Job Title: Financial Inclusion Officer (Fresher Jobs)
Organisation: Mercy Corps
Duty Station: Moroto, Uganda
Reports to: Senior Financial Inclusion Officer
About US:
Mercy Corps is an international non-profit organization which implements high-quality, analytical development programmes in very difficult places. Mercy Corps has been operating in Uganda since 2006. It has and continues to implement programs in Acholi and Karamoja sub regions. Mercy Corps is taking a community-led, market driven approach to address poverty and food insecurity needs through interventions that get to the root causes and contributing factors of economic vulnerability.
Job Summary: The Financial Inclusion Officer will be responsible for the implementation of a Market Systems based pro-poor economic initiatives program that is primarily focusing on strengthening service and product delivery across all the Purpose 4 sectors of financial inclusion, business enabling environment, livestock inputs and marketing, and agro-input and commodity marketing. The Financial Inclusion Officer will implement and support access to improved financial services (SILC) layering while ensuring that the program deliverables are achieved. The Financial Inclusion Officer will work directly with the Economic and Financial Services Team Leader to develop agent input/output and aggregator networks, increasing local partners’ access to market information and financial services. The Officer will ensure that private sector led, project-support development is tailored to the unique needs, opportunities and constraints of women and youth and that activities are integrated with all other consortium supported sectors.
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
Strategy & Vision
- Support the Financial Inclusion Team Leader to develop and implement team strategy
- Identify new opportunities for innovation and growth among private sector led interventions
Program Management
- Build the capacity of, and continuously mentor the Field Agents (FAs) and Private Service Providers (PSPs) to continue offering quality financial services to the SILC/community groups
- Support linkages of SILC groups to formal financial institutions (FIs) to access more tailor-made financial products and services.
- Link the PSPs to formal financial institutions so that they (PSPs) can become the agents or outreach points for the FIs
- Support SILC group attain legal status by registering at the district level.
- Support SILC groups in developing their business plans for investment purpose.
- Foster ongoing positive cooperation with relevant stakeholders including FIs and the local government to identify, assess and develop networks for potential linkages between financial market actors and consumers.
- Work closely with the livestock, Agronomy and Economic Empowerment subsectors to advance the goals and objectives of the Livelihoods (purpose four- P4) sectors.
- Support the creation and registration of the private service provider network at the district and field agent certification/ graduation to scale up SILC in the program area as guided by the supervisor
- Respond to queries, when necessary, by ensuring that the community accountability response mechanism (CARM) is functional and individual complaints are addressed.
- Organize and support follow up meetings with key stakeholders in the program intervention areas.
- Ensure Financial Inclusion activities are gender and youth sensitive with a focus on building resilience in vulnerable populations
- Support PSPs and FAs in layering SILC across other Apolou platforms.
- Represent the FI/P4 sector when and as requested in any community events.
Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
- Provide data in support of the team’s submission of timely monthly and quarterly reports, strategic reviews, annual reports and midterm evaluations that will be indicative of program progress during implementation.
- Collect data about all groups working with the financial inclusion intervention and work with MEL team to update CommCare with up-to-date group data.
Influence & Representation
- Ensure close coordination and sharing of information with relevant stakeholders such as local government authorities, financial service providers and NGOs as and when advised by the line manager.
- Liaise with local government officials, local NGOs and civil society organizations, and other key stakeholders to ensure support for and acceptance of Mercy Corps’ market-based interventions.
- Coordination with District Implementation Team
- Build the capacity of the members of the implementation team on Financial Inclusion (FI) sector through orientations, one on one discussions and demonstrating in the field.
- Support the district implementation team to plan the intervention that is related to the Financial Inclusion.
- The district implementation team member will mobilize the extension service agents which will go on to mobilize the community groups to provide the services to conduct the activity in the field. The member of the technical team will coordinate with the district implementation team to conduct the activities in the field.
- The team member will monitor the activities conducted in the field and provide feedback to the technical extension service agents to improve the quality of implementation of activities.
- The team member will meet quarterly with the district implementation team to review the activities conducted in the field and reflect with the team to understand how the quality of implementation of activities would be improved.
- Collaborate with the MEL team on the design and implementation of the Apolou CLA/Learning Agenda Finance, Compliance AND Operations Management
- Ensure compliance with donor and Mercy Corps regulations related to financial inclusion
- Generate activity scopes of work for review by team leader
Security
- Ensure data protection policies are adhered to, establishing security controls for software, hardware and archive beneficiary databases
- Ensure compliance with security procedures and policies as determined by country leadership.
- Proactively ensure that team members operate in a secure environment and are aware of policies
Also Read : Sales Officer Job – Mukwano Industries Uganda Limited
Qualifications, Skills and Experience:
- The applicant must hold a Bachelor’s degree in Microfinance, social sciences, development studies, Business Administration, Commerce, Economics and Agri business.
- At least two years of experience working with communities to improve their livelihoods through savings and loan associations, micro enterprise grants, business linkages, market systems development etc is desirable.
- The candidate must possess good mobilization skills, excellent teamwork abilities and interpersonal skills.
- Demonstrated strong theoretical and applied knowledge of livelihood, Financial Inclusion, and market systems development programming
- Experience working with financial institutions such as MFIs and banks is an added advantage.
- Must be able to work independently while being a strong team player
- Experience of working effectively with private and public sectors, INGO, and NGO partners.
- Knowledge of the Nga’karimojong language is an added advantage.
- Computer literacy with knowledge of Microsoft office applications.
- Excellent attention to detail and ability to complete tasks in a timely manner.
- Demonstrated flexibility, creativity, and enthusiasm as well as a willingness to learn and to be continually adaptive within a dynamic and often self-directed working environment mandatory.
- Proactive, problem-solving action orientation is essential.
- Possession of a valid driving permit class A and willingness to ride is a must.
- The success of the Financial Inclusion Officer is measured by the ability to effectively implement a light touch market system strategy,
- The capacity of the officer to positively collaborate across teams, ensuring that financial inclusion interventions are relevant, and gender and youth inclusive.
- The extent to which the FI approaches are layered onto other Apolou interventions that are implementing through group strategies.
How to Apply:
All interested applicants must apply online at the link below.
Deadline: 28th January 2022
