Search for Common Ground (SFCG) is an international non-profit organization that promotes peaceful resolution of conflict. With headquarters in Washington, DC and a European office in Brussels, Belgium, SFCG’s mission is to transform how individuals, organizations, and governments deal with conflict – away from adversarial approaches and toward cooperative solutions. SFCG seeks to help conflicting parties understand their differences and act on their commonalities. With a total of approximately 600 staff worldwide, SFCG implements projects from 55 offices in 34 countries, including in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States.
The organization is an exciting and rewarding place to work, with a dedicated and enthusiastic staff that is committed to its mission and values. You will be joining a highly motivated staff with a good team spirit and there will be opportunities to grow in the role.
We invite applications from qualified candidates for the position below:
Job Title: Africa Research and Policy Mentee – Mentorship Program
Location: Abuja
Summary of Mentee – Mentorship Program
Search for Common Ground Nigeria on the platform of Forum on Farmer-herder Relations (FFARN) it convenes is offering a Mentor – Mentee program for three Masters or PhD students currently enrolled in universities in Nigerian and/on selected countries in the Sahel, with ongoing academic research on farmer-herder conflict. Preference will be given to student whose work is focussed or closely related to the below thematic issues on farmer-herder conflict:
Livelihood Concerns in Farmer-herder Conflict:
- Cross border dimension of the conflict, implication on and for the Sahel region
- Transhumance and ECOWAS Transhumance protocol
- Farmer-Herder conflict and the Governance of Rural Land and Water resources
- Identity concerns of farmer-herder
- The Mentees will be placed with a mentor organization, a non-governmental organization, member of FFARN who will support the mentee in understanding the local dynamics and nuances of the conflict, share relevant experience and provide opportunity for the mentee to have access to field work necessary to improve the quality and content of their academic research
- Mentees will work closely with an experienced mentor as well as Search’s team comprising FFARN’s Fellow and the Project lead. The mentee will work with this team to develop a research topic related to the farmer-herder conflict, with a view on how contributing factors to the conflict are impacted by policy.
The program will build the students’ capacity in research methodology, writing, and data collection while building the base of knowledge and data on farmer-herder issues which practitioners and policymakers can reference in their work. The output of the mentorship program is a well research paper on the agreed topic. Each student will present the outcomes of their research and final written paper to the FFARN upon completion.
The paper is property of FFARN and copyrighted to Search for Common Ground. FFARN and Search will circulate the research to broader policymaker, practitioner, and scholar audiences in Nigeria and beyond.
The mentorship program is ideal for candidates seeking to deepen their field exposure as part of an ongoing academic research project, whether as part of a thesis, dissertation, or another form of research endeavor. Search will give preference to candidate that are able to devote up to 40% of their time to this mentorship program in the period working closely with the mentor’s organization.
The Project
Search secured a grant from Carnegie Corporation entitled “Amplifying the Expertise of African Peacebuilding Practitioners and Scholars”. This grant aims to increase knowledge-sharing between African peacebuilding scholars and practitioners with policy makers in the Global North. It is designed to change the way policies around critical cases of potential or ongoing violent conflict are developed by translating peacebuilding expertise and evidence from civilian-led, prevention-focused approaches into direct foreign policy impact, highlighting emerging risks and seizing opportunities for solutions.
The overall goal of this project is to translate existing evidence from peacebuilding scholarship and practice into programmatic and policy influence, bringing credible, relevant, and timely insights to the pressing challenges facing Africa. Specifically, it seeks to supporting knowledge generation and sharing between Nigerian peacebuilding scholars and practitioners for improved practitioner implementation, academic research, and policymaking.; expand knowledge sharing support to include Western Sahelian participants and topics; build relationships between scholarly institutions and practitioner organizations working on conflict in Africa and translate existing evidence from local African peacebuilding scholarship and practice for policy relevance.
