Background information about the job or company (e.g., role context, company overview)

DRC Uganda is currently looking for highly qualified and motivated individuals to join our dynamic team as Team Leader-Climate and Food Security (02). This role is contingent upon the successful securing of funding for the project. The Climate and food security Team Leader will be responsible for technical quality assurance and due diligence of all outcome activities of the DRC's Food Systems and Economic Self-Reliance project in the six districts of Terego, Madi-Okollo, Yumbe, Koboko, Obongi and Moyo. These include ensuring appropriateness and quality of actual work as well as supporting farmer group trainings, restoration projects at community and household level and staff management. He/she will work closely with MEAL team, coordinate and represent DRC while working with the respective local governments, refugee and host-community structures, private-sector actors, financial institutions and other relevant stakeholders to ensure effective delivery, complementarity, sustainability and achievement of project results.

Responsibilities or duties

Administrative Role:

• Oversee day-to-day coordination, management, and administration of the Food Systems and Economic Self-Reliance project in the designated locations.
• Ensure alignment programme activities with donor reuirements, national policies, and local government development plans.
• Supervise technical and support staff and manage relationships with implementing partners (including local partner organizations).
• Support budgeting, financial management, and reporting processes.
• Represent the programme in coordination forums, donor meetings, and stakeholder engagements.
• Ensure compliance with and promoting all DRC policies and procedures such as Code of Conduct, Anti-Corruption, Whistle blowing, Fraud, Health and Safety etc.
• Coordinate systematically internal and external communications.

Technical Leadership and Programme Quality

• Provide overall technical leadership and quality assurance across the project's food systems, food and nutrition security and economic self-reliance interventions.
• Oversee implementation of climate-smart and regenerative agriculture interventions, including block/cluster farming, Resilience Design, provision of agricultural inputs, good agronomic practices, soil and water conservation, post-harvest management and farmer learning.
• Ensure effective implementation of nutrition-sensitive approaches, including kitchen gardening/permaculture, diversified household food production and nutrition education, particularly for refugee households with limited access to productive land.
• Provide technical oversight to market systems interventions, including value-chain development, aggregation and collective marketing, value addition, market information and linkages between farmer groups, off-takers and other market actors.
• Guide implementation of financial inclusion approaches, including access to financial services and strengthening farmer groups towards associations, cooperatives and SACCOs.
• Oversee natural resource and ecosystem management interventions, including Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), agroforestry, restoration of degraded landscapes, water for production, soil and water conservation and household tree-growing approaches.
• Ensure technical quality and sustainability of alternative livelihood interventions, including beekeeping, fish farming, small-scale solar irrigation, tree nursery enterprises, clean-energy solutions and fodder systems, as applicable.
• Ensure gender equality and women's empowerment are integrated across project interventions, including women's participation in leadership and decision-making and equitable access to land, productive resources and economic opportunities.
• Ensure youth , persons with diasabilities , refugees and host communities are appropriately included across project interventions in line with agreed targeting and inclusion approaches.
• Ensure project interventions build on and strengthen existing project farmer groups, delivery systems, extension structures, local-government relationships and tested technical approaches rather than establishing parallel systems.
• Facilitate access to appropriate technical expertise from DRC specialists, District Local Governments and other relevant actors and ensure identified technical gaps are addressed.
• Ensure required technical training programs for project employees are implemented.
• Prepare quality progress reports in line with agreed outcomes/activities in Annual work plans.

Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL)

• Work closely with MEAL staff to operationalise the project MEAL framework and ensure systematic monitoring of outputs, outcomes, indicators and project quality.
• Ensure timely and accurate collection, analysis and use of project data to monitor progress and inform programme and management decisions.
• Ensure appropriate accountability and feedback mechanisms are accessible to refugee and host-community participants and that feedback is analysed and used to improve project delivery.
• Promote documentation of project results, success stories, lessons learned, innovations and good practices for learning, communication and potential replication or scale-up.
• Monitor implementation of project activities and support implementation of M&E process.

Team and Resource Management

• Provide clear technical and managerial direction to project staff and ensure roles, responsibilities, deliverables and performance expectations are understood.
• Provide regular supervision, coaching, feedback and performance management to direct reports and identify staff capacity-development needs.
• Ensure efficient and accountable use of project financial, human and operational resources and promote value for money.
• Foster a collaborative, inclusive and accountable working environment consistent with DRC values and Code of Conduct.

