Ireland: Markets and Private Sector Adviser

Working with the world’s poorest people to transform their lives. Concern Worldwide is an international humanitarian organisation dedicated to tackling poverty and suffering in the world’s poorest countries. We work in partnership with the very poorest people in these countries, directly enabling them to improve their lives, as well as using our knowledge and experience to influence decisions made at a local, national and international level that can significantly reduce extreme poverty.

Job Title: Markets and Private Sector Adviser

Reports to: Senior Food and Nutrition Adviser/ Food Security and Livelihoods team lead

Liaises with: Other units in the Strategy, Advocacy and Learning department, Country Offices, International Programmes Department and the Emergency Unit.

Job Location: Dublin or London with substantial overseas travel

Contract Details: Permanent position

Pay Band: Ireland: Pay Band 5: €40,928 – €48,151

UK: Pay Band 5C: £38,165 - £42,182

Job Purpose: To promote food security, livelihoods and the elimination of extreme poverty in the poorest countries through the provision of technical and strategic support to country programmes and the sharing of evidence and learning within Concern and beyond.

Main duties & Responsibilities: • Provide technical and strategic support on income, markets and private sector engagement to country teams to ensure integrated programmes are designed, implemented, monitored and evaluated correctly. • To ensure optimum impact on the extreme poor and most vulnerable groups, helping them to sustainably graduate from extreme poverty. • This involves field visits, remote support and developing strong working relationships across the organisation. Technical support must be provided in the context of climate change, resilience in disaster prone fragile countries, rural and urban poor. Focal countries currently include Bangladesh, Burundi, Haiti, Liberia, Malawi, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Zambia (but are subject to change). • Build the technical capacity of Concern country teams through formal training, webinars, remote mentoring, and production and sharing of key technical resources. • Synthesise, document and share practical evidence and learning. • Support and develop relationships with other agencies, including research institutes, technical working groups and represent Concern in national, regional and international fora as relevant. • Support Fundraising and the New Business Unit to develop relationships with donors and support the development of new proposals. Support the Advocacy unit to feed into international policy discussions related to income, markets and private sector engagement. • Support operational research undertaken within Concern programmes – in collaboration with field teams and research partners. • As required, support recruitment of country programme staff. • Potentially be deployed to support emergency responses for up to six weeks.

Person specification: Essential: • A postgraduate degree in economics, entrepreneurship, business, finance or related field. • A minimum of five years’ experience working in the area of markets and private sector in an NGO, development agency or the private sector, three of which should have been based in a developing country in Sub Saharan Africa or Asia. • Strong understanding of the barriers extreme poor face when interacting with markets; and programmes aiming for financial inclusion of the extreme poor. • Experience in planning, implementation and training on markets and value chain assessments in rural and urban contexts. • A strong understanding of inequality issues in relation to food security and livelihoods programmes. • Excellent interpersonal and organisational skills; works well as part of a multi-disciplinary team. Adaptable to evolving work priorities and schedules. • Willing to travel overseas for up to 30% of working time. • Ability to communicate and write well in English. Ability to engage with researchers to steer research towards relevant and practical outputs. • Keen to learn and promote learning.

Desirable • Experience working in the private sector. • Experience with multi item indicators e.g. material deprivation index; income generating activities and business/ vocational trainings.
• Experience working with research institutions, and relevant national and international institutions and networks. • Experience working in integrated, multi-sectoral programmes including social protection, livelihoods, nutrition, health, and WASH. Familiarity with social and behaviour change approaches. • Ability to work in French.

Candidates must be legally entitled to work in Ireland at the time of application. Concern is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from all sections of the community. Concern has a Programme Participant Protection Policy and an organisational Code of Conduct which have been developed to ensure the maximum protection of programme participants from exploitation, and to clarify the responsibilities of Concern staff, consultants, visitors to the programme and partner organisation, and the standards of behaviour expected of them. In this context, staff have a responsibility to the organisation to strive for, and maintain, the highest standards in the day-to-day conduct in their workplace in accordance with Concern’s core values and mission. Any candidate offered a job with Concern Worldwide will be expected to sign the Programme Participant Protection Policy and the Concern Staff Code of Conduct as an appendix to their contract of employment. By signing the Programme Participant Protection Policy and the Concern Code of Conduct, candidates acknowledge that they have understood the contents of both the Concern Code of Conduct and the Programme Participant Protection Policy and agree to conduct themselves in accordance with the provisions of these two documents.

Concern receives a substantial amount of funding from external donors each year. Increasingly donors are introducing requirements whereby future funding is conditional on Concern ensuring that the names of any new employee or volunteer do not appear on terrorism lists generated by the European Union (List of person, groups and entities to which Regulation (EC No. 2580/2001 applies), the US Government (Office of Foreign Assets Control list of specially designated Nationals and Blocked Persons) and the United Nations (Consolidated List).
Any offer of employment (either paid or voluntary) with Concern Worldwide will only be made following a successful clearance check being conducted on the applicant. For additional information please consult our web site or contact the Human Resource Division in our Head Office. By submitting a formal application for paid or voluntary employment to Concern, you agree to Concern carrying out a clearance check as outlined above and that Concern will not proceed to recruit you should your name appear on any of the aforementioned lists.

To view and apply for this vacancy, please go to http://www.concern.net/jobs by Monday 9th May 2016