Child Labor in Mining, Reporting Officer

Job Description

Pact Overview:
At the heart of Pact is the promise of a better tomorrow. A nonprofit international development organization founded in 1971, Pact works on the ground in nearly 40 countries to improve the lives of those who are challenged by poverty and marginalization. We serve these communities because we envision a world where everyone owns their future. To do this, we build systemic solutions in partnership with local organizations, businesses, and governments that create sustainable and resilient communities where those we serve are heard, capable, and vibrant.

Pact is a recognized global leader in international development. Our staff have a range of expertise in areas including public health, capacity development, governance and civil society, natural resource management, poverty, fragile states, monitoring and evaluation, small-scale and artisanal mining, microfinance and more. This expertise is combined in Pact’s unique integrated approach, which focuses on systemic changes needed to improve people’s lives.

Context for Position:
Elevated scrutiny from the news media, advocacy groups, and other international organizations of child labor and other human rights abuses in the copper-cobalt (2C) supply chain in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has prompted a surge of interest in Pact’s Mines to Markets (M2M) program by a range of donors and prospective donors. Such scrutiny has also contributed to maintaining interest in supporting Pact’s programming related to child labor in mining in the nearby tin, tungsten, and tantalum (3T) supply chain, where Pact has implemented the Watoto inje ya Mungoti (WIM) [Children out of Mining] program (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMiVrL4SMtk) as well as the traceability and due diligence system, the International Tin Supply Chain Initiative (ITSCI), for conflict-free minerals.

Pact’s work implementing WIM has fostered a promising application of Pact’s Integrated Approach, as it has used economic empowerment, education, governance, and capacity-building interventions to promote the sustainability of the initial child protection interventions. It is important to implement a range of interventions to reduce child labor in mining over the long term since, together, they more fully address the normative, governance, and economic causes of child labor. In this way, addressing child labor in mining can be an entry point to programming that improves human, institutional, and economic development in mining communities. For the same reason, Pact is developing a robust counterpart to this work related to the formalization of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), recognizing that ASM is and will be for the foreseeable future an important source if income and employment for adults in the same mining communities. These two areas of Pact’s work, interventions addressing child labor in mining and underlying conditions on the one hand, and ASM formalization on the other, must be implemented in a coordinated way to realize advances in human rights, social well-being, and shared economic development in the DRC’s Copperbelt region spanning Lualaba and Haut-Katanga provinces.

Position Purpose:
The Child Labor in Mining Reporting Officer will be responsible for providing close technical support, assistance with program design, tracking program outcomes, and drafting reporting deliverables for programs addressing human rights risks in upstream 2C and 3T supply chains centered on child labor to ensure Pact is implementing integrated programs that address the root causes of child labor. Types of interventions include but are not limited to direct interventions for children and families involved in mining, capacity-building of institutions and services relevant to child protection, and training and deployment of tools for upstream industry to prevent and address child labor in mining. The Reporting Officer will have project design, business development, and project management responsibilities, to be carried out in coordination with the Mines to Markets Sustainable Livelihoods Program manager and Child Labor in Mining Reporting Coordinator. Coordination with the former will be particularly important in assessing and addressing the community impacts of mine operators, and in economic empowerment interventions that seek to link the responsible use of ASM income with growing economic opportunity in mining communities at large.

Key Responsibilities:

A: Programming in the DRC:

• Contribute to the comprehensive strategy and results and measurement framework to address child labor in the 2C supply chain in the DRC in coordination with the DRC Government, the World Economic Forum’s Global Battery Alliance and other international partners, including potential implementing partners;
• Link project design to programmatic strategies to creatively address child labor in mining through increasing access to education, improving governance related to the mining sector and child protection, promoting economic empowerment of mining communities, improving such communities’ access to basic services, and engaging the supply chain and industry directly to promote the adoption of supplier policies that pro-actively identify and respond to child labor risks, with special reference to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Practical actions for companies to identify and address the worst forms of child labour in mineral supply chains;
• Work with the DRC Country Director, M2M Vice President and technical team, Copperbelt Field Program Manager, ITSCI Program Manager, M2M Sustainable Livelihoods Program Manager, and the Child Labor in Mining Reporting Coordinator and respective 3T and 2C program and project managers to design projects that are:
  • Geographically and thematically integrated;
  • Aligned with a comprehensive strategy for the Copperbelt;
  • Locally relevant, including with buy-in from national, provincial, and local government and civil society;
  • Situated within a carefully sequenced set of interventions, with clear paths to sustainability built into them;
  • Complementary to ASM formalization; and that
  • Leverage market dynamics
• Provide technical supervision and monitoring of ongoing project activities, through regular communication with and support to field-based project and program managers, to ensure projects are meeting goals, being implemented according to donor requirements and work plans, and meet the specific needs of beneficiaries within the framework of project scope;
• Support the work of the M2M Vice President, DRC/GLR Country Director, M2M Sustainable Livelihoods Program Manager, Child Labor in Mining Reporting Coordinator and ITSCI Program Manager on developing partner and donor engagement strategies to grow the portfolio; and
• Conduct donor and partner liaison to maintain and grow their engagement and communicate the strategic value of the programs they support.

B. Capacity-building of local technical team

• Jointly develop data collection, analysis, and reporting tools with local technical teams to make project tracking, learning, and implementation more clear and consistent across projects;
• Leverage the effective use of the above tools to provide capacity-building to the local technical team in producing project deliverables;
• Provide capacity-building to local technical teams regarding the delivery of specialized trainings regarding child labor in mining;
• Actively share relevant new information about international norms, market dynamics, politico-economic developments, and research with local technical teams to incorporate such information into programming as necessary.

C: Tasks not specific to the DRC:

• Collaborate with the M2M team on developing new opportunities, technical resources, partner and donor engagement strategies to grow the child labor in mining portfolio geographically and in terms of sectoral diversity;
• Work with Pact’s Results and Measurement team to develop tools and a learning agenda that generate data on program activities of sufficient quality and detail to synthesize and share best practices and models;
• Incorporate current research on relevant best practices as well as important local and international dynamics in child protection programming;
• Represent Pact at international events as required; and
• Provide technical support to other Pact M2M projects around the world that could leverage practices and models implemented through this work.

Basic Requirements and Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree and four years’ experience; or Masters’ degree and two years’ experience.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Strong sense of responsibility, personal initiative, and follow-through;
• Ability to work independently in a fast-paced, multi-task environment;
• Ability to work as part of a team and to coordinate across departments;
• Ability to travel in remote areas;
• Must be fluent in English and French;
• Experience in the Great Lakes Region preferred;
• Understanding and/or experience in the artisanal mining sector in Africa a plus

Pact is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in its selection and employment practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, or other non-merit factors.

About the Organization

At the heart of Pact is the promise of a better tomorrow. The promise of a healthy life. Of a decent livelihood. Of sustainable natural resources that benefit communities. Now more than ever in its 42-year history, Pact is helping millions of people who are poor and marginalized discover and build their own solutions and take ownership over their future.
Pact enables systemic solutions that allow those who are poor and marginalized to earn a dignified living, be healthy, and take part in the benefits that nature provides. Pact accomplishes this by strengthening local capacity, forging effective governance systems, and transforming markets into a force for development.

Pact is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in its selection and employment practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, or other non-merit factors.