Livelihood Specialist (Islamabad and Peshawar)

Responsible for:

• Responsible for Livelihood project planning, management and implementation
• Develop projects and proposal on Sustainable Livelihoods related to agriculture, livestock, fishery, forestry/environment and other non-agriculture activities
• Guide filed team for effective implementation of project activities
• Supervision of MA Microfinance Programme

Purpose of the Post:

• The livelihood Specialist is responsible for planning and implementing of livelihood projects including Skills Development, Micro finance, Integrated Livelihoods and Cash Programming in adherence with Muslim Aid and donor guidelines and standards. The position is responsible to develop quality proposals, establish and strengthen linkages with key stakeholders, including govt departments, Donors and UN agencies.

Main Responsibilities

• Maintain and store all the records in line with MAP Policies.
• Comply with all HR & Admin policies and procedures, legal and regulatory requirements.
• Demonstrate MA values in line with MA vision and mission and accountability in every official action.
• Demonstrate duties commensurate with the accountabilities of the post.

Major Responsibilities:

Programme Strategy

• Provide support to develop program strategies and interventions that promote the economic and social empowerment of women and youth to enable their full and responsible participation in community development
• Ensure all livelihoods improvement strategies are gender-sensitive and promote women’s empowerment and gender equity in overall project goals.
• Responsible to develop MA Livelihood Strategy keeping in view the current trends.
• Develop Microfinance, Skills development strategies , SoPs and guidelines.

Programme Cycle Management 

• Assist in identifying and developing new needs/growth opportunities and/or opportunities for strategic partnerships or synergies between MA projects or between MA and other agencies.
• Lead or contribute to community-based work directly with women and youth, including facilitation and networking of groups.
• Lead the field-level implementation of activities using appropriate project management tools to plan, review/track progress and quality by the program team and local partners, with guidance from the HoP.
• Provide technical support to project livelihoods activities in line with state-of-the-art, globally recognized best practices for addressing needs of the targeted women and youth.
• Contribute to work plans, quarterly and annual reports, financial reports, and other reports and papers summarizing project livelihoods results and evidence.
• Lead in-field learning events, debriefs, etc. and ensure documentation and sharing of lessons learned. Ensure prompt collection, analysis, and sharing of all project data, especially commodity/market monitoring.
• Regularly monitor field-level activities and work with local partners to resolve obstacles to timely, quality, and accountable implementation. Proactively raise issues with the HOP and Operations as appropriate.
• Work with the MEAL department to manage the project Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) plan, with emphasis on accountability and transparency.
• Work with the MEAL department to conduct periodic reviews of paper vouchers, market supply, vendors, etc. to check against electronic reports.
• Engage in regular monitoring visits to project sites to evaluate livelihoods-improvement effectiveness.
• Follow up with Accountability to respond to feedback from areas of implementation to strengthen Livelihood sector approach
• Contribute to monitoring and maintaining relevant manuals, training materials and reports for livelihoods improvement.

Financial/ Grant Management

• Working closely with local partners, ensure timely and appropriate expense forecasting and liquidation to avoid program stoppage and ensure optimal use of project resources.
• Assist local partners in timely and appropriate preparation of requests for operational advances.
• Regularly review and analyse trends in financial reports, with support from the Finance Manager and Head of Programmes.
• Ensure grant management compliance (adherence to MA financial management policy) based on guidance/feedback from HoP and Operations department

Coordination and Networking with External stakeholders

• Ensure collaborative planning with external stakeholders such as UN Agencies, other NGOs and Govt ministries (national level and Provincial level)
• Ensure MA is appropriately represented at livelihood Clusters/Working groups at national and provincial levels.
• Ensure partner agencies are engaged and on target with program implementation expectations.
• Assist in the coordination of visits of MA, donor and partner staff as needed to program sites.