Project Coordinator, CSO RISE - Tree Aid

Job Description

• Job Title: Civil Society Organisations In Research And Innovation For Sustainable Development (Cso – Rise) Project Coordinator
• Overall Aim:    To provide full-time support to TREE AID’s project in the four (4) districts - Builsa south and Kassena Nankana Municipl in Upper East Region; and Zabzugu and Tatale districts in Northern Region of Ghana. The role will be to work with Co-applicants and stakeholders to implement activities to time and budget, whilst ensuring the expected impacts for targeted communities through good technical lead, monitoring and reporting.
• Responsible To:    Ghana Country Programme Manager (GCPM)
• Job Duration: One year and possible annual renewable for additional three years depending on availability of funds  and satisfactory performance
• Duty Station: Based in Tamale with very regular visits to project sites in Upper East and Northern Regions of Ghana and in all locations where it needs even out of Ghana.

The CSO – RISE project jointly being implemented by Tree Aid Ghana, Action Aid Ghana (lead applicant) and URBANET Ghana (Co-applicant) with funding from European Commission. The Tree Aid Ghana component of the project intends to work directly with 3,600 marginalised women, small holder farmers, people with disabilities and the youth in 80 communities in 4 districts of Upper East and Northern Regions of Ghana hence contributing to the green economy, creating opportunities for income generation within the agricultural value chains, and enhancing access to social protection services. The specific objective is to strengthen the capacity of local CSOs to become drivers of innovation in research-based climate-resilient sustainable agriculture, related social enterprises and responsive social protection.

Working within the framework of TREE AID Programme Strategy and operational plan, the CSO – RISE  Project Coordinator will be responsible for the tasks as follows:

Main Tasks:

• Guide and Support in the project implementation;
  • Coordinate the delivering of project activities that TREE AID will implement to time and budget – ensuring that relevant Co-applicants and stakeholders are involved at all stages.
  • Provide technical, financial and project management advice, support and recommendations to project officers, co-applicants and stakeholders where appropriate.
  • Ensure that TREE AID staff, co-applicants and stakeholders capacity is approproiate for delivering project activities.
  • Coordinate the activities of agroforestry and biodiversity conservation practices, village trees enterprise and agriculture value chains and linkages.
  • Facilitate mobilization of community people into producer groups (women, people with disabilities and the youth) mentoring them to migrat out of poverty.
  • Provide technical and facilitation support to implement project activities, ensuring active participation of community and district stakeholders to achieve expected outputs
  • Facilitate sessions on women rights and access and use of productive natural resources especially land.
  • Ensure that step down trainings are performed right and provide support in research work of the project.
  • Ensure that due processes are followed in financial transactions with value for money.
  • Keep abreast of developments in the wider markets that could benefit or threaten the work of the project.
  • Provide fundraising and communications support/information to staff in Ghana, West Africa and UK as appropriate.
  • Maintain and coordinate a good relationship between project stakeholders

• Monitoring and evaluation and reporting 40%
  • Manage the project staff in planning and completing activities on time and to budget.
  • Support the design and utilisation of Monitoring and Evaluation tools to help track project progress including baselines establishment.
  • Ensure that project reporting is delivered on time and contains relevant and quality information.
  • Draft specific Terms of Reference tailored to carry out field visits to co-applicants, and support partners to improve their project implementation.
  • Prepare timely reports for internal and external audiences that are of high quality.
  • Ensure that regular finance reports are provided by TREE AID
  • Provide support to develop and maintain supported platform for keeping a database of key project outcomes and producing suitable products for outreach.
  • Coordinate the conduct of periodic reviews, reflections and planning meetings with co-applicants, communities and other stakeholders to inform project strategies.
  • Conduct or ralise field visits
• Support the development of TREE AID Ghana’s wider programme
  • Support the identification and tracking of opportunities for new projects in Ghana.
  • Contribute to the identification and formulation of activities to enhance community resilience to climate variability through improved local adaptation knowledge in Ghana.
  • Liaise with co-applicants on TREE AID’s natural resources management and enterprise development implementation in formulating and developing appropriate complementary initiatives in Ghana.
  • Support arrangements for and co-facilitating programme training workshops.
• Other
  • Where appropriate, represent TREE AID Ghana at meetings and workshops relevant to TREE AID’s work as agreed with the GCPM
  • Be prepared to undertake visits to all of TREE AID focus countries when required
  • Carry out other tasks as agreed with the Ghana Country Programme Manager.

Key Success  Factors For This Post

• Contribute to raising the profile of TREE AID’s CSO – RISE Project with external audiences and donors under Ghana Country Programme Manager.
• Achieving agreed job targets.
• Timely provision of projects technical and financial reports and other information required
• Evidence of effective monitoring & evaluation systems development and adherence and consistency between these and TREE AID Monitoring & Evaluation systems.
• Good communication and relations with all staff in Ghana, the UK and West Africa as well as co-applicants (Action Aid Ghana and URBANET Ghana).

Required Skills or Experience

• Graduate in relevant subject (natural resource management, Integrated Development studies, Agonomy). Master degree in the relevant field will be an added advantage.
• Must have at least three (5) years working experience in a similar position managing projects.
• Must have demonstrated leadership skills/ability to work in a team and influence others positively.
• Must share the vision and the values of TREE AID.
• Must have experience in agroforestry and agriculture value chains.
• Ability to work with a wide range of stakeholders and communicate and instil a shared vision.
• Excellent verbal communication and written skills.
• Ability to balance a number of conflicting demands.
• Must be computer literate – good in excel, word and power point
• Must be confident, hard working, able to work under pressure, and time conscious.
• Ability to work independently, self initiative and with good team work and rapport
• Ability to meet deadlines and achieve targets including extensive travel in the field.
• Must be bold, ambitious, professional, transparent and accountable
• Must have working knowledge in one of the languages spoken in northern Ghana (Kasem, Buli and Dagbani). Ability to speak French is an added advantage.