United Republic of Tanzania: Senior Community Engagement Specialist: Tanzania | - 2015

Senior Community Engagement Specialist: Tanzania Tusome Pamoja Program

This position is contingent upon funding.

The IRC is one of the world’s leading humanitarian and post-conflict development agencies, supporting communities in over 30 fragile, failed, and developing states. The IRC started operations in Northwestern Tanzania’s Kigoma region in December 1993 in response to large influxes of refugees from neighboring Rwanda and Burundi and, later, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The IRC currently assists approximately 70,000 refugees in Nyarugusu Camp, in Kasulu, Tanzania. Since 2011, the IRC has also expanded its child protection work into the local community outside of the refugee camps in Kasulu District, supporting the government’s efforts to strengthen child protection systems at the district level. In 2012, the IRC began a multi-sector project to support local efforts to combat child labor in Kigoma and Tanga regions over four years, working closely with local and international partners.

Position Summary:

The IRC is seeking a Senior Community Engagement Specialist for the five-year, $60-70 million USAID Tusome Pamoja (“Let’s Read Together” in Kiswahili) Program in Tanzania. The program aims: (1) to improve quality of basic skills instruction at the early primary level; (2) to strengthen Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT) skills delivery systems; and (3) to increase community and parental engagement in early primary education. The position will be based in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. The Senior Community Engagement Specialist will be responsible for all activities associated with improving community and parental engagement in early primary education. S/he will supervise a team of technical specialists and officers and will be responsible for developing, implementing, and monitoring all related technical strategies and activities. This position is contingent on the IRC being awarded funding and is anticipated to begin in October 2015.

Specific responsibilities include the following:

Work with the Chief of Party (COP) to provide direct leadership, supervision, and oversight of the parental and community engagement aspects of the program.
Ensure the implementation of an efficient and effective project that addresses the needs of beneficiary populations in the most cost-effective manner.
Coordinate the design and implementation of all parental and community engagement activities-including carrying out any necessary assessments-and the setting of high quality performance targets ensuring the adherence to technical standards, best practices, and USAID guidelines.
Coordinate the design and ensure integration across components with the component technical leads.
Engage with schools, national, regional and local education and social-work authorities, local civil society organizations (CSOs), and communities regarding family and community engagement activities
Explore avenues for sustainability elements during program implementation, working closely with local communities and CSOs.
Provide technical support to field-based program staff and conduct technical trainings when required.
Work closely with the M&E unit and the other senior specialists on monitoring, evaluation, and learning systems and analyze the data it generates to inform project management, technical programming, and development of best practices and applied research.
Conduct frequent field visits to project sites to monitor activities.

Required Skills:

Technical proficiency in community and parental engagement in educational achievement program design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation
Demonstrated experience managing similar education projects in challenging contexts similar to Tanzania, involving management of multi-million dollar budgets/portfolios.

Experience/Qualifications:

Master’s Degree in education or a closely related field is required.

S/he must have at least five (5) years of experience designing, implementing, and managing community and parental engagement initiatives in/for developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

Experience living and working in Tanzania.
Prior experience managing USAID-funded programs.
English fluency required. Swahili proficiency preferred.