Business Officer

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

The project will empower young women to take control over their career choices by providing skills and opportunities to increase their employability and support them to make informed life choices. This will be achieved through high quality career services and life skills training and a suitable job placement and/or vocational training. Given the precarious economic situation for businesses, the project will strengthen the capacity and resilience of MSEs to withstand the current crises, thereby increasing the likelihood that women will remain employed after job placement. The project will improve Public-Private dialogue and engagement by promoting collaboration between the private sector, SDCs and project beneficiaries. In addition, the project will encourage women rights and regulatory frameworks conducive to growth of youth and women-led enterprises and decent working conditions.

The overall objective of this project is to Contribute to the empowerment of young women through informed decision making, better employability and linkages with the private sector.

PROJECT MODALITIES (Food, Cash, Capacity Strengthening, Technical and Specialist Services): Cash, Capacity Strengthening, Technical and Economic Empowerment Gender Equality.

MAIN ACTIVITIES:

• Provision of “life skills” sessions
• Provision of personal career counseling sessions
• Training staff from government institutions and partners
• Support the referral mechanism of job placement
• Provision of cash to participants
• Maintaining all Donor related documents at all times.
• Other Duties may be requested from him/her.

LOCATION / REGION: Nabaa, Shatila, Burj al-Barajneh, Tripoli, Beddawi and Naher al-Bared

The Business Officer is responsible for overall business management, and technical guidance of a FFL Project. The Vocational Training Program will target vulnerable Lebanese in Beirut, Lebanon, in order to provide them with vocational and life skills to increase their potential to generate income and inter to job markets.

Position Description

The Business Development Officer is a member of the SIF project team, reporting to the Project Manager. The purpose of the Business Development Officer position is to coordinate all business development activities for beneficiaries, MSMEs and partner CBOs within the “My Career My choice” project.

Responsibilities

 Responsible for managing the business development training, financial literacy training, and ongoing coaching/ networking and market access activities. The Business Development Officer will support the MSME to screen producers/processors, support business planning, and coordinate the evaluation committee. S/he provides leadership and day-to-day implementation of project and high-level technical leadership in conducting training, facilitates adoption of improved techniques and technologies, facilitate improved market access, sales, supplier agreements, commercialization strategies and guides field visits; maintains direct communication and coordination with technical experts and trainers.

MAIN RESPONSABILITIES

• Ensure that training components and activities are implemented as outlined in the various project proposals and budget in accordance with Concern policies and regulations.
• Take Lead in conducting research on value chain assessment for Urban products, food transformation preservation and organize training sessions for the relevant stakeholders.
• Using a niche market assessment, identify potential support on vocational trainings and coordinate with the government and private institutions to hire trainers and implement the trainings.
• Responsible for identifying the needs, challenges and opportunities amongst beneficiaries and their business ideas, and organizing groups and trainings to address the relevant topics;
• Plan and provide the expertise and support during the training of beneficiaries on technical skills, Marketing, business plan, Entrepreneurship financial resources, and risk management.
• Conduct on-going monitoring and evaluation on all project trainings and trainers to ensure that the focus, strategies and activities remain relevant for the beneficiaries and to propose adjustments when needed.
• Maintain ongoing communication with project stakeholders regarding the project progress and challenges.
• Work as a team player providing relevant assistance to colleagues and ensuring that project components, for which he/she is responsible, are interlinked.
• Ensure to take and maintain minutes of meetings; accurately draft and provide training or workshop summaries/reports.
• Produce monthly progress reports and provide inputs to coordinate with the Business to develop extensive plans for trainings.
• Coordinate the implementation and operations of Business-related activities in the Project, ensuring involvement of all relevant stakeholders’ units at the Business plan preparation.
• Support the budgeting, planning and deployment of marketing strategy and business plan.
• Build and nurture relationships with the business counterparts to understand and anticipate the direction of the business and ensure alignment of provider’s solutions with changing business requirements and priorities.
• Manage business expectations and oversee success of solutions while seeking ongoing opportunities to increase the business value from those solutions.
• Communicate business objectives, requirements and process flows, to ensure common understanding and prioritization between stakeholders for their smooth implementation.
• Ensure the provision of enhanced business intelligence (BI)/analytics to support decision-making and risk mitigation measures, including the development and delivery of standardized dashboard and reports.
• Collate data and contribute to the preparation of accurate reports investments and costs, providing information to inform decision-making by stakeholders;
• Test and analyze  solutions and document the match against business requirements for quality, accuracy and enhancement purposes;
• Identify learning needs and support capacity building initiatives for Business, Marketing and Entrepreneurship related functionalities;
• Provide a team of staff coaching and training to ensure appropriate development and high performance.
• Provide technical advice or mobilize technical expertise on program and policy issues including assessment and analysis, the choice of objectives, activities, transfer modalities and appropriate food products, the deployment and testing of innovative approaches and the development of strategies.
• Actively coordinating with stakeholders to help identify master trainers in certain technical disciplines.
• Inform management of any potential beneficiaries of food processors activity that might help project reach its goals. (Food markets, new products, packing houses, packaging business, grading warehouse etc.).
• Run timely meetings with beneficiaries, trainers and private sector and try to help organize individual entities into some informal or formal grouping.
• Participate in the elaboration of the project: needs assessments, baseline survey, and proposal of actions.
• Help Project Manager in discussions about the technical impact of project with beneficiaries.
• Suggest technical solution for SME for food products and preservation, cooking, marketing etc
• Provide technical support to beneficiaries, and to food processors while consulting with experts.
• Identify potential partnerships to implement the program, make recommendations on how to fill gaps.
• Provide field reports on weekly basis that have details of the daily activities, people met and so forth.

Representation

• To represent SIF with operational partners and to the local authorities on technical, Marketing and job issues.
• To attend meetings, working group and donors’ meetings linked to Project when asked by the Project Manager.

Reporting

• Centralize all information gathered in the field and consolidate a Monthly report (into the proper reporting format) to be delivered to the Project Manager.
• The Narrative Report which includes: the number of beneficiaries, actions taken, number of field-visits conducted, awareness raising activities, number of people attending the session with breakdown per age group and gender; should also include charts, trend analysis and solution
• Provide regular reporting on  activities and Weekly update – numbers of beneficiaries and households visited segregated by age, gender,  needs and vulnerability
• Help in drafting reports according to the requested deadlines and guidelines.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

• Education: Advanced University degree in Business management International Affairs, Economics, Agriculture, environmental Science, Social Sciences or any other field relevant to development.
• Experience: Minimum 2 years of previous experience in food security, Livelihoods, agricultural and Business development work.
• Languages: Excellent command of English and Arabic (speaking and writing), French is an asset.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & COMPETENCIES

• Experience in the private sector, farmers and cooperative organizations.
• Knowledge of issues relating to women rights, gender, humanitarian, development issues, and protection response.
• Strong interpersonal skills and a supportive technical and communication style.
• Ability to understand the cultural and political environment and to work well with partners including local authorities.
• Confident and proficient in the use of MS Office, especially Word and Excel.
• Understanding the cultural norms, traditions, and the socio economic situation of Dahieh areas.    
• An understanding of and commitment to SIF’s mission and values

Ethic and professional practice

• Always respect of beneficiaries’ confidentiality.
• Respect and promote SIF’s Policies and report to your line manager any non-respect of SIF’s policies amongst the teams or partners.
• Address needs and requests in a professional way.
• Report any incident or act that causes any harm to beneficiary or to others.
• Always respect a refusal of assistance.

Help in ideas to support the team of the FS and Agricultural Livelihood.