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Pact Overview
At the heart of Pact is the promise of a better tomorrow. The promise of a healthy life. Of a decent livelihood. Of sustainable natural resources that benefit communities. Now more than ever in its 42-year history, Pact is helping millions of people who are poor and marginalized discover and build their own solutions and take ownership over their future.
Pact enables systemic solutions that allow those who are poor and marginalized to earn a dignified living, be healthy, and take part in the benefits that nature provides. Pact accomplishes this by strengthening local capacity, forging effective governance systems, and transforming markets into a force for development.
Department Overview
The goal of the Forest Incomes for Environmental Sustainability (FIFES) project is to develop key rural forest-based enterprises which provide inclusive, sustainable economic opportunities for rural farmers and forest- dependent communities that combat drivers of deforestation and biodiversity loss. FIFE’s objectives are to: 1) strengthen selected forest value chains; 2) establish legal and management frameworks for forest enterprises; and 3) enhance knowledge and skills for forest enterprises and landscape management.
The project will strengthen the capacity of forest dependent stakeholders along the targeted forest enterprise value chains, building sustainability while applying a collaborate, learn and adapt (CLA) approach. Pact will implement a portion of this overall project, in collaboration with ACDI/VOCA.
Position Purpose
Pact’s WORTH program brings together targeted women and youth with a savings-group methodology that uses a combination of literacy training, community banking, and microbusiness development to help them help themselves and each other to end poverty by pursuing various livelihood options including through market opportunities, income generation, micro-enterprise development training, farming-as-a-business, extensionist, and other vocational training opportunities.
Based in Monrovia, the Livelihoods Specialist is responsible for providing support and leadership for implementation of the WORTH component of the project. The specialist will develop and facilitate WORTH workshops and oversee WORTH programs throughout Liberia, working particularly with women and youth to empower their active participation in their communities’ economies and management of community forests.
Key Responsibilities
• Support strategies and interventions that promote the economic and social empowerment of women and youth to enable their full and responsible participation in community forestry
• Support the development and implementation of strategies and interventions for household income-generation and savings among targeted women and youth. This includes assisting participants in earning and saving income, managing money, and allocating household resources for improved household security and achievement of project objectives.
• Provide technical support to project livelihoods activities in line with state-of-the-art, globally-recognized best practices for addressing needs of the targeted women and youth.
• Ensure all livelihoods improvement strategies are gender-sensitive and promote women’s empowerment and gender equity in overall project goals.
• Lead or contribute to community-based work directly with women and youth, including facilitation and networking of groups.
• Contribute to monitoring and maintaining relevant manuals, training materials and reports for livelihoods improvement.
• Contribute to work plans, quarterly and annual reports, financial reports, and other reports and papers summarizing project livelihoods results and evidence.
• Engage in regular monitoring visits to project sites to evaluate livelihoods-improvement effectiveness.
• Work closely with Pact’s FIFES team to ensure integration of women’s and youth economic empowerment activities across programs, sectors and core competencies;
• Other tasks as assigned.
Basic Requirements
• Bachelors degree + 5 years of experience, or Masters + 3 years of experience in economics, gender, international development or a related field;
• A minimum of 2 years of experience working on livelihoods/economic development or gender and youth related projects in Liberia or the sub region;
Preferred experience:
• Ability to contribute to livelihoods/economic development capacity building, training, and increased technical depth;
• Strong community-based, community development and mobilization work with women;
• Knowledge of varied savings-group approaches, direct implementation experience in at least one model; ability to lead training and launch endeavors of same;
• Experience in effective design, M&E and implementation of livelihoods/economic development programs particularly savings-led methodologies;
• Demonstrated facilitation and program development skills and upholding of Pact’s behavioral competencies;
• Demonstrated ability to create and maintain effective working relations with stakeholders, NGO partners, and community groups;
• Strong interpersonal, writing and oral presentation skills in English;
• Ability to travel frequently, sometimes at short notice;
• Ability to perform and prioritize multiple tasks;
• Proficiency in word processing, spreadsheets and database skills.
• Experience working on other US Government-funded projects pertaining to livelihoods, women and youth programming.
• Liberian Nationals strongly preferred—candidate must have work authorization in Liberia.
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