Youth Livelihoods Coordinator

Overall purpose of the role:

The Youth Livelihoods Coordinator supports the implementation of the EC Youth Livelihoods Programme within the Consortium Management Unit (CMU) in Sudan, which aims to strengthen the protection, inclusion and socio-economic opportunities of conflict-affected youth. Positioned at consortium level, the role provides strategic leadership and technical coordination, oversight and alignment to ensure the quality, coherence and continuity of youth livelihoods interventions across all partners and implementing locations. The role ensures interventions are market‑informed (MSD), conflict‑sensitive, gender‑ and disability‑inclusive, decent‑work aligned, and protection‑integrated across partners and locations.

The role is responsible for aligning agreed youth livelihoods and technical approaches across programme outputs, leveraging the comparative strengths of consortium partners to deliver relevant sustainable employment pathways for youth. Drawing on experience in youth livelihoods programming in conflict-affected contexts, the Youth Livelihoods Coordinator promotes market-oriented solutions that support durable employment outcomes, economic recovery and resilience for young people. The role will emphasize the importance of youth inclusion and engagement for sustainable impact. The position plays a key role in ensuring that youth livelihoods interventions are inclusive, conflict-sensitive and responsive to labour market opportunities, while promoting meaningful youth engagement and long-term impact.

Key Responsibilities

Consortium Coordination

• Support the Chief of Party and CMU in coordinating consortium partners, ensuring collaborative planning and delivery of programme activities
• Supports the COP in coordination and communication with donor
• Coordinate and participate in the development and delivery of consortium governance processes, including Steering Committee meetings and leading the livelihoods technical working group and engaging in other working groups where required
• Support transparent and continuous communication and coordination within the CMU
• Lead consortium-wide alignment of youth livelihoods approaches across Output 1 (public works/CfW) and Output 2 (youth pathways: employability, skills, enterprise, MSMEs, financial inclusion) to ensure design coherence and quality across partners.
• Chair the Livelihoods Technical Working Group (LTWG) and coordinate with other technical working groups (Protection, MEAL, etc.) to ensure cross-workstream alignment and traceability from technical approach to activities to budgeting.
• Lead rapid Market Systems assessments/updates processes and ensure findings translate into consortium decisions on sector prioritisation (CfW work types, job sectors, kit modality decisions (cash/voucher/in‑kind), and safe delivery modalities)
• Produce and disseminate pivot notes documenting triggers (market/access/security/youth feedback), decisions taken, and follow-up actions for partners, ensuring evidence-based programme adjustments.
• Coordinate partner adherence to the consortium’s tiered delivery framework (tier 1, tier 2) and ensure safe modality shifts when access/security conditions change.

Technical Coordination

• Provide technical coordination and guidance for all youth livelihoods components across consortium partners, ensuring coherence with programme objectives and approved workplans.
• Support partners to design and implement integrated livelihoods pathways, linking employability, skills development, entrepreneurship, and access to work.
• Ensure youth livelihoods activities are market-informed, conflict-sensitive and aligned with local economic realities and youth aspirations.
• Support the design of sustainability strategies, including linkages to private sector actors, community structures, and government systems where they exist.
• Contribute to adaptive management by identifying risks, opportunities and necessary adjustments in response to market dynamics, security conditions or youth feedback
• Facilitate coordination, harmonization and shared learning across partners and regions.
• Support documentation of lessons learned and good practices to inform programme adaptation.
• Steward the youth pathways system, ensuring accurate youth segmentation, clear assignment to the starting tracks, and consistent application of the programme’s pivot rules
• Oversee technical quality across the full pathway chain: life and soft skills , technical/vocational skilling, apprenticeships/OJT, job matching and employer engagement, and enterprise start-up support.
• Ensure MSD-aligned implementation by supporting partners to diagnose market actor constraints and implement according to MSD principles.

