Job Openings at Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

Nairobi, Kenya – Job Reference: ILO/PID/05/2022

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Role Summary: 

The position is part of the SeedSAT team within CESSA and reports to the Program Manager, SeedSAT.  The individual in this position will serve as the key liaison between SeedSAT/CESSA and the partners essential for implementing the SeedSAT recommendations jointly agreed by AGRA and key national stakeholders, primarily government but also including other stakeholder groups (such as seed trade associations and apex farmer groups) and development partners.  The key rationale for strong government liaison from the outset is recognition that permanent systemic change in seed systems requires government buy-in and ongoing support for the proposed changes.  A highly functional liaison will be key to achieving this.

Internally, the position will coordinate closely with technical specialists for the eight technical SeedSAT thematic areas within CESSA to implement recommended solutions.  These thematic areas are: Breeding, Variety Release and Maintenance; Early Generation Seed; Quality Commercial Seed Production; Farmer Awareness and Participation; Seed Marketing and Distribution; Policy, Legal and Regulatory; Quality Assurance; and National Planning and Coordination.

The position will entail over 75% travel to countries implementing SeedSAT recommendations, ultimately anticipated to include all AGRA focus countries.  

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• As required by the SeedSAT Project Manager, serve as the liaison person for non-government technical and/or development partners.
• Serve as the key point of contact for implementation of SeedSAT recommendations at a national level with designated government institutions and selected other permanent actor stakeholders.
• Serve as a key implementation conduit with both CESSA technical specialists and AGRA Country Teams, working jointly with them to ensure timely and effective implementation of SeedSAT recommendations leading to positive systemic change benefiting farmers.
• Develop strong working relationships with the key government individuals and institutions responsible for overseeing and strengthening national seed systems with the goal of jointly bringing about increased effectiveness (in terms of quantity, quality and varietal upgrading) and efficiency (in terms of cost and timeliness) of pluralistic national seed systems, aligned with best seed system practices.
• Build effective implementation partnerships with national government partners, with a focus on concrete and timely implementation of SeedSAT recommendations jointly selected for implementation by both AGRA and government and private sector partners.
• Maintain strong knowledge of status of all SeedSAT implementation efforts and when government or other partners are responsible for bottlenecks or slowdowns, work to quickly resolve the issues and advance the work.
• Working with the AGRA country teams and the full SeedSAT team, construct and maintain complete lists of critical resource persons, decision makers, and key individuals for implementation support.
• Develop a clear, easily communicated, tracking mechanism for national government collaboration responsibilities, status, and accomplishments related to implementation of funded SeedSAT recommendations.
• Prepare all materials required for AGRA updates, budgeting, communications, strategic planning, and other relevant purposes.

Academic, Professional Qualifications and Relevant experience:

• Minimum of a Masters’ Degree in an Agriculture-related field, Agricultural Economics, and or business paired with relevant experience in Agriculture.
• Minimum ten years liaison work with government institutions involved in Agriculture.
• Strong general knowledge of seed systems, including best practices for effective and functional seed systems supporting farmers.
• Ability to generally, but accurately, understand and communicate about a wide variety of technical seed issues.
• Proven ability to manage and successfully advance a multi-faceted, multi-country set of responsibilities.
• Strong interpersonal communication skills, including communication with government leaders and other high-level stakeholders.
• Able to work independently and in a team environment.
• Able to prioritize responsibilities and adhere to deadlines.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills – fluency in English is a must.
• Fluency in French will be an added advantage.

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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.

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Job Reference: PM/KE/PID/08/2022

Role Summary:

Reporting to the Head of Inclusive Finance, the Technical Support and Innovation Services (TSIS) Program Manager, will be responsible for the management of TSIS component of the Rural Kenya Financial Inclusion Facility (RK FINFA) whose objective is: Increased rural financial inclusion and green investments by agriculture value chain stakeholders, leading to equitable employment opportunities, innovative and resilient production systems, and increased incomes for smallholders, poor and marginalized rural households, women and youth.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Develop, launch, and evaluates Expressions of Interest (EOI) from PFIs to participate in the program following the criteria formulated in the project document.
• Analyze and select EoIs submitted including proposed innovations to enhance agricultural and green portfolios for approval of PMU and no-objection of IFAD.
• Development of TORs for Technical Service Providers (TSP) and/or in-house/Cordaid experts for the implementation of the capacity building plans and initiate procurement and selection of the TSPs, in collaboration with the PFIs and with approval from the PMU-NT. 
• Monitoring of TSPs’ performance and provision of technical backstopping support to partners on agricultural finance, gender, and youth mainstreaming.
• Support the development of pipeline of MSMEs and small-scale producers from IFAD Value Chain programs, PFIs networks and other aggregation platforms.
• Proposing and promoting innovations at PFI and business advisory/financial literacy level to reduce cost and risk of agricultural lending. 
• Supporting knowledge management (KM) in collaboration with the Program Management Unit at NT level.
• Develops documentaries and knowledge-sharing of the success stories, best practices and lessons learnt from program implementation and prepares policy briefs.
• Actively participates as AGRA Inclusive finance team member to advance agricultural finance ecosystems across the African continent.
• Monitors program implementation to ensure PFIs, TSPs and other partners are implementing their assignments in accordance with the contractual agreement.
• Conducts technical reviews of partners and evaluates quarterly reports of PFIs and TSPs. 
• Prepares reports on the TSIS coordination contract for the PMU and non-objection by IFAD.
• Develops and reviews the project implementation framework including the indicators of success and milestones as detailed in quarterly work plans and budgets.
• Monitors and controls costs associated with budget for the TSIS coordination.

Academic, Professional Qualifications and Relevant experience:

• Minimum ten (10) years’ experience working with partners and managing programs in agricultural value chain development and access to finance for SMEs and smallholder farmers and capacity building for SMEs and smallholder farmers in developing countries, especially in Kenya.
• Minimum Masters’ Degree in Finance, Business economics, Agricultural Economics, or related discipline.
• Experience in conducting needs assessments, terms of reference development, procurement processes and management of consultants and trainers in the agricultural finance sector.
• A sound knowledge of, and experience in, financial sector actor development in Kenya and the state of rural and green finance at national and county level. 
• Experience in innovative solutions for delivering BDS, financial literacy and financial services including the role of digital highly desired.
• Knowledge of and experience in Environmental and Social Management systems and Green Finance concepts highly desirable.
• Proven management skills including donor reporting, budget control, planning and team engagement are essential.
• Fluency in English required; Proficiency in Swahili recommended.