Coordination, Partnerships and Representation

• Initiate and maintain effective engagement with key stakeholders at District Local Government (DLG) and Lower Local Government (LLG) levels and follow-up on recommendations (Collaboration) in his or jurisdiction.
• Coordinate closely with district technical departments and extension structures to strengthen technical quality, alignment with local priorities, government ownership and sustainability.
• Represent DRC and the project in relevant donor engagements, coordination forums, technical working groups, government meetings, and other external platforms as delegated.
• Strengthen engagement with farmer groups, refugee and host-community structures, women and youth groups and other community institutions to promote meaningful participation, ownership and sustainability.
• Facilitate strategic engagement with private-sector actors, including agro-input suppliers, off-takers, millers, financial institutions and other service providers, to strengthen market access and commercially viable livelihood opportunities.
• Coordinate with other humanitarian and development actors to promote complementarity, leverage existing investments and avoid duplication.
• Lead and participate in joint field monitoring, technical supervision, learning visits and review missions with government, donor and other relevant stakeholders.
• Maintain strong linkages with other relevant DRC programmes/projects to ensure complementarity, shared learning and efficient use of established systems and structures.
• Coordinate the implementation of all project activities and ensure all the outcome targets are met.

Qualifications or requirements (e.g., education, skills)

Required

• Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture, Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness, Food Security, Natural Resource Management or related field.
• Demonstrated experience managing complex projects, including planning, budgeting, implementation oversight, team management, monitoring and donor reporting.
• Strong understanding of climate-resilient agriculture, food systems and market-oriented livelihoods programming, with the ability to provide technical oversight and ensure programme quality.
• Experience managing and coordinating multidisciplinary teams and working across different technical and operational functions.
• Strong understanding of project cycle management, financial management and results-based management, with demonstrated ability to manage budgets, workplans, risks and project performance.
• Experience working with government, private-sector actors, community structures and other programme stakeholders, preferably in refugee-hosting or displacement-affected settings.
• Demonstrated ability to integrate gender, inclusion, accountability and safeguarding into programme implementation.
• Strong leadership, analytical, communication, negotiation and problem-solving skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities and deliver results.
• Full professional proficiency in both written and spoken English is essential.

Desirable

• Master’s degree in Agriculture, Agricultural Economics, Food Security, Rural Development or a related fieid.
• Professional training or certification in project/programme management, climate-smart agriculture, market systems development or related areas.
• Knowledge of one or more of the local languages widely spoken in the covered Districts.

Experience needed

Minimum 3 years of relevant professional experience in food security, agriculture, livelihoods, resilience or related programming, including at least 2 years in project management and/or technical leadership roles.

