Position / Team Summary

This position holder will support in leading, organizing and coordinating various activities under one of Search’s flagship projects. S/he will ensure that assigned project activities are properly implemented and Search methodologies and approaches are effectively employed across activities. The project works with women’s rights organizations, youth-led and youth-focused organizations, local and national key institutional leaders, and men, women, boys and girls to strengthen women and youth’s meaningful, enduring participation in advancing inclusive peace and security. The project includes a series of training and capacity building and development workshops to organizations, leaders and youth, in addition to dialogues, regional exchanges and local advocacy activities.

The position holder will support in ensuring proper design of activities and implementation approach in such a way that they create lasting change towards social cohesion, mutual understanding, and contribute to advancing peace and security agendas.

The Project Officer is expected to support in planning and facilitating team retreats, reflection meetings, and capacity building & development for team members as relevant and required. And work  in close collaboration with the Project Manager and other departments, including Finance, MEAL, and People & Culture, Procurement & Logistics, etc.

Scope of Work

• Support in the implementation of project activities in a timely manner ensuring good quality action and credible outcomes.
• Support when needed lead on the collaboration with target organizations in WPS, YPS and the development of action plans and strategies.
• Support in and lead on developing and maintaining proactive, positive, and professional relationships with all relevant stakeholders.
• Support in the management and lead on reporting on project activities, ensuring timely grant reporting and compliance with contract and donor guidelines in coordination with the local and national partners.
• Lead on developing and maintaining project records such as databases, reports, and records of decisions.
• Support in implementing the financial and administrative systems necessary for the execution of the project.
• Support in ensuring compliance with Search’s policies and procedures.

Roles and Responsibilities

1.        Activity Design and Implementation

• Support in designing the project’s activities, building on the Common Ground Approach, the Community Dialogue Approach and other methodologies and tools used in Search;
• Support in ensuring the quality, effectiveness, and ultimately the impact of Search’s ongoing project activities;
• Support in analyzing conflicts, women and youth related issues and social cohesion dynamics in target communities and ensure activity design responds to and is informed by these;
• Support in designing new activities that meet the purpose of the project, as well as fit with Search’s strategy;
• Support in ensuring Search’s project activities are inclusive, and conflict and gender-sensitive;
• Support in adapting activity design to digital and virtual methods to ensure project continuity in times of movement restrictions due to pandemics, tensions or other factors;
• Keep abreast of Search-worldwide peacebuilding work, findings from the evaluation of other countries’ projects, including lessons learnt and best practices, and use the findings to enrich project activity design;
• Support in regularly monitoring the quality, resonance, reach, and relevance of project activities by organizing reflection and learning meetings (in close collaboration with the MEAL team);
• Closely collaborate with the MEAL team to ensure a monitoring system and monitoring and evaluation plan and system for the project;
• Participate in the design of new programs and projects to ensure that the learning from ongoing activities informs the design of new projects;
• Participate in project launch, mid-term reviews, and close-out workshops; and
• Support the strategy and mission of Search in the target country, the region, and globally.

2.  Project Planning and Reporting

• Support in planning the work of the project team, including capacity building of the team, partners, and target participants;
• Support in ensuring activities are delivered on time and with high quality;
• Support in ensuring activities are documented by relevant staff;
• Support in developing and following the project’s monthly work plans that derive from the annual work plans;
• Support in developing and regularly updating the project’s annual work plans;
• Support in ensuring that projections and key project management tools like the PMT for the project are developed and regularly updated;
• Support by leading on the production of activity and project reports that are drafted in a results-based manner, ensuring high quality, consistency and completeness; and
• Lead on the production of at least one well-written success story from the project per quarter.

3. Team Management and Supervision

• This position currently has no supervision responsibilities, but the candidate is expected to support and, when necessary, lead on the supervision of focal points, assistants, and/or interns who may be hired as needed in the project life.

4.  Relationship with Stakeholders

• Support in maintaining a network of participants, stakeholders, and influencers at the local and national levels and a contact database relevant to the project;
• Support in managing the partnership agreements with champions, project partners, volunteers, etc. Take the lead in keeping track of contracts and their end dates, ensuring timely renewal of agreements, and keeping track of support provided to each partner;
• Support in developing and maintaining proactive, positive, and professional relationships with partners, civil society organizations, international organizations, UN agencies, media outlets, ministries, local authorities, and local communities;
• Support in building connections between local community peacebuilding activities to ensure project activities are locally driven; and
• Ensure Search has a key role in reinforcing the partners’ capacity to deliver appropriate services.

