The $41 million USAID Food for Peace Activity (Apolou) and the $5 million USAID Resilience Challenge Fund (RCF) Activity support agriculturalists, agro-pastoralists, and pastoralist households living across the districts of Amudat, Kotido, Kaabong, Karenga, and Moroto in Karamoja.
Apolou is implemented by a consortium of actors led by Mercy Corps, including Save the Children, Whave Solutions, four local partners (KAPDA, NARWOA and Riam Riam), TUNADO, FIDA Uganda, Strong Minds and Tufts University’s Feinstein International Centre (FIC). Apolou’s goal is to “improve the overall food and nutrition security of vulnerable households in Kaabong, Kotido, Moroto and Amudat districts within the Karamoja region,” and has major 4 objectives as follows:

1. Inclusive and effective governance contributes to food and nutrition security
2. Adolescent girls, Pregnant and Lactating Women, and Children under 5 are nutritionally secure
3. Reduced incidences of WASH related diseases
4. Improved livelihoods and income support household food security
The RCF program works in the districts of Kaabong and Amudat, with the goal to “Improve the veterinary governance and increase public and private investment in disease prevention, surveillance, control and response systems to strengthen productive assets for improved resilience in Karamoja.” RCF has the following objectives:
1. Increased domestic resource allocation into animal health services in Karamoja
2. Central and local government develop animal health services capacity-strengthening plan for the Karamoja region
3. Disease control plan for economically prioritized diseases (PPR and FMD) developed and implemented
4. Private sector animal health development strategy developed and rolled out
General Position Summary
The primary focus of the Senior Economic Empowerment Officer will be to support the roll out of economic empowerment trainings and other interventions at individual level by the officers within their assigned district. Activities will focus on two populations; Groups of pregnant and lactating women and male change agents building life skills, access to finance, and business development skills. The second population will be a cohort of youth. Youth will be initially engaged by Save the Children in intensive life skills and general economic development curricula. Senior Economic Empowerment Officer is responsible for ensuring quality of trainings by the Officers and Service contractors, compliance of all activities and standardization across and within teams. .

Essential Job Responsibilities
Strategy & Vision
• Support Economic Empowerment Team Leader in developing the training strategy and implementation work plan, moving from direct service delivery model to an integrated approach embedded in local private sector/government delivery mechanisms.
• Coordinate with the Financial Inclusion, Gender and Youth, MCHN and Adolescent teams on program implementation to leverage synergy and maximize impact.
Program Management
• Coordinate the activities of officers and service contractors to ensure training and mentorships are delivered on a timely basis and in line with best practice.
• Provide technical support and quality control checks for skills building trainings, troubleshooting challenges, and standardizing implementation approaches in delivery of Livelihoods messages.
• Support the cultivation of PLW/CU2 and Adolescent micro scale businesses as a means to sustainable economic empowerment and poverty reduction.
• Contribute to team reporting, data collection, cash projections and other administrative needs as necessary.
Gender and Youth Integration
• Ensure that program activities apply gender equity and youth empowerment principles, and meet the varying needs of men and boys; women and girls; and other vulnerable groups.
Influence and representation
• Represent Mercy Corps’ approach at key government, coordination and advocacy platforms and ensure coordination with other youth and PLW/CU2 training program as necessary.
Coordination with District Implementation Team
• Build capacity of the members of the implementation team on your particular sector through orientations, one on one discussions and demonstrating in the field.
• Support the district implementation team in developing a sector specific plan for a particular community based on needs assessment. Your will support the district implementation team to plan the intervention that is related to the particular sector and purpose.
• The district implementation team will mobilize the extension service agents which will go on to mobilize the community groups to provide the services to conduct the activity in the field. The member of the technical team will coordinate with the district implementation team to conduct the activities in the field.
• The technical team member will monitor the activities conducted in the field and provide feedback to the technical extension service agents to improve the quality of implementation of activities.
• The technical team member will meet quarterly with the district implementation team to review the activities conducted in the field and reflect with the team to understand how the quality of implementation of activities would be improved.
• Collaborate with the MEL team on the design and implementation of the Apolou CLA/Learning Agenda.
Finance, Compliance and Operations Management.
• Ensure team adherence to MC Uganda Field Finance Manual and Field Procurement Manual for all Economic Empowerment activities, and oversee implementation of key budget lines
• Strictly follow Mercy Corps Fraud and Corruption Prevention guidelines.
• Generate scopes of work with guidance from team leader.
Ethic 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.
Security.
• Ensure data protection policies are adhered to, establishing security controls for software, hardware and archive beneficiary databases
• Ensure compliance with security procedures and policies as determined by the country leadership
• Proactively ensure that team members operate in a secure environment and are aware of policies.
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.
Accountability to Beneficiaries
• Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward 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.
• Sensitize communities on Apolou’s CARM system and encourage them to share feedback through the promoted channels.
Other
• Conduct himself/herself both professionally and personally in such a manner as to bring credit to Mercy Corps and not jeopardize its humanitarian mission.
• Other duties assigned.

Supervisory Responsibility: None.
Accountability
Reports Directly To: Economic Empowerment Team Leader
Works Directly With: District Implementation Team, Technical Team, Gender and Youth Team, MEL and other Mercy Corps program, finance and operations staff, partners.

Knowledge and Experience
• Minimum Bachelor degree in Agribusiness, Rural Development and Agricultural Extension, Agriculture Economics, Community Development, Project Planning and Management, Business Administration or any other business related fields. Post graduate certificate, diploma or degree on earlier mentioned disciplines is a plus.
• At least 5 years of related professional experience in youth/gender skills building or employability
• Experience in Team management and team building
• Experience in savings, financial empowerment or functional adult learning is a plus
• Experience with private sector financial institutions or income generating activities is a plus
• Demonstrated skills in data collection, verification and documentation
• Proven skills in networking, team building, community consultations and organizational development
• Excellent reporting, communication and presentation skills
• Willingness to consider new perspectives, promote gender equality and engage in advanced gender training
• Fluency in Nga’Karamojong is and added advantage.
• Valid Motorbike (class A) riding permit is required..

Success Factors.
• The ability of the Senior Economic Empowerment Officer to ensure standardize, market based life skills and livelihoods training will be the first success factor.
• The second will be the ability of the Senior Economic Empowerment Officer to effectively ensure compliance and standardization of activities across the team within his/her district.
• The third success factor will be the degree to which the Senior Officer actively collaborates with MCHN, Financial Inclusion, Gender and Youth; and Save the Children teams in driving integrated programming through mutual learning and programmatic support that ultimately benefits pregnant and lactating mothers and children under two as well as adolescents.
• Increased number of youths and women in Apolou villages participating in off-farm activities sustainably.