Ensure coherent Youth Employment and Livelihood Pathways

• Coordinate cash-for-work interventions as a pathway for skills development, work readiness and economic recovery.
• Support alignment of CFW activities with community infrastructure rehabilitation and youth skill-building objectives.
• Promote linkages between short-term work opportunities and longer-term employment, training or entrepreneurship pathways.
• Support the design and implementation of market-informed employability and skills development interventions aligned with labour market demand.
• Promote market systems approaches and private sector engagement to expand youth access to decent work and enterprise opportunities.
• Ensure inclusion of vulnerable and hard-to-reach youth, including young women, youth with disabilities and displaced youth.
• Ensure all youth employment and self‑employment pathways are coherent across partners, follow the agreed sequencing (profiling to training to intermediation/enterprise to coaching to finance), and maintain consistent quality regardless of location or delivery tier.
• Maintain programme-wide standards for Decent Working Conditions (DWC), ensuring safe apprenticeships, non-exploitative job placements, gender-responsive workplace considerations, and protection-aligned labour practices.
• Coordinate technical integration between skills development, job placement CFW transition, entrepreneurship, and MSME strengthening, ensuring youth can move between pathways without dead-ends.
• Verify that partner delivery aligns with the programme’s anti-distortion and anti-saturation rules, ensuring that local markets remain healthy and youth start-ups do not overcrowd specific sectors.
• Ensure regular technical evidence reviews with partners using MEAL dashboards, pathway performance data, PDM results, and market feedback to drive iterative improvements in employment pathways.

Youth Engagement & Accountability

• Promote meaningful youth participation in the design, implementation and review of livelihoods interventions.
• Support feedback and accountability mechanisms that allow youth to influence programme adaptations and decision-making.
• Ensure youth livelihoods activities align with protection principles and do no harm.
• Institutionalise youth participation in key decision points: market assessments, sector prioritisation, CfW work selection, pathway assignment, and entrepreneurship hub service design.
• Ensure youth feedback (including from CARM) triggers concrete programme adjustments—such as pathway pivots, scheduling changes, delivery modality shifts, or redesign of training/enterprise content.
• Strengthen accessibility for young women, youth with disabilities, and highly vulnerable youth by ensuring tailored accommodations (safe access routes, flexible scheduling, gender-responsive hubs, reasonable accommodation in training).
• Promote youth-led learning and reflection spaces (e.g., youth panels, hub discussions, peer learning circles) and ensure insights feed back into technical and strategic decisions.

Qualifications, experience and technical competencies:  

• Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Development Studies, Livelihoods, Business Administration, Social Sciences, or a related field required.  A Master’s degree in a relevant field is an advantage.
• Minimum 5–7 years of progressive experience in youth livelihoods, employment, employability, entrepreneurship or economic recovery programming in humanitarian or development contexts.
• Demonstrated experience working on youth employment and skills development programmes, including market-relevant vocational or technical training and employability interventions.
• Proven experience in market systems or value chain–informed livelihoods programming, including engagement with private sector actors and training providers.
• Experience designing or coordinating cash-for-work (CFW) activities, preferably linked to skills development, work readiness or community infrastructure.
• Experience working with local partners to support business and training activities (i.e. local BDS providers, TVET institutions, etc.) a plus.
• Experience working within consortia or multi-partner programmes, including coordination with international and national NGOs.
• Previous experience working in fragile, conflict-affected or displacement-affected contexts;
• Experience in Sudan or the region is a strong asset.
• Required experience in Microsoft suite

Languages:

• Proficiency in English
• Arabic is an added advantage

About you

In this position, you are expected to demonstrate DRC’s five core competencies:

• Striving for excellence: You focus on reaching results while ensuring an efficient process.
• Collaborating: You involve relevant parties and encourage feedback.
• Taking the lead: You take ownership and initiative while aiming for innovation.
• Communicating: You listen and speak effectively and honestly.
• Demonstrating integrity: Upholding and promoting the highest standards of ethical and professional conduct in relation to DRC’s values and Code of Conduct, including safeguarding against sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment.

Conditions

Contract:          Twelve months contract with possibility of extension, subject to funding and performance. Salary and conditions in accordance with the Danish Refugee Council’s Terms of Employment for International staff. This position is graded at NM.G

Start Date:        Immediate

Duty Station:     Port Sudan

Reports to:        Chief of Party

Application and CV

Interested candidates who meet the required qualifications and experience are invited to submit updated CV and cover letter explaining their motivation and why they are suited for the post.

Please submit your application and CV in English via our online-application form on www.drc.ngo under Vacancies by 23 Feb 2026.