Project Assistant ( 10 Positions )

Organizational Setting

FAO in collaboration with the government, UN organizations and development partners began serving both the host communities and Rohingya population in building their livelihoods, skill development opportunities and natural resources management activities in Cox’s Bazar from October 2017. FAO Cox’s Bazar sub-office has been operating programmes in attaining productive and sustainable agriculture, fisheries, livestock and increasing the resilience of livelihoods in the emergency humanitarian context. Several initiatives were undertaken particularly to address the sustainable productivity, resilient livelihoods, improved food security and reforestation on the degraded forestland in Cox’s Bazar. FAO is implementing various multi-donor projects through developing, testing, and piloting several innovative sustainable livelihood approaches and natural resources intervention models.

While some approaches are new to the Bangladesh context, they are consistent with Government’s policies and planning (e.g., farm mechanization, digital Bangladesh, climate-smart agriculture), UN Sustainable Development Goals and FAO Bangladesh’s Country Programme Framework. Most importantly, FAO’s activities in supporting affected host communities in Cox’s Bazar have geared up climate-resilient services through the provision of assistance to the farmers, enabled stronger private sector partnerships, as well as provided opportunities for collaboration with the government organizations and extension agents.

Reporting Lines

Under the overall guidance of the Head of the Sub-Office, Cox’s Bazar, and the direct supervision of the Organizational Development Specialist / Senior Forestry Specialist, the Proejct Assistant will be based in the sub-district level of Cox’s Bazar district and working closely with the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), Department of Fisheries (DoF), Forest Department (FD) to support host community farming families, forst dependent people living at Cox’s Bazar North and South Forest Division and Rohingya Camp areas.

Technical Focus

The Project Assistant is a SC2 posiiton who will support the FAO Emergency Response and Resilience Programme in Cox’s Bazar in capacity building of beneficiaries on high-value crop production, promotion of homestead gardening and reforestation activities in the field level, provide support to the aggregation centres to strengthen local agricultural (vegetables, fish and livestock) value chains, agricultural input distribution and facilitating natural resource management such as beneficiaries’ sensitization, identification, selection of the beneficiaries and data collection on plantation activities. S/he will ensure timely and effective implement the project activities at the sub-district level and provide day-to-day programmatic information to the management. The Project Assistant will also support in collecting need-based data from the field to prepare reports and design agricultural and natural resources management interventions. The duties and responsibilities will include, but not limited to the following responsibilities:

Tasks and responsibilities :

· Promote climate-resilient homestead vegetable production technologies that will address food security, nutrition and increasing households’ income; · Facilitate technical training sessions on improved value crops vegetable production systems to the farmers' group to enhance collective production and link-up with aggregation center and buyers; · In collaboration with FAO colleagues, the incumbent will conduct meetings with stakeholders, collect data related to forestry activities; · Ensure FAO’s technical standard in the field implementation of forestry activities i.e. plantation, input distribution, and nursery; · Collect forestry field inventory data, checking and cleaning data, and submission to the FAO’s forestry programme team regularly; · Work closely with the partners’ staff at Rohingya camps and host communities to provide them on-job training at the field level to demonstrate the technologies; · Provide support to implement of the programmes related to agribusiness, value chain development and establish linkages with farmers’ market, fresh food corner/e-voucher shop, niche market with a focus to the commercial, smallholder and marginal farming households; · Contribute to establishing and strengthening aggregation centers and market outlets to explore market opportunities for the potential high-value commodities of the farmers’ groups; · Support in the distribution of agricultural inputs like seeds, feeds, farm machinery and good agricultural practices items like vermicompost, sex-pheromone traps, etc. and organize relevant training for the farmer groups; · Facilitate implementation of integrated good farming practices (vegetables-poultry-fish) in collaboration with government technical departments. · Monitor and collect the qualitative and quantitative data of the project’s activities to meet the organizational standard and donor’s compliance; · Inform beneficiaries of the AAP (Accountability to the Affected People) message, feedback mechanism and ensure all complaints from beneficiaries are recorded, resolved and adequate feedback is timely provided; · Perform other related activities as required.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

· Bachelor's degree in social science or diploma in agricultural science/ forestry and any other relevant fields of equivalent education; · Minimum Three (3) years of professional working experience in agricultural and/or natural resources programme implementation, data collection, training facilitation, market development, and reporting. · Nationality of Bangladesh.

FAO Core Competencies

• Results Focus • Teamwork • Communication • Building Effective Relationships • Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

• acilitation and management of capacity building activities with the farmer groups; • Data collection and management; • Preparation and submission of reports and factsheets; • Report on collaboration/linkages with relevant stakeholders; • Level of understanding gained on Good Agricultural Practices, market development and environmental conservation themes; • Sincerity in working with team.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• FAO does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process (application, interview meeting, processing)
• Incomplete applications will not be considered. If you need help please contact: [email protected]
• Applications received after the closing date will not be accepted
• Only language proficiency certificates from UN accredited external providers and/or FAO language official examinations (LPE, ILE, LRT) will be accepted as proof of the level of knowledge of languages indicated in the online applications
• For additional employment opportunities visit the FAO employment website: http://www.fao.org/employment/home/en/