Safeguarding:

• Remain alert and responsive to any safeguarding risks, acquire relevant knowledge and skills which will enable promoting strong safeguarding practices, understanding the safeguarding policy and procedures.

Required Profile

Education

• Preferred Bachelor’ Degree in any of Sociology, Communication Arts, Economy, Political Science, Business Administration, International Affairs, Social Sciences
• Master’s Degree or other advanced degree would be a plus
• Preferred additional education or training in conflict management, media for peacebuilding, communication for social change would be a strong asset.
• Preferred certification in project management, Peace and Conflict Studies, Development, or another relevant field

Experience:

Essential

• Minimum 6 years of experience is required for this position; preferred in NGO sector
• Preferred work experience in gender, development, peacebuilding, or humanitarian work;
• Experience designing and conducting project activities;
• Experience with the use of project management tools such as Gantt charts, logical frameworks matrices, work breakdown structure, critical path analysis among others;
• Experience in designing, planning, and facilitating community dialogues, round tables, town hall meetings, etc., in-person and virtually (online);
• Experience working with key institutional leaders and women, men, boys and girls local and refugee communities in addressing peace and security issues.

Desirable:

• Experience working in a conflict transformation setting;
• Experience working in a non-profit or similar environment;
• Experience of partnership building, with experience of influencing stakeholders and establishing and maintaining strong partnerships;
• An excellent planner with some knowledge and experience of project management tools and processes (project planning, work plans, budget planning, etc.);
• Organizational skills and attention to detail;
• Excellent use of Excel, excellent writing and analytical skills;
• Well-organized, dynamic, and creative;
• Some comprehension of the principles of conflict, conflict transformation, and the role of media in peacebuilding;
• Ability to work under pressure and in challenging environments;
• Flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances;
• Willingness to travel regularly to the field; and
• Proficiency in written and spoken English and Arabic.

Other Relevant Requirements:

• Written and verbal communications skills;
• Ability to work effectively in a team environment and strong interpersonal skills;
• Commitment to Search’s aims and a clear understanding of the links between policy, lobbying, campaigning, and social cohesion and peacebuilding work and of how policy change can be achieved through effective advocacy;
• Ability to responding flexibly to opportunities and requests sometimes with little notice;
• Ability to manage competing priorities in a rapidly changing environment;
• Demonstrate the capacity to adapt to a multi-cultural context, and tolerance and respect to issues related to gender, religion, race, and nationality; and
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism and solves problems in collaborative ways.

Officer – Behavioral Indicators

• Initiates brainstorming or problem-solving meetings. With time in the job, develops skills for analyzing and communicating program successes and failures; reports lessons learned to the team and other members.
• Represents Search at local and international events and meetings for professional organizations, vendors, partners, and funders. Develops skills to independently initiate and maintain relations with vendors, partners, and funders. Articulates Search program/project goals and objectives within Search and to external audiences.
• Demonstrates appreciation for diversity of thought. Builds cross-functional relationships with other functional departments.
• Demonstrates ability to be adaptable and willing to confront and change own ideas and preconceptions with the resiliency and flexibility to make changes based on hearing a diversity of thoughts.
• Drafts team documents, briefing materials, and presentations. Articulates program/project objectives and how they fit into a team’s goals and/or Search’s mission and adapts to the communications setting.
• Applies standards, identifies areas for standardization, and coordinates across functions from a multicultural perspective that reflects consideration of other cultures, other viewpoints, and other ways of doing things.
• Takes into account the environmental landscape, assesses one's own and others' viewpoints in their environment, and proposes solutions from an ethical perspective.
• Recognizes the options available for solving problems, conducts analyses, and calculates metrics and other technical tools to support informed decision making.
• Conducts Quality Control of team documents, briefing materials, presentations, and systems data. Carefully reviews and checks the accuracy of information in work reports, management information systems, or with other individuals and groups. Checks the accuracy of one’s own and others’ work. Proactively informs management of potential risks and concerns; suggests resolutions.
• Independently prioritizes time to reach deadlines and reaches end results of assignments with ability to accomplish multiple steps with limited to no supervision.