Job Opportunities at ICRISAT

ICRISAT is seeking to employ a highly skilled expert with a robust theoretical background and extensive practical experience in scaling agricultural technologies and innovations across Africa. A deep understanding of African agricultural systems, technologies, and initiatives with a focus on drylands that can transform production systems and value chains is essential. The key impact areas include climate adaptation and mitigation, environmental health and biodiversity, gender equality and social inclusion, nutrition and food security, and poverty reduction.

Responsibilities:

• Leadership and Technical Guidance: Provide strategic leadership and technical guidance in designing, planning, and executing effective scaling programs tailored to the African context.
• Contribution to Scaling Science and Practice: Engage actively in advancing the science and practice of scaling efforts at ICRISAT, CGIAR and collaboratively with regional partners.
• Demand Assessment: Assