Project Officer, Economic Empowerment Project

Sightsavers is an international development organization working across more than 35 countries to prevent avoidable blindness, treat neglected tropical diseases and promote disability rights. As part of our social inclusion portfolio, we design and implement different interventions to proffer solution that enable accessibility and meaningful participation of persons with disability in education, health, and labour market system

Salary: Local terms and conditions apply

Contract: 24 Month Fixed Term Contract

Responsible for: Coordination of the Economic Empowerment Project

About the role:

Sightsavers is growing its new programmatic area in economic empowerment which supports businesses to become successful employers of people with disabilities, and supports people with disabilities to develop skills, confidence and experience to successfully gain work. The programme portfolio is growing at a rapid pace with projects being designed and implemented in numerous countries across Africa and parts of Asia.

The Project Officer will support the Economic Empowerment project to manage activities and relationships with key stakeholders. The post holder will ensure that the project is planned, implemented, coordinated, monitored, evaluated, and adapted to the highest possible quality standards.

The Project Officer will be key in the (Zimbabwe) country office responsible for delivering this innovative project as well as part of a global team, contributing to growth and expansion of the portfolio.

Key accountabilities:

Principal Accountabilities (specific activities and end results):

1. Project Delivery (40% of time)

• Work with the country project management team and other funding / resources partner to coordinate implementation of activities and sharing of lessons learned.
• Manage all aspects of the project cycle with the partners including effective planning, start-up, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, financial and asset management, reporting, documentation and closeout.
• Liaise and work with the Global Technical Leads (Disability Inclusive Economic Empowerment) and other internal expertise as required.

Monitoring Evaluation and Learning (25% of time)

Ensure high quality and ethical MEL approaches are embedded in all interventions in the context of a project that is fast paced and innovative with continuous cycles of monitoring, evaluating and adaptation.

• Support tool development/adaption e.g., participant database, tracking entrepreneurs, ILO tool, Three Circles Tool, informed consent forms, surveys, feedback forms, participant registration forms
• Support learning and adaptation through developing and implementing tools, events and processes e.g., learning logs, action learning groups, qualitative and quantitative data collection tools, analysis and dissemination of performance data
• Support Ethics and data protection through protocol development for approval by appropriate approval boards as required.
• Set up and manage the Participant database to provide quality assurance, compliance with data protection regulations
• Work with partners as requested, to build confidence, systems and processes to provide high quality data, analysis and learning

Working with Partners (20% of time)

• Identify partner organizations with whom Sightsavers can work to achieve the project and organization’s strategic objective of ensuring that people with disabilities have equal rights and opportunities through both service delivery and advocacy
• Build effective partner relationships and support longer-term relationships that go beyond the duration of the project by disseminating information and advocating for the project’s goals.
• Promote shared learning and collaboration between partners by facilitating partner networks and meetings.

Financial & Resource Management (5% of time)

• Support project partners in the preparation of budgets and forecasts.
• Monitor expenditure of project financial resources in liaison with the Finance Support Services Officer and the Country Director.
• Ensure that partners submit timely and accurate financial returns.

Information & Communication Management (10% of time)

• Participate in all PR activities related to disability inclusive employment and employment in general, education and social inclusion e.g. Labour Day, Person with Disabilities Day, etc.
• Represent Sightsavers in project and disability-related meetings, and advocate for Sightsavers’ philosophy and policies.
• Attend to visitors to and from the project and partners.

This is a highly varied and involved role and the above is not an exhaustive list of duties or required professional skills. Please see the Job Description for full details

Qualifications and experience:

• Demonstrable experience with labour market issues including labour market assessments, skills training/development, internships, employer engagement, disability inclusion, job placements and job fairs.
• A tertiary qualification (Bachelors or above) in social sciences, education, development studies or public health or equivalent, relevant and transferable experience
• Familiarity with national legislation and policies in the field of disability, human rights and employment.
• Significant experience implementing projects, including experience of the disability sector and gender mainstreaming.
• Experience in project monitoring, evaluation and learning
• Experience of designing, managing and carrying out advocacy work for social inclusion/disability projects.
• Experience providing technical assistance to other organizations.
• Knowledge of current issues and best practices in disability, UNCRPD, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and employment is desirable.

Next Steps

We anticipate that interviews will take place from early November 2022 onwards.

To apply for this exciting new opportunity, please complete an application via our recruitment portal. We are particularly interested in learning of your motivations for applying.

Due to project deadlines, we are keen to fill this role as quickly as possible so applications will be considered as soon as they are received.

As an equal opportunity employer, we actively encourage applications from all sections of the community. Sightsavers is a Disability Confident Leader and qualified people living with a disability are particularly encouraged to apply.