5. Social Development Officer (1)

Reports to the Operations Manager, the Social Development Officer is responsible for ensuring high standards of social performance of NOPP operations at all stages of the project cycle.  This will entail managing all social activities considered under the Project, using data and learning from the field to fine-tune Project strategies, and feeding Project learning around social inclusion, youth and gender mainstreaming to local and national policy dialogue. 

Key responsibilities:

1. Guiding and overseeing community sensitization processes, ensuring that key information reaches all intended target groups, that beneficiary selection is transparent and in line with pre-defined criteria and that all target groups participate in relevant Project decision-making processes.
2. Managing the effective implementation of NOPP´s gender and youth strategy in close coordination with other team members.

• Providing support to team members responsible for Component 1 and Sub-Component 2.1 to ensure that Project strategies promote social inclusion and avoid unintended negative social consequences.

1. Identify emerging opportunities to reach male and female youth and the promotion of gender equality and wider social inclusion in Project activities.
2. Liaising with local stakeholders regularly to disseminate information about social risk mitigation activities considered by NOPP, seek alignment and coordination of NOPP social processes and interventions in target communities and assess collective progress. Specific areas or intervention include: the fight against HIV/AIDS, promotion of food security, addressing malnutrition, gender equality, effectively targeting women and youth, inclusive participation in local governance processes.
3. Manage the process of identifying service providers and partners to implement relevant Project activities (NOPP Sub-Component 2.2); provide oversight and support towards expected results of each specific intervention.

• Ensure that information from the field and data generated by the Project, as well as learning’s captured from supervision missions and other reviews are used to fine-tune Project strategies.
• Participate in national level fora related to youth empowerment and gender equality so as to ensure that NOPP is aligned with emerging policies and lessons learnt from other projects and programmes and actively shares best practices and lessons learnt to feed into policy development processes.

1. Introduce house hold mentoring methodology in the project areas to ensure inclusive development.
2. Any other duties as may be assigned from time to time related to the Project´s social performance.

Academic Qualifications:

1. Degree in, Social sciences, Socio-Economics, Sociology, Development Studies or any other discipline in a related field.
2. Post graduate training in community/rural development is required.

Experience:

1. 5 years’ work experience in community development and applied gender mainstreaming, project targeting and social inclusion in agriculture-based development project in Uganda is required.
2. Demonstrated experience in use of gender targeting or gender action methods and

PRA tools in Uganda is a requirement

1. Experience of at least 2 years in Household Mentoring Methodology.

Competencies: 

1. Wider knowledge and experience in national policies and intervention on women and youth empowerment is an added advantage
2. Knowledge of project design and/ or appraisal is an added advantage
3. Good knowledge of computer applications (particularly MS Excel, Word and Power point) will be requireda

• Guiding and overseeing community sensitization processes
• Managing the effective implementation of NOPP´s gender and youth strategy
• Providing support to team members responsible for Component 1 and Sub-Component 2.1
• Identify emerging opportunities to reach male and female youth
• Liaising with local stakeholders regularly to disseminate information about social risk mitigation activities
• Manage the process of identifying service providers and partners to implement relevant Project activities
• Ensure that information from the field and data generated by the Project are used to fine-tune Project strategies
• Participate in national level fora related to youth empowerment and gender equality
• Introduce household mentoring methodology in the project areas
• Any other duties as may be assigned related to the Project´s social performance

• Advocacy, communication, and negotiation skills
• Report writing skills
• Computer literacy
• Knowledge of rural development strategies
• Gender equity awareness
• Project and business management

• Degree in Social sciences, Socio-Economics, Sociology, Development Studies or related field
• Postgraduate training in community/rural development
• 5 years’ work experience in community development and gender mainstreaming
• Experience in Household Mentoring Methodology