Assistant Home Economics Manager (Cottage Industries) at Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security

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MINISTRY                    : AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECURITY

DEPARTMENT            : NUTRITION AND HOME ECONOMICS

DIVISION                     : HOME ECONOMICS

SECTION                      : COTTAGE INDUSTRIES

TITLE                           : ASSISTANT HOME ECONOMICS MANAGER (Cottage Industries)

GRADE                        : H

RESPONSIBLE TO        : HOME ECONOMICS MANAGER

JOB SUMMARY

UNDER THE GENERAL SUPERVISION OF THE CHIEF NUTRITION OFFICER THE INCUMBENT WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR FORMULATION, FACILITATION AND  IMPLEMENTATION OF SECTIONAL POLICY; FACILITATION OF COTTAGE INDUSTRIES INFORMATION; RESEARCH ON COTTAGE INDUSTRIES AND DEVELOPMENT; COORDINATION AND COLLABORATION OF SECTIONAL ACTIVITIES; PREPARATION OF THE SECTIONAL BUDGET; MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF IMPLEMENTATION OF SECTIONAL ACTIVITIES AND ASSUME PARTIAL OF FULL RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE CHIEF NUTRITION OFFICER IN HIS/HER ABSENTISM

MAIN DUTIES

1. FORMULATION, FACILITATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF SECTIONAL POLICY

  1. Develops sectional policy to facilitate guidance in the overall implementation of sectional activities
    • Develops simplified training manuals and guidelines to facilitate a common understanding and interpretation for easy implementation of cottage industries programmes and activities
    • Conducts training workshops for District Nutrition Officers on cottage industries to enable them to train the community on cottage industries (handicrafts, marketing techniques etc.) to establish control measures and ensure that utilization of set guidelines and procedures on cottage industries is within the set standards, policies, rules and regulations.
    • Monitors the performance of the sectional policy, rules and regulations as well as set guidelines on proper cottage industries to facilitate their effectiveness, efficiency and responsiveness to community.
    • Reviews and revises the sectional policy to ensure their responsiveness to the environmental and developmental needs.

2. FACILITATION OF COTTAGE INDUSTRIES INFORMATION

  • Develops and designs guidelines and methodologies on data collection and community education for District Nutrition Officers to ensure good quality information
    • Develops and interprets simplified training manuals on cottage industries issues, to facilitate a common understanding and adherence.
    • Develops guidelines and manuals on cottage industries related issues to facilitate the empowerment of District Nutrition Officers in order to assist the community to generate income.
    • Liaises with District Nutrition Officers to gather relevant information for the development of data bank to help ease implementation and accomplishment of sectional activities.
    • Monitors and evaluates the performance of the developed guidelines and manuals to ensure that it is efficient and effective.
    • Liaises with both local and international organizations to share ideas and kept abreast with new developments.
    • Updates data regularly to ensure that information in the data bank is in line with the changing environmental and developmental needs.

3. RESEARCH ON COTTAGE INDUSTRIES

  • Carries out research studies on cottage industries in order to establish measures for improvement.
    • Conducts cottage industries assessment on locally available and affordable resources to ensure appropriate mechanisms that are suitable to the environment.
    • Conducts surveys on the proper utilization and impact of the newly introduced and recommended products in Lesotho to ascertain the level of understanding of the consumers on their proper use.
    • Collaborate with research institutions in the field of cottage industries locally and internationally to share information and keep abreast with new developments.
    • Carries out experiments on indigenous plants to establish and determine their sustainability for production and consumption and recommends accordingly

4. COORDINATION OF SECTIONAL ACTIVITIES

4.1         Draws and prepares the sectional annual work plan and report to ensure the    smooth running of the divisional operations

4.2       Liaises with the local and international organizations to ensure and facilitate consistency and mutual support and synchronic implementation of sectional programmes as well as to avoid duplication of efforts and misuse of resources.

4.3       Participates in related meetings, seminars and conferences both locally and internationally for information sharing

4.4       Participates in meetings with other sectional heads in the planning and reporting of their sectional activities to facilitate mutual support in the implementation of divisional activities and programmes.

5PREPARATION OF THE SECTIONAL BUDGET

5.1 Prepares the overall sectional budget annual budget annually to ensure that all sectional programmes and projects are funded accordingly and implementation smoothly

5.2 Negotiates and justifies the sectional budget at the divisional budget discussions in order to secure the necessary funds to finance sectional activities.

5.3       Recommends the review of the sectional budget to the head of division whenever the need arises to realign it with changes in the sectional business plan to facilitate the implementation of the critical programmes and activities within the section.

6. MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF IMPLEMENTATION OF SECTIONAL PROGRAMMES

  •  Develops monitoring system to ensure consistency
    • Interprets the developed monitoring system to the District Nutrition Officers to ensure mutual understanding, support and adherence
    • Hold meetings quarterly with relevant bodies to monitor the progress to ensure that they are in line with the planned activities
    • Monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of sectional programmes
  • ASSUME PARTIAL OF FULL RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE DISTRICT NUTRITION OFFICER IN HIS/HER ABSENTISM
    • Holds regular meetings with nutrition staff to facilitate planning and reporting of the divisional activities.
    • Convenes quarterly meetings with nutrition staff to review progress and accordingly approves the required and necessary revisions in their operational work plans so as to provide the required resources for their achievement.
    • Identifies the training needs of the individual supervisees and establishes the strategies to guide on their training and development so as to promote their capacity, competence, efficiency and effectiveness and provide in service upgrading the knowledge.
    • Monitors and evaluates the post training and development performance of the undertaken training and determines the necessary action to maintain good skills and upgrade as necessary.

JOB SPECIFICATION

BSc in Consumer Science/Home Economics/Nutrition and Home Economics

EXPERIENCE

Two (2) years working experience in a related field

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