• Experience in administration and management of grants individuals and groups
• Excellent interpersonal and problem-solving skills, creativity, and flexibility
• NGO experience preferred
• Personal qualities: promotes collaboration and coordination within and across teams, comfortable in a multi-cultural environment, extremely flexible and adaptable, ability to contribute across multiple activities and departments.
• Fluency in English and Kiswahili required.