Head of Project - MIKANA(Harvesting the future)
Ngo & Social Services Jobs
- Welthungerhilfe
- Expires 20 May 2026
- Mudzi
- Full Time
Job Description
The project empowers women in Mudzi District to lead the transformation of local food systems by strengthening their leadership, collective action, and adoption of agroecological practices and opportunity crops, including NTFPs. Through women-led groups, inclusive market access, and gender-transformative approaches such as TOOSE and the Champion Family model, households sustain equitable decision-making, improved nutrition, and climate-resilient farming systems. Over time, these changes foster inclusive, diversified, and sustainable local food systems driven by empowered women.
Position Summary
Welthungerhilfe seeks to recruit a Head of Project (HoP) who will provide overall strategic, technical, and managerial leadership for the effective implementation of this consortium project. The HoP is responsible for the overall coordination, implementation, and adaptive management of the MIKANA project in Mudzi District. The role ensures coherence across the project’s four interlinked components and drives a systemic, community-led approach to food systems transformation, with a strong focus on gender equality and role transformation, environmental sustainability, and local market development
Duties and Responsibilities
a) Project Coordination & Implementation
• Lead the overall planning, implementation, and monitoring of project activities in line with agreed objectives, timelines, and budgets.
• Ensure strong integration and coherence across all four project components.
• Coordinate efficient day-to-day operations and ensure timely delivery of outputs and outcomes.
• Oversee financial management in collaboration with finance teams, ensuring compliance with donor requirements.
b) Partner Coordination & Systems Alignment
• Coordinate implementing partners, ensuring alignment of approaches, joint planning, effective communication and efficient implementation.
• Facilitate regular coordination platforms to strengthen collaboration, manage dependencies, and address bottlenecks.
• Ensure that interventions build on synergies with past and ongoing projects in the area.
• Support partners in maintaining a systemic perspective, avoiding fragmented or isolated interventions.
c) Facilitation of Learning & Adaptive Management
• Establish and facilitate continuous learning and reflection processes across partners and stakeholders.
• Promote adaptive management by ensuring that lessons learned inform ongoing implementation.
• Support documentation of good practices, challenges, and emerging insights.
• Create spaces for community feedback and ensure it informs decision-making.
d) Community Engagement & Visioning Process
• Ensure that the community visioning process remains central to project implementation.
• Support participatory approaches that enable communities especially women to define priorities, pace, and pathways of change.
• Ensure inclusive engagement of diverse groups, including women, youth, and marginalized populations.
e) Gender Equality & Social Transformation
• Ensure that gender-transformative approaches are integrated across all project components.
• Promote women’s leadership in producer groups, markets, and community decision-making structures.
• Support processes that address social norms and intra-household dynamics.
f) Market Systems & Livelihood Development
• Oversee interventions related to producer/collector group development, small enterprise support, and market linkages.
• Ensure alignment between production, market demand, and consumer behaviour change strategies.
• Strengthen linkages between local markets and external buyers where relevant.
g) Monitoring, Evaluation & Reporting
• Ensure effective implementation of the project’s M&E framework.
• Track progress against indicators and support data driven decision making.
• Lead the preparation of high quality narrative and financial reports for donors and stakeholders.
h) Stakeholder Engagement & Representation
• Represent the project in coordination platforms with government, private sector, and other stakeholders.
• Maintain strong relationships with local authorities and traditional leaders.
• Advocate for supportive policies and practices related to food systems and gender equality.
Qualifications and Experience
• Advanced degree in agriculture, rural development, or related field. Masters in Agriculture is an added advantage.
• Strong understanding of gender-transformative approaches and community engagement methodologies. Degree in Gender Studies is an added advantage.
• Minimum 5–7 years of experience in managing development projects, preferably in food systems, market development, livelihoods and gender.
• Proven experience in coordinating multiple partners and facilitating multi-stakeholder processes. Experience with adaptive management and learning-oriented programming.
• Familiarity with the Zimbabwe context, particularly rural livelihoods and market systems.
• Project budget management experience.
• Systems thinking and ability to manage complex, interlinked interventions.
• Strong facilitation and communication skills.
• Ability to balance structure with flexibility in dynamic contexts.
• Cultural sensitivity and commitment to participatory approaches.
How to Apply
During the application process, WHH will not charge any fee nor will it require any payment for an application to be considered. WHH is an equal opportunity employer and employs personnel without regard to race, place of origin, ethnic origin, language, creed, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status and or physical handicap: Persons with disabilities are encouraged to apply:
Interested candidates should submit a letter of motivation and their CVs to recruitment.zimbabwe@welthungerhilfe.de.
Please state the position applied for in the subject line of the email no later than 20 May 2026. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.