Forum on Farmer- Herder Relations in Nigeria:
- The Forum on Farmer-Herder Relations (FFARN), the learning exchange platform of the project. It is a network of academics and practitioners from both governmental and non-governmental institutions
- The purpose of the Forum is to bridge the gap between peace practitioners and researchers, share views and experiences and discuss the dynamics of farmer-herder relations with a view to seeking sustainable solutions
- The Forum also examines areas of policy research, advocacy and mobilization and provides a veritable platform for interdisciplinary exchange of ideas that generate evidence for multilevel policy influencing on farmer-herder relations in Nigeria. Previous papers and policy briefs of FFARN can be access via: https://www.sfcg.org/tag/nigeria-reports
Budget and Logistics Support:
- To support the Mentee, Search will pay mentee a token of $500, paid in local currency. 50% will be paid in May and 50% in September
- Search will cover the cost of mentee to participate in relevant capacity building workshop and meetings
- The Mentor organization will share experience with the mentee’s and support mentee to access field level information relevant to the research and development of the paper.
The Timeframe of the Mentorship Program:
- April 2019- Inception procedures, identification of issues and development of plan
- May and June 2019- Field based activities with Mentor’s organization and relevant capacity building activities and development of paper.
- July 2019- Production of paper
- August 2019 – Review and publishing
- September 2019 – Close out
Major Duties and Responsibilities
Primary responsibilities include but are not limited to the following:
- Work closely with the mentor, fellow and project lead to identify appropriate issue to research on out of the thematic areas and guided by the available opportunity for field experience.
- Develop an appropriate research topic working with the mentor and team
- Work with Mentor and Search to develop work plan for the mentorship period
- Develop a research plan on the pre-agreed topic
- Conduct field research as necessary, working closely with the mentor and Search team.
- Produce a well researched paper on the pre- agreed topic in line with the any of the thematic areas utilizing
- Maintain regular contact with Mentor and Search team
- Perform other relevant tasks assigned by Mentor and Search.
- These duties cannot be exhaustive, the mentee may be required to undertake other duties that are broadly in line with the above key duties.
Qualifications
Education:
- Current Masters or Doctorate student, with ongoing academic research focuses on Farmer-Herder relations/conflicts in Nigeria or the Sahel;
- University Degree is required; University Degree in International Development, Peace Studies, Social Science or related field is desired.
Required Experience:
- Basic experience in field research, evaluation design, empirical and statistical analysis, and information management design is required;
- Proficiency at using Microsoft Office software is required;
- Appreciable analytic, writing, and presentation skills;
- A demonstrated commitment to high professional ethical standards and a diverse workplace;
- Ability to organize workflow around tight timeframes, handle multiple tasks, and be flexible with changing priorities;
- Attention to detail and ability to follow up on tasks to completion is required,
- Fluency in written and spoken English is required.
- Fluency at least one of the local languages spoken in the area of research interest is desired.
The Mentee is required to respect the following Ethical Principles:
- Comprehensive and systematic inquiry: Mentee should make the most of the existing information and full range of stakeholders available at the time of the review. Mentees should conduct systematic, data-based inquiries. He or she should communicate his or her methods and approaches accurately and in sufficient detail to allow others to understand, interpret and critique his or her work. He or she should make clear the limitations of the review and its results.
- Competence: Mentees should possess the abilities and skills and experience appropriate to undertake the tasks proposed and should practice within the limits of his or her professional training and competence.
- Honesty and integrity: Mentees should be transparent with any contractor/constituent about: any conflict of interest, any change made in the negotiated project plan and the reasons why those changes were made, any risk that certain procedures or activities produce misleading review information.
- Respect for people: Mentees should respect the security, dignity and self-worth of respondents, program participants. Mentees have the responsibility to be sensitive to and respect differences amongst participants in culture, religion, gender, disability, age and ethnicity.
- In addition, the mentee will respect SFCG’s DME standards, to be found in SFCG’s evaluation guidelines:http://www.sfcg.org/programmes/ilt/dme_guidelines.html
Deadline: 12th April, 2019.
How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online
Application Process
The application should hold four attachments:
- Current CV demonstrating relevant experience/ knowledge
- Evidence of studentship
- Two references, one should be from the current school (stamped)
- Title of the proposed page and a 2-4 page proposal showing the scope, rationale, objectives, key questions and methodology.
Note
- The system only has the functionality to upload two documents per application. Incomplete applications will not be accepted
- Only applicants invited for an interview will be contacted. No phone calls please. Please see our website: www.sfcg.org for full details of our work.
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