Program Specialist - ARE Activity

BACKGROUND

The Lebanon Agriculture and Rural Empowerment (ARE) activity, funded by USAID and implemented by Chemonics International, supports Lebanese rural and peri-urban communities to obtain technical and financial resources in order to facilitate increased productivity, sales, and exports, improved business income, while also ensuring livelihood sustainability. To support this purpose, ARE will increase jobs; improve incomes; improve female participation and employment opportunities; increase domestic and export sales; increase private sector investment; improve access to finance; link value chain actors to domestic and international markets; and improve production through improved practices, technology, increased volume, and/or decreased cost. ARE supports two key expected results:

1. Increased domestic and export sales at both firm and farm levels.

2. Livelihoods improved, especially in rural areas and for women. 

POSITION DESCRIPTION

The Program Specialist will work closely with ARE’s Program Manager, and Technical Advisors to ensure sound and innovative implementation of interventions. The Program Specialist will coordinate with the Grants Management team, Communications Team, as well as the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) team, to ensure that tasks are in line with project outputs and overall objectives. The Program Specialist will also coordinate closely with ARE’s partners and provide support to submit deliverables as planned, in a timely manner. The Program Specialist will be based in Beirut, with travel to project areas all over Lebanon, as needed.

DETAILED RESPONSIBILITIES

Programmatic and Technical Responsibilities:

• Research and gather resources relevant to upcoming or ongoing interventions, and/or to topics related to agriculture, agri-business, and tourism

• Communicate with partners to ensure smooth and effective implementation of activities
• Coordinate and/or attend collaboration meetings with partners and beneficiaries
• Review technical deliverables and reports received from partners to ensure they meet ARE requirements
• Assist in drafting and/or reviewing and/or editing technical reports
• Coordinate with the MEL team on data and reporting needed to ensure that targets and objectives are met
• Ensure that all MEL-related documents are provided to the MEL team in due time as/if needed
• Coordinate with the Communications team on highlights and details to be received from the field
• Support in drafting weekly updates related to assigned interventions
• Communicate feedback from partners and beneficiaries to ARE team and ensure follow up, when needed
• Coordinate and follow-up with the Procurement team on purchases related to the assigned interventions
• Prepare presentations relevant to the ongoing interventions, as assigned
• Support in organizing, planning and managing ARE’s events, trainings, and visits
• Maintain and update individual program activities on MS project including document control and deliverable tracking
• Other programmatic and technical duties, as assigned

Administrative Responsibilities:

• Ensure that all TASC deliverables and documents are appropriately saved and documented
• Ensure that all trackers related to the ongoing TASC interventions are updated on a regular basis
• Other administrative duties, as assigned

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline such as business administration, finance, agri business, etc.
• 6-8 years of experience in donor-funded projects’ implementation, follow up and reporting (previous USAID experience is preferred)
• Capacity to review and draft technical reports
• Ability to apply financial/business skills in agricultural programs is a plus
• Ability to coordinate and work collaboratively with various stakeholders
• Demonstrated team skills
• Ability to work under pressure
• Willingness to conduct field visits, when requested
• Excellent/fluent written and spoken English and Arabic

LOCATION OF ASSIGNMENT

The Program Specialist will be based in the project’s main office in Beirut, Lebanon, and travel throughout the country as required.

REPORTING

The Program Specialist will report to the Program Manager.