Project Officer - Turkana Youth Climate Innovation Challenge Project

The Project Officer will ensure the effective, timely, and accountable implementation of the Youth Climate Innovation and Economic Empowerment Project in Turkana County. This role requires close collaboration with UNICEF and key project partners to ensure high-quality delivery across the five project locations.

The primary focus of the role is project planning, coordination, and field-level implementation, including youth engagement and mobilization, facilitation of co-creation processes, coordination of innovation challenge activities, and support to bootcamp and incubation interventions. Additionally, the Project Officer will provide targeted support to grants-related processes by contributing to the screening and appraisal of youth proposals, supporting milestone-based seed funding processes, and monitoring grant-supported activities to ensure alignment with project objectives. Through ongoing stakeholder engagement, routine field monitoring, and risk management, the role will ensure that youth-led initiatives contribute effectively to climate resilience, WASH innovation, and youth economic empowerment outcomes within Turkana’s 5 project implementation areas.

Working closely with the Programme Manager, technical advisors, and grants and finance teams, the Project Officer will ensure that youth-led enterprises comply with project and donor requirements, activities remain aligned to SCORE II objectives, and that learning and results are systematically documented.

Accountabilities and Main Work Activities

Youth Engagement, Co-creation, and Project Implementation (25%)

• Facilitate participatory project planning and co-creation processes with diverse youth groups across the five target sub-counties.
• Mobilize and engage young women and men, including youth with disabilities and other marginalized groups, using inclusive and context-appropriate approaches.
• Lead the rollout of calls for applications, youth screening, and onboarding processes for the innovation challenge.
• Coordinate logistics and field delivery of bootcamps, entrepreneurship clinics, and youth engagement forums.
• Ensure project activities reflect Turkana’s humanitarian, climate, and socio-economic context.

Innovation Challenge, Bootcamp, and Seed Funding Support (20%)

• Appraise and document youth business ideas and proposals in collaboration with technical and grants teams.
• Administer milestone-based seed funding, including follow-up on deliverables and use of funds.
• Conduct routine field monitoring visits to youth-led enterprises to assess progress, risks, and capacity needs.
• Facilitate linkages between youth enterprises and mentors, service providers, private sector actors, and ecosystem partners.
• Promote climate-resilient, WASH-related, and water-infrastructure-leveraging business models.

Stakeholder Engagement and Partnerships (15%)

• Map and engage key stakeholders including County Government departments, national agencies, UNICEF SCORE II actors, private sector partners, and CBOs.
• Plan and coordinate meetings, learning forums, and alignment workshops at county and sub-county levels.
• Strengthen collaboration between youth innovators and relevant technical, financial, and market actors.
• Ensure alignment of project activities with Turkana CIDP III, SCORE II objectives, and national youth and climate frameworks.

Grants, Budget, and Compliance Monitoring (15%)

• Facilitate basic grants monitoring, expenditure tracking, and documentation for youth seed funding.
• Work with youth and youth groups to strengthen understanding of grant requirements, compliance, and reporting expectations.
• Flag financial, operational, or safeguarding risks early and support corrective actions.
• Contribute to donor compliance, audits, and spot checks at project level.

Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning, and Reporting (10%)

• Support routine data collection, documentation, and tracking of outputs and outcomes.
• Contribute to donor and internal narrative reports, case studies, and learning briefs.
• Ensure gender and disability disaggregated data collection and ethical MERL practices.
• Document lessons learned from youth-led climate and WASH enterprises to inform adaptive programming.

Gender and Inclusion: (5%)

• Practice Gender and Inclusion by understanding and putting into practice the Value-Based Leadership underpinned by Feminist Leadership principles.
• Integrate gender-transformative and disability-inclusive approaches across youth selection, training, and enterprise support by ensuring the project supports 52% Male youth, 48% female and 2% persons with disabilities.

Safeguarding (5%)

• Ensure that Plan International’s global policy for Safeguarding and PII policy for Preventing Sexual Harassment Exploitation and Abuse; and Gender Equality and Inclusion are fully embedded in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy including relevant Implementation Standards and Guidelines as applicable to their area of responsibility. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring staff and associates are aware of and understand their responsibilities under these policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), their relevance to their area of work, and that concerns are reported and managed in accordance with the appropriate procedures.

Other duties (5%)

• Any other assignment within the scope of work.

Technical Expertise, Skills and Knowledge (Qualifications/Experience Essential)

• Bachelor’s degree in Development Studies, Social Sciences, Youth Studies, Entrepreneurship, Project Management, or related field.
• Minimum 3 years’ experience in youth economic empowerment or livelihoods programming, preferably in ASAL or emergency contexts.
• Demonstrated experience in youth mobilization, community engagement, and stakeholder coordination.
• Experience supporting grants, seed funding, or cash-based interventions, including monitoring and reporting.
• Strong reporting, documentation, and presentation skills.
• Basic knowledge of monitoring and evaluation concepts and tools.
• Knowledge of gender equality, disability inclusion, and safeguarding in development programming.
• Willingness and ability to travel extensively to remote locations within Turkana County.