AFR-08

Organization title: CARE
Field Location: Lilongwe, Malawi
Policy Location: Washington, D.C.

DESCRIPTION OF ORGANIZATION

CARE is a leading humanitarian Organization fighting global poverty. We place special focus on working alongside poor women because equipped with proper resources women have the power to help families and whole communities to escape poverty. Women are at the heart of CARE s community based efforts to improve basic education, prevent the spread of HIV, increase access to clean water and sanitation, expand economic opportunities and protect natural resources. CARE also delivers emergency aid to survivors of wart and natural disaster and help people rebuild their lives.

Our mission is to serve individuals and families in the poorest communities of the world. Drawing strength from our global diversity, resources and experience we promote innovative solution and promote global responsibility. We facilitate lasting change by:

• Strengthening capacity for self help
• Providing economic opportunities
• Delivering relief in emergencies
• Influencing Policy at all levels
• Addressing discrimination in all its form

Guided by the aspiration of the local communities we pursue our mission with both excellence and compassion because the people whom we serve deserve nothing less.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

CARE International is implementing a two year research program known as “Leveraging Information From the Field to Transform US Policy Towards Developing Countries.” The aim of the project is to strengthening CARE’s advocacy evidence systems, globally, by making more systematic CARE’s processes and practices of defining, generating, storing and sharing evidence to inform our policy and advocacy work – focusing initially on CARE USA’s advocacy agenda and the Malawi Country Office. In Malawi the research project will focus on food security and climate change and the objective is to build empirical evidence that can be used to advocate for the phasing out of monetization of USA commodities and the subsequent refocusing of resources towards supporting alternative programs that address underlying causes of poverty.

FIELD PLACEMENT

The proposed work in Malawi is part of a larger effort to strengthen our evidence-based advocacy. CARE-Malawi is specifically interested in the relationship between climate change and food insecurity.

In Southern Africa there is growing awareness that the impacts of climate change are likely to make it increasingly difficult for governments to rely solely on welfare transfers to provide social protection to vulnerable populations. A dual strategy that focuses first on adaptation strategies that will increase the ability of poor households and communities to cope with climate-related risks, and treats transfer-based social protection as a second line of defense, may provide a more feasible policy alternative. In order to develop a robust adaptation-based response to climate risk, it will be necessary to: (1) identify household and community-based coping strategies; (2) develop effective methods to increase resilience; and then (3) get policy makers to support adaptation-based approaches to social protection.

Rural households in southern Africa live with a host of uncertainties regarding their livelihood security, living with high levels of ‘everyday risk’. These factors, singly, sequentially and cumulatively increase household susceptibility to shocks and stresses, and thus place household well-being at risk to climate change related threats. The proposed research and advocacy initiative aims to:

• Identify and document the ‘everyday’ threats as well as other sudden onset and ‘creeping’ threats faced by different at-risk and affected households during the course of a full agricultural cycle (12 months)
• Identify and document the livelihood responses of individuals and households to such risks and the consequences of this action for household and community wellbeing.
• Identify, where possible, those livelihood strategies associated with greater household resilience to climate change impacts, and those which increase vulnerability to the impacts.
• Identify, where possible community and institutional mechanisms that either undermine or augment at-risk livelihoods assets, capabilities and activities.
• Feed-back the knowledge generated by the research to better sensitize ongoing home-based care and food security programs or other livelihood enhancement in the participating communities.
• Support the dissemination of knowledge gained from the research into policy and practice through the partner networks as well as country and USA CARE networks.

The fellow will receive field supervision from Country Policy Analyst in Malawi. At the country office, s/he will also work in close collaboration with the Food Security Sector. In the field the Fellow is expected to be involved in research designs, data collection, analysis and report writing as well as identifying emerging issues and production of policy briefs for policy advocacy in country as well as in the US.

POLICY PLACEMENT

The Fellow will work under the supervision of the Senior Technical Advisor, Advocacy Evidence Systems in Atlanta and will be expected to contribute towards supporting evidence building for advocacy on Food Security and Climate change. This will also entail interpreting data from the Country Office and packaging it into accessible format for different audiences at different levels

EDUCATION/EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

• Course work and/or experience relevant to program area. Prefer an applicant with a background in Climate Change and Food security, but other social science areas may be considered as well.
• Previous experience desired: Field experience in a developing country, preferably in the Africa region
• Should have basic knowledge of issues related to links between Climate change and food security and between emergency response and development
• Should have demonstrated ability to write for varied audiences, including policy makers, funders, program implementers, general public
• Strong knowledge of Microsoft Office, internet-based research, and knowledge of appropriate data analysis software
• Basic knowledge of Social Science research methodologies
• Excellent skills in written and spoken English and strong level in written and spoken English
• Should have an ability to bridge front-line program work with national and regional policy and programming; should be a self-starter willing to take initiative; should be a strong team player able to work with a variety of partners from beneficiaries, front-line implementers, partner NGOs and government agencies, donor agencies and policy makers.