Senior Program Officer, Regional Food Trade & Resilience at Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

Job Reference: RFT/SPO/08/2022

The Position

Reporting to the Head of Regional Food Trade, the Senior Program Officer the role provides leadership in the mainstreaming of climate resilience, nutrition and other cross cutting themes within regional food trade and resilience programming functions.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

Under Resilience, the Program Officer will;

• Create/innovate and/or strengthen integrated institutional frameworks and mechanisms for building in resilience in regional food systems movement from farm to fork.
• Leads the scaling up of integrated approaches for proven resilient food systems in-country and at regional level. Using evidence to inform sectoral and regional plans which guide investment into resilient approaches
• Undertake and promote global environmental benefits and agro-ecosystem resilience as a result of development and mainstreaming of resilient and integrated approaches to food systems across countries. 
• Stimulate development of platforms of state and non-state actors to pursue evidence-based decision making for greater system resilience and sustainability.
• Provide technical support related to climate resilience and environmental protection within AGRA linking to other initiatives and regional strategies.
• Lead the mainstreaming of cross cutting themes such as nutrition, gender and climate resilience in programme work, convenings and knowledge development
• Lead the technical team in areas of knowledge management and dissemination around regional food trade, resilience initiatives. This includes but not limited to regular development and publication of food security monitor and other reports
• Coordination, reporting and knowledge management across the project interventions to enhance learning, programmatic impact, visibility and coherence in relation to system resilience and sustainability

Under Program management, the Officer will;

• Lead the convening of the coalition of partners that drive evidence-based policy advocacy and government engagement to improve policy transparency, resilience and predictability to unlock regional food trade and investment. 
• Lead the development of intellectual capital around policy predictability in the sustainable agriculture sector as well the consolidation and sharing with a wider stakeholder base in a way that builds alignment and drives action. 
• Support the creation and maintenance of strong linkages and partnerships to ensure that policy is informed by the concerns and needs of private companies operating in regional food markets and that the program leverages on these for result-oriented business led advocacy efforts. 
• Support the identification and management of international, regional, and national technical experts in areas covered by the program, including market analysis, climate smart agriculture, value chain coordination, structured trade and market facilitation; in a way that creates efficiency in achieving overall program objectives.
• Support project documentation to include but not limited to reviewing, finalizing, and presenting proposals and grant memos at regular meetings with the Grants Committee in order to ensure timely implementation of the program. 
• Support program visibility by maintaining relationships across agricultural and climate policy actors in the region and representing the program in targeted national and regional for a.
• Support the management of annual program budgets and program performance management in a way that ensures value for money and demonstrate programmatic impact.
• Support the development of quarterly and annual reports and other reports, as needed, in compliance with the requirements of DFID and other partners; as well as provide regular verbal and written updates and briefings on program operations, achievements, and problems to the Head, Regional Food Trade and other program staff.

Relevant Academic & Professional Experience

• Master’s degree in Agricultural Economics, or in a relevant discipline. A PhD will be an added advantage.
• At least eight (10) years of experience on agricultural development, food trade and markets and resilience/climate smart agriculture.
• Experience in the project programming. Experience in Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning will be an added advantage.
• Ability to develop sound project reports that can be understood by a wider stakeholder audience 
• Strong analytical, critical thinking, problem solving, programming and decision-making skills.
• Ability to process multiple tasks at once; and with exceptional attention to detail.
• A desire to keep ahead of new and evolving discourse around policies in agriculture as well as food trade and market trends and resilience.
• Ability to move from program concept to on-the-ground reality in line with AGRA’s mission
• Ability to demonstrable fluence in program finance. 
• Good command of English required, and a working knowledge of French would be an additional advantage.