Winrock International is a non-profit organization that works with people around the world to increase economic opportunity, sustain natural resources, and protect the environment. Winrock International is currently recruiting for the position of full-time Nutrition Specialist in its Tamale office to support the five-year, USAID-funded Feed the Future Ghana Agriculture and Natural Resources Management Project (USAID AgNRM).

AgNRM seeks to provide a scalable, integrated landscapes approach to support sustainable economic development and rural livelihoods, improve nutritional outcomes, expand climate change related risk management options, and strengthen northern Ghana’s natural resource base. As part of this, AgNRM is supporting community-based natural resource management in the Black Volta Basin and in the Western and Eastern Biodiversity Corridors.

The project activities are being implemented within the Forestry Commission’s Community Resource Management Area (CREMA) framework under four project outcomes: 1) Increased Incomes from Natural Resource Products; 2) Improved Food and Nutritional Security; 3) Increased Farmer and Community Security/Access to Land and Natural Resources; and 4) Strengthened Environmental Stewardship.

Winrock International is seeking applicants for the position of Community Extension Officer as part of the USAID-funded Feed the Future Ghana Agriculture and Natural Resources Management project. The responsibilities, duties, and qualifications are described in the position description below.

POSITION DESCRIPTION

• LOCATION: Several vacancies. Wa, Bolgatanga, and Sandema, Ghana
• UNIT: Forestry and Natural Resource Management Group
• POSITION TITLE: Community Extension Officer
• STATUS: Full time
• REPORTS TO: Value Chain Expert

ESSENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES:

• The Community Extension Officer will work with the Value Chain Expert, technical staff, field teams, and partners to identify capacity needs, and lead the design and implementation of approaches to address them.
• This will involve assessing specific needs of beneficiary groups and designing of appropriate interventions, including coaching, mentoring or other experiential learning strategies. Nurturing of these groups through careful response to specific group dynamics to steer them to their performing stages, and sustaining growth will be crucial throughout the project.

INCLUDED RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Coach, mentor, and build community and CREMA capacity with skills and knowledge to facilitate the growth and development of strong institutions and partnerships;
• Ensure capacity building, compliance with established strategies, and effective utilization of the tools, models, guidelines developed to facilitate effective institutions and relationship building, strengthening, and management;
• Facilitate and provide technical backstopping and guidance to other AgNRM field staff on organization and institutional development, and partnership issues;
• Conduct training needs assessments among community organizations and partners related to M&E project indicators, available research, and data collected by the project;
• Facilitate community organization and institution capacity building to improve on the knowledge and skill levels of such institutions in the areas of leadership, partnering, networking, and collaboration;
• Liaise with Grants Manager and respective team leads to assist community institutions in targeting relevant grants that will enable their development and ensure that their respective organizational plans are effectively implemented;
• Organize and facilitate forums to enhance the sharing and learning of best practices among community organizations;
• Liaise with Communications Team to develop a variety of communications materials and knowledge resources to provide up-to-date success stories and evidence of program results and impacts;
• Provide bi-weekly and quarterly report inputs, and participate in annual reporting and planning processes;
• Performs other duties that may be required from time to time as may be directed by the Outcome One (1) Lead and/ the AgNRM management;
• Reports to the Lead for Outcome 1 on the AgNRM project.

SALARY & BENEFITS

The annual salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. Excellent benefits include life, disability, and private medical insurance

Qualification Required & Experience

Education

• Degree in education, agriculture economics, development studies, or relevant social science field.

Work Experience

• Three years of relevant experience designing and/or implementing adult learning approaches.
• Experience in developing roadmaps and work plans tailored for the benefit of community and private organizations working on various development issues and enterprise development.
• Experience in mentoring and coaching groups of adult learners to build organizational capacity, and performance monitoring of training activities.
• Experience in providing small and large group training.
• Demonstrated flexibility to adapt to changing project dynamics and to use data to drive training priorities.
• Experience in institutional governance, and conflict prevention, reduction or resolution.
• Demonstrated and proven record to work in a multidisciplinary team under changeable and complex circumstances.
• Previous work experience and knowledge of USAID or other donor projects.

Skills

• Excellent communication and facilitation skills.
• Excellent data collection, collation and reporting skills.
• Excellent interpersonal and oral and written communication skills.
• Fluency in English required.
• Fluency in at least one of the local languages spoken in AgNRM’s Zone of Influence: Wale, Kasem, Buli, Mampruli, Frafra, Kusaal, or Talene.
• Computer literacy, specifically in Microsoft Word and Excel, is required.

Location: Wa, Bolgatanga, and Sandema

How To Apply For The Job

All interested candidates shall submit their applications (maximum 5 pages including resume, two references and one-page cover letter) in English to:

Ghana.Recruitment@winrock.org indicating “Community Extension Officer ” in the subject line.

Closing Date: 16 March, 2018

Qualified applicants will be invited for an in-person interview.

Winrock would like to graciously thank all applicants for their interest but only candidates who meet all requisite criteria and are short listed will be contacted. EEOE/AA.