Mercy Corps with funding from the Hilton Foundation will address the needs of urban refugees and vulnerable host community members to improve their economic wellbeing and address issues, which limit the integration of refugees within host communities. The program will focus on addressing the interrelated gaps that hinder effective service delivery and local integration. The overall goal of the program will be to strengthen social cohesion and livelihoods in refugee-hosting divisions in Kampala. This will be achieved through three interrelated outcomes:

• Refugees and host communities participate collectively toward a shared vision of sustainable peace and common development goals. Interventions will focus on building linkages between refugee leaders and local authorities, as well as fostering connections between youth, women and men in refugee and host-communities.
• Financial Inclusion is enhanced for refugees and host communities in the divisions of Kampala, interventions will focus on building the capacity of micro-entrepreneurs to further develop and increase their income potential – improvements in understanding of legal regulations and taxation laws, access to microfinance.
• Micro entrepreneurs are supported to develop their businesses to increase income and improve food security. Interventions will focus on building technical skills for existing and future entrepreneurs, supporting product innovation in businesses, which can build ties between host and refugee communities and social impact in communities, and enabling development of urban farming both to increase access to nutritious food at lower costs and as an income stream.

General Position Summary

The Program Officer will be responsible for assisting in the implementation of activities to ensure participants including Urban Refugees and host communities have a smooth pathway to livelihoods. He/She will implement all aspects of the financial inclusion intervention and partnership strategies under the Hilton Program. He/She will work directly with the Team Leader – Social Cohesion & Livelihoods to identify new opportunities for innovation and growth among private sector led interventions tailed to meet the needs of women and youth in informal settlements in Kampala.  He/She is expected to push forward market-driven approaches in all stages of programming, promote and capture learnings to inform program decisions, drive results and produce scheduled outputs at deadline and to expected quality.

Planning, developing and implementing activities

• Facilitate participatory needs assessments/situation analysis, problem analysis and planning exercises with key stakeholders (KCCA, Private Sector Actors, RLOs etc) to identify capacity gaps and opportunities for shared value partnerships tailored to the needs of micro entrepreneurs.
• Actively participate in the periodic planning, review and reflection meetings to ensure activity implementation is on time, within budget and scope.
• Ensure that the lessons learnt & experiences are well documented and contributing to the thinking of the Hilton Program to foster financial inclusion and support micro entrepreneurs in refugee hosting communities in Kampala.
• Facilitate multi-stakeholder consultation meetings, workshops, and business-to-business (B2B) meetings to advance better linkages for start-ups and existing micro businesses.
• Support the establishment and strengthening of community-based initiatives including; VSLAs, SILC groups and facilitating linkages with FSPs.
• Develop strategies of identifying, evaluating and appraising businesses for grant allocation including; innovations, and existing micro businesses that require process and product improvements.
• Make regular on-site field visits in the target locations to provide technical review and/ keenly analyse implementation approaches to identify constraints and provide timely recommendations to inform decision-making processes.
• Ensure close coordination and sharing of information with relevant stakeholders such as KCCA, NGOs and other implementing partners, as appropriate and advised by the line manager.
• Have a keen eye for identifying interesting opportunities for scaling up and developing concept notes on these opportunities.

Documentation, Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting

• Prepare and submit timely weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports and work plans that will be indicative of program progress during implementation.
• Maintain a proper filing system of all financial inclusion and business development activities implemented in the program.
• Liaise with partners to identify human impact stories of program participants contribute the research and learning agenda activities of the program and develop these into success stories.
• Work closely with the M&E Officer to capture accurate data for measuring output and impact of the program; and to ensure accurate and timely flow of information from the field.
• Keenly analyse implementation approaches to identify constraints to program success and provide timely recommendations to inform decision-making processes.
• Ensure data protection policies are adhered to, establishing security controls for software, hardware and archive beneficiary databases.

Accountability to Beneficiaries:

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts towards accountability, specifically to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects. The Program Officer is expected conduct himself/herself both professionally and personally in such a manner as to bring credit to Mercy Corps Uganda and not to risk its humanitarian and development mission.

Organizational Learning:

As part of our commitment to organizational learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve – we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Mercy Corps as well as themselves.

Supervisory Responsibility: Program Assistant

Reports Directly To: Team Leader

Works Directly with: Support teams (Finance, HR & Operations), NGOs, KCCA, RLOs and other partners.

Ethics and Integrity

All Mercy Corps staff are expected to behave ethically and demonstrate highest integrity in their professional and personal life. Mercy Corps has zero tolerance to any form of fraud, corruption, abuse, harassment or exploitation. Any breach of our policies or misconduct will lead to disciplinary action or may lead to termination.

Knowledge and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Management, Microfinance, Entrepreneurship, Economics or any other relevant fields.
• At least 3 – 4 years of experience designing, implementing and managing similar initiatives (private sector partnership, economic strengthening, and market systems development) is required.
• Strong interpersonal, communication and presentation skills and capacity to maintain relations with community leaders.
• Proficiency in computer use particularly Microsoft Office (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint) is preffered.
• Strong interpersonal, writing and oral presentation skills in English is a requirement. Knowledge of other languages including Swahili, Arabic and French is an added advantage.
• Demonstrated attention to detail, ability to follow procedures, strong leadership and proven team building experience, ability to meet deadlines and work independently is required.
• Willingness to spend much time in the field and work closely with program target groups.
• Possession of a valid driving permit class A and willingness to ride is an added advantage.