Trade & Enterprise Advisor at Gap Recruitment Services Limited

• Job Purpose: The main purpose of this role is to lead our strategy on agribusiness opportunities for smallholder farmers, their associations, cooperatives, and SMEs working in the agri-food value chain. Success in this role will be demonstrated by a measurable increase in farmer incomes, through improved market access, attracting additional financing into farmer organisations, strengthened organisation structures, and ensuring better business acumen in every farmer organisation we work with. He will Support the Head of Programmes and country office in the core project design, planning and implementation in a manner which facilitates harmonization of trade and enterprise components. He or she will also play a key role in the effective preparation and representation on finance, enterprise/trade-related meetings and maximizing the impact of trade and enterprise investment on SHA Kenya programmes.
• This post will explore and advise on best practice from within Self Help Africa and experiences from other market systems actors to ensure country programmes are providing effective enterprise development support to smallholder farmers moving them beyond subsistence farming to developing commercial, market-based enterprises, promoting their inclusion in national, regional and global markets. The Advisor will embed market-based approaches in country programmes, identify collaborating partners in the development and private sectors and encourage innovation and facilitate learning across all Kenya country operations.

Key Responsibilities:

Market System Development:

• Support country office to develop a consolidated approach to Market Systems across the programmes.
• Develop and maintain appropriate guidelines and resources and disseminate to programme teams.

Sustainable Food Systems:

• Provide vision and inspiration to assist agri-food enterprises to provide safe, nutritious and affordable food all.
• Profile project SMEs, Cooperatives, Aggregation Centres and ensure needs are clearly identified and are addressed appropriately.
• Utilize market facilitation approaches to strengthen input and output market systems through linkages and increase access to and affordability of nutritious food in the markets.
• Develop sustainable market linkages for identified SMEs and facilitate business transactions including signing of trade agreements.
• Work with SMEs to facilitate enhanced domestic, cross-border and export marketing through more rigorous food safety systems, packaging, and post-harvest methods.
• Assist primary producers, aggregators and processors to adopt new technologies and techniques to increase the quality and quantity of production.
• Lead on access to finance for country programme producers, aggregation centres, SMEs and cooperatives, and work with relevant financial institutions to develop products that meet the needs of target programme partners.

Enterprise Community of Practice:

• Build the SHA Enterprise Community of Practice at the country level.
• Collaborate internally and externally to synthesize, share and apply learning methods for market systems change.
• Facilitate the development of service providers in target value chains, identifying private sector investment and other support to garner sustainable improvements and impact.
• Ensure that enterprise development practices and projects are in line with Self Help Africas group strategy and internal policies on partnership and participation; inclusion (including gender and youth targeting); and environment (natural resource management and adaptation to climate change).

Training, capacity building and Technical Assistance:

• Provide bespoke training to SHA field staff, partners and clients on Enterprise-related topics.
• Support capacity strengthening of SMEs and provide technical advisory on areas of business development such as proposal development, business plan, financial linkages and linkages to other additional service providers.
• Provide detailed technical support, including sourcing external expertise, for the design and implementation of projects covering, but not limited to: Cooperative management and development, Social Enterprise development, Agro Enterprise management, Market and Value Chain Analysis, Value addition to agriculture produce, Project Appraisal, Business Planning and assessments, Access to financial services and products ( SACCOs, VSLAs, Micro Finance / Cooperative credit, insurance and risk management, FinTech whereby the advisor will track the rapidly expanding field of mobile financial service appropriate for SHA beneficiaries, Intellectual Property (IP) management, Market based approaches for the delivery of WASH services, and graduation of farmer-led enterprises from grant to commercial finance.
• Work with the country M&E team to design market-based indicators, data collection and analyses, design the ToRs for midterm reviews and final evaluations, and take part in joint evaluation missions.
• Support in developing and compiling project progress reports, evaluation reports, photographs, case studies video documentaries, PowerPoint presentations, etc.

Policy, Networking, Partnership & Resource Mobilization

• Lead and contribute to developing policy documents in relation to SHAs agribusiness work and keep abreast of innovations to inform our work.
• On behalf of the Country Management Team represent Self Help Africa in relevant national/regional/international communities of practice, networks in order to promote SHAs work. Document and disseminate Self Help Africas experiences.
• Support the country fundraising efforts to win new business and funding to support enterprise development.
• Working closely with country colleagues in TruTrade and Partner Africa to explore opportunities for collaboration and to win new business.
• Support co-designing and co-creation of market-based and enterprise-led interventions that value and actively engage a broader set of system actors.
• In coordination with the Head of Programmes represent SHA at national, regional and international levels, to donors, local and national government authorities, other NGOs, and any other parties under this project.
• The Advisor will carry out any other duty as may be assigned by the supervisor from time to time.

Key Stakeholder Relationships:

Internal:

• The Country Director
• Senior Programme Manager & Private Sector Lead
• Finance and Administration Team
• Global Enterprise Advisor
• Agriculture & Natural Resource Management Advisor
• Gender and Nutrition Advisor
• Monitoring & Evaluation Advisor
• Programme/Project Managers

External:

• County and National Governments (Trade and Agriculture)
• Other Stakeholders including Semi-State Agencies (KEBS, Global GAP, research institutions, financial institutions, Consultants, and donors.

Knowledge & Experience:

• At least 3 years experience in the implementation of private sector development programs
• Over 3 years working on agricultural programmes targeting smallholder farmers, aggregators, traders and private sector development and/or trade facilitation.
• Experience in providing advisory and technical expertise in market access, financial access and climate smart/green economy interventions.
• Knowledge and experience in multiple sectors such as agricultural systems; market systems development; commercial proposal writing; Enterprise development; Business Development Services (BDS) approaches and value addition.
• Demonstrated understanding of the private sector development framework and approaches in Kenyan/East Africa Community Context
• Experience in engaging and networking with the development partners and multi stakeholders including the government departments and private sector agencies,
• High level of initiative, motivation, commitment and professionalism
• Ability and resilience to cope with multiple internal and external demands.
• Strong training and facilitation skills.
• High level skills and experience in capacity building and report writing, especially with SMEs.
• Excellent communication, interpersonal and team building skills

Qualifications and Other Requirements:

Essential:

• Bachelors degree in Agricultural Sciences, Management Economics, Rural Development, Agribusiness Management, or related field required,
• Strong computer skills especially with MS Word and Excel and other related packages
• Strong M & E skills

Role Competencies:

• Excellent verbal, analytical, organizational, and written skills with Fluency in Swahili and English.
• People management skills
• Proactive and motivated with a strong commitment to Self Help Africas vision, mission and values,
• Attention to detail and the ability to produce timely and accurate reports.
• Ability to work as part of team across different cultures,
• Ability to work with minimum supervision.
• Ability to work under pressure and on own initiative