Job Description
Position Name: Program Officer, Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE)
Location: Lucknow
Vacancies: 1
Reporting to: Program Lead – WEE
Duration: Till July 2024
Travel requirements: Up to 7-10 days per month.
ABOUT PROJECT CONCERN INTERNATIONAL (PCI)
Project Concern International (PCI) India, a registered society under the Society Registrations Act, has been working in India since 1998. With the vision of building a happy, healthy, safe, and sustainable world for all, PCI deploys community mobilization strategies to co-create and scale sustainable solutions to complex social issues and improve development outcomes.
PCI’s deep community connect built over decades equipped it to discover the root causes of social and developmental challenges faced by the marginalized communities. PCI drives interventions to transform the lives of communities at scale by partnering with governments, private sectors, and development organizations. Over the last two decades, we have designed efficacious and scalable solutions to complex development problems such as improving child dietary diversity, gender-based violence, etc. which have been scaled-up by the government through its own resources. We are recognized as a high-quality technical partner to the state and national governments, having a partnership with the governments and/or the government-led institutions at national level and with the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Tripura, etc. Currently, we have presence in more than 13 states, directly reaching out to more than 7 million lives through our interventions focused on health, nutrition, women economic empowerment, gender, adolescents, social protection, and emergency response.
Please visit our website to learn more about our values, mission, vision and our work in India
About the Project:
In India, government procurement constitutes above 20 percent of the GDP ~ $500 billion. In fact, India is among the large emerging economies where procurement by the government accounts for over 20% of the GDP. Since 2018, the provisions under Govt. of India mandate public buyers to procure at least 25 per cent of their annual procurement of goods from Micro & Small Enterprises (MSEs). With a view to support MSEs, several benefits have been provided, e.g., issuance of tender document for free, exemption from Earnest Money Deposit requirements and reservation of 358 items for exclusive
procurement from MSEs. There has been a gradual increase in the share of government procurement made from MSEs in the past four years barring FY 2021.
However, in the public procurement of goods and services in India, Women’s Self-Help Groups and their federations have largely remained excluded and have not had the opportunity to create wealth for the rural poor through entrepreneurship. One of the reasons for this is a scarcity of evidence to demonstrate that viable models managed by community-based institutions exist and are successful in catering to the requirements of the State adequately and efficiently at scale.
PCI India has recently been engaged by a leading international philanthropic foundation to address this evidence gap and provide technical assistance (TA) to several State Rural Livelihoods Missions (SRLMs) to enable them to plan, create and manage more women-led businesses in public procurement space, thereby generating more jobs and income for women. The project is called ‘Leveraging Public Procurement for Women’s Economic Empowerment’.
About the Position:
PCI is looking to hire Program Officer to manage and support the project operationalization & implementation at the state. S/he will be responsible for the delivery of project outcomes, foster partnership with government and other stakeholders, be actively involved in policy advocacy as per the program strategy, and pursue program growth opportunities. S/he will work closely with the SRLM team and shall get the opportunity to develop innovative strategies for promoting WLEs in the state, identification of best practices adopted by such WLEs and ways to replicating them. S/he will work under close supervision of Program Lead – WEE and support in overall project implementation, management, and its documentation.
Key Responsibilities:
- Support Project Operationalization & implementation
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- Strategically lead the operationalization of the project activities while maintaining high quality
- Collaborate and negotiate with other departments like WCDC and ICDS at the district level and block for leveraging platforms for engagement in
- Support the block and field level functionaries of the SRLM in improving efficiency in contracting, quality of products and services supplied, payment processes, etc. of WLEs, as and if required.
- Support in transcription of all field level interviews
- Support in finalizing the preparatory activities including sampling and identifying & contacting the respondents for interviews, as and if required.
- managing partners that would support CLFs/ WLEs to build the required business and technical skills, thus leading to accelerated business improvement.
- Provide handholding support to the SRLM block team & CLF during the project & business adoption
- Undertake capacity-building activities of SRLM staff as per the project implementation plan
- Maintain all the project-linked MIS and
2. Support Donor & Partnerships Management
- Coordinate with state, district & block level officials of SRLM and keep them updated on the project interventions, as required.
- Maintain and manage meeting minutes and keep the Program Lead – WEE updated of any upcoming issues or concerns.
- Support in representing Project and organization in all the relevant meetings organized by SRLM, and other relevant departments at the state, district & block level.
- Develop the progress reports to and attend briefing meetings and discussions with the donor representatives & other key stakeholders.
- Undertake joint field visits with Government and partners for joint
3. Documentation & Knowledge Management
- Capture learnings, project activities and best practices for dissemination at different online & offline platforms for upkeeping projects
- Engage actively in all the activities conducted by the measurement team for the
- Assume accountability for high-level documentation of best practices from the field and contribute to the knowledge
- Lead report writing for Government/donor and other relevant stakeholders as and when
4. Other responsibilities
- To carry out any other relevant duties as required and assigned by the Program Lead – WEE.
Qualification & Experience:
- Post Graduate degree in Social Sciences, Rural development, or any other relevant fields
- A minimum of 3 years of relevant professional experience in development sector and gender related roles
- Experience in building and nurturing government relationships
- Experience in designing and executing women empowerment
Skills and Competencies:
- Experience of working with Government or providing technical assistance to government
- Possess leadership skills and is decisive, action-oriented, and
- Strong networking and relationship-building skills
- Ability to work against tight timelines.
- Excellent knowledge of MS office
- Fluency in verbal and written English and Hindi
- Willingness to travel to the field and support
Application Process:
Interested candidates can apply for the position Program Officer-WEE by using the following link https://pciglobal.in/program–officer–womens–economic–empowerment–wee/ by 11th September 2023, 5:00 pm.
PCI India is an equal opportunity provider and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability and/or marital status. Due to the heavy inflow of resumes, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Female candidates are encouraged to apply.