• Oversee day-to-day coordination, management, and administration of the Food Systems and Economic Self-Reliance project in the designated locations.
• Ensure alignment programme activities with donor reuirements, national policies, and local government development plans.
• Supervise technical and support staff and manage relationships with implementing partners (including local partner organizations).
• Support budgeting, financial management, and reporting processes.
• Represent the programme in coordination forums, donor meetings, and stakeholder engagements.
• Ensure compliance with and promoting all DRC policies and procedures such as Code of Conduct, Anti-Corruption, Whistle blowing, Fraud, Health and Safety etc.
• Coordinate systematically internal and external communications.
• Provide overall technical leadership and quality assurance across the project's food systems, food and nutrition security and economic self-reliance interventions.
• Oversee implementation of climate-smart and regenerative agriculture interventions, including block/cluster farming, Resilience Design, provision of agricultural inputs, good agronomic practices, soil and water conservation, post-harvest management and farmer learning.
• Ensure effective implementation of nutrition-sensitive approaches, including kitchen gardening/permaculture, diversified household food production and nutrition education, particularly for refugee households with limited access to productive land.
• Provide technical oversight to market systems interventions, including value-chain development, aggregation and collective marketing, value addition, market information and linkages between farmer groups, off-takers and other market actors.
• Guide implementation of financial inclusion approaches, including access to financial services and strengthening farmer groups towards associations, cooperatives and SACCOs.
• Oversee natural resource and ecosystem management interventions, including Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), agroforestry, restoration of degraded landscapes, water for production, soil and water conservation and household tree-growing approaches.
• Ensure technical quality and sustainability of alternative livelihood interventions, including beekeeping, fish farming, small-scale solar irrigation, tree nursery enterprises, clean-energy solutions and fodder systems, as applicable.
• Ensure gender equality and women's empowerment are integrated across project interventions, including women's participation in leadership and decision-making and equitable access to land, productive resources and economic opportunities.
• Ensure youth , persons with diasabilities , refugees and host communities are appropriately included across project interventions in line with agreed targeting and inclusion approaches.
• Ensure project interventions build on and strengthen existing project farmer groups, delivery systems, extension structures, local-government relationships and tested technical approaches rather than establishing parallel systems.
• Facilitate access to appropriate technical expertise from DRC specialists, District Local Governments and other relevant actors and ensure identified technical gaps are addressed.
• Ensure required technical training programs for project employees are implemented.
• Prepare quality progress reports in line with agreed outcomes/activities in Annual work plans.
• Work closely with MEAL staff to operationalise the project MEAL framework and ensure systematic monitoring of outputs, outcomes, indicators and project quality.
• Ensure timely and accurate collection, analysis and use of project data to monitor progress and inform programme and management decisions.
• Ensure appropriate accountability and feedback mechanisms are accessible to refugee and host-community participants and that feedback is analysed and used to improve project delivery.
• Promote documentation of project results, success stories, lessons learned, innovations and good practices for learning, communication and potential replication or scale-up.
• Monitor implementation of project activities and support implementation of M&E process.
• Provide clear technical and managerial direction to project staff and ensure roles, responsibilities, deliverables and performance expectations are understood.
• Provide regular supervision, coaching, feedback and performance management to direct reports and identify staff capacity-development needs.
• Ensure efficient and accountable use of project financial, human and operational resources and promote value for money.
• Foster a collaborative, inclusive and accountable working environment consistent with DRC values and Code of Conduct.
• Initiate and maintain effective engagement with key stakeholders at District Local Government (DLG) and Lower Local Government (LLG) levels and follow-up on recommendations (Collaboration) in his or jurisdiction.
• Coordinate closely with district technical departments and extension structures to strengthen technical quality, alignment with local priorities, government ownership and sustainability.
• Represent DRC and the project in relevant donor engagements, coordination forums, technical working groups, government meetings, and other external platforms as delegated.
• Strengthen engagement with farmer groups, refugee and host-community structures, women and youth groups and other community institutions to promote meaningful participation, ownership and sustainability.
• Facilitate strategic engagement with private-sector actors, including agro-input suppliers, off-takers, millers, financial institutions and other service providers, to strengthen market access and commercially viable livelihood opportunities.
• Coordinate with other humanitarian and development actors to promote complementarity, leverage existing investments and avoid duplication.
• Lead and participate in joint field monitoring, technical supervision, learning visits and review missions with government, donor and other relevant stakeholders.
• Maintain strong linkages with other relevant DRC programmes/projects to ensure complementarity, shared learning and efficient use of established systems and structures.
• Coordinate the implementation of all project activities and ensure all the outcome targets are met.

• Strong leadership, analytical, communication, negotiation and problem-solving skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities and deliver results.
• Full professional proficiency in both written and spoken English is essential.
• Knowledge of one or more of the local languages widely spoken in the covered Districts.

• Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture, Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness, Food Security, Natural Resource Management or related field.
• Demonstrated experience managing complex projects, including planning, budgeting, implementation oversight, team management, monitoring and donor reporting.
• Strong understanding of climate-resilient agriculture, food systems and market-oriented livelihoods programming, with the ability to provide technical oversight and ensure programme quality.
• Experience managing and coordinating multidisciplinary teams and working across different technical and operational functions.
• Strong understanding of project cycle management, financial management and results-based management, with demonstrated ability to manage budgets, workplans, risks and project performance.
• Experience working with government, private-sector actors, community structures and other programme stakeholders, preferably in refugee-hosting or displacement-affected settings.
• Demonstrated ability to integrate gender, inclusion, accountability and safeguarding into programme implementation.
• Master’s degree in Agriculture, Agricultural Economics, Food Security, Rural Development or a related fieid.
• Professional training or certification in project/programme management, climate-smart agriculture, market systems development or related areas.