Background

The World Food Programme of the United Nations has been implementing the Building Resilience to Achieve Zero Hunger (BRAZH) project with the support of the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in flood-prone areas of Kurigram district since 2018.

The aim of the project is to improve the food security of flood-affected households and communities in the Kurigram district by developing and implementing innovative approaches which can be effectively used to enhance resilience. The project identifies three approaches which include; climate risk insurance, forecast-based financing, and seasonal livelihood planning, which function as integrated risk transfer mechanisms to prevent a sharp increase in poverty following a disaster.

The seasonal livelihood planning tool aims to enhance understanding of the relationship between seasonality and household economics. The Seasonal Livelihood program incorporates an integrated context analysis that combines historical trends of food security, nutrition, and shocks with other information such as roads, markets, and land degradation to identify priority areas for interventions and appropriate program strategies. Through Integrated Seasonal Livelihood Programming tools, the project will demonstrate potential livelihood options for the vulnerable communities. Through Community-Based Participatory Planning (CBPP) at the local level, the project already planned some income-generating activities such as agriculture farming, livestock rearing, poultry rearing, fish cultivation, handicrafts, mechanics, electricians, etc. which will be the focus area of work for the Business Development Officer.

Roles and Responsibilities:

The primary role of the BDO will be to design and implement resilient livelihoods activities, with a focus on linking with potential local, regional and national markets. The BDO will:

• Plan, develop, design, implement, and monitor the SLP, FbF, and CRI activities
• Support and guide the development of producer organizations and small-scale enterprises to develop a business plan, financial projections, financial analyses, and business management
• Provide support to smallholder farmers, community-based organizations/cooperatives, traders associations,s and small enterprises on the business plan and management
• Conduct market assessment and analyses the information to design project activities
• Identify and analyze the potential opportunities to improve project participants’ access to markets and to improve the efficiency of market actors.
• Identify potential service providers, input/output market actors, project partners, and producers (households) and develop strategies for analyzing and addressing their constraints.
• Prepare a monthly/quarterly implementation plan for the assigned area in accordance with the detailed annual activity plan of the project.
• Provide technical support to the participants to develop business plans for various income-generating activities by facilitating a consultation process with the women;
• Design and develop a training program and appropriate training materials on entrepreneurship development, income-generating activities based on the needs of the women participants of the project and incorporate behavioral change communication (BCC) component in the regular training activities;
• Facilitate competitive IGA/value chain for agricultural input & product marketing
• Analyze the knowledge and behavior of participant groups/MSEs and their constraints to increase production and access to markets.
• Organize and facilitate different workshops/meetings, orientation, and discussion sessions for project staff and stakeholders.
• Supervise and monitor training programs delivered by Filed Trainer including training quality and provide technical support for corrective actions;
• Establish collaboration and working relationships with the union and Upazilla level officials such as DAE, DLS, DoF, Youth Development to engage them in providing technical support and monitoring the project activities
• Facilitate project beneficiaries to establish linkage with input and output market actors
• Closely monitor and follow up on income-generating activities initiated by the beneficiaries through regular field visits
• Contribute to developing M & E tools, collecting data, analyzing, and preparing reports.
• Produce project progress reports, case studies, blogs, and publications

Required Qualifications and Skills for the position:

• Master’s in Business Administration/ Agriculture/Economics or Social Science from any reputed university
• 3-5 years’ work experience; with at least 2 years experience in IGA, enterprise, markets-based, or value chain development projects;
• Experience and demonstrable skills in financial projection; income statement, cash flow, and reviewing financial performance.
• Past proven experience in context analysis, program assessment, and report writing
• A clear understanding of market research, market analysis, risk financing, and value chain development.
• Knowledge and experience of gender, climate change, risk reduction, and risk transfer programming for smallholder farmers and most vulnerable households
• Financial management, including leadership and influencing skills, willing to work in a team.
• Knowledge and understanding of diversity, and cultural and political sensitivities.
• Ability and willingness to work towards deadlines, in a planned and inclusive way
• Demonstrable communication, facilitation, and representation skills (in English and local language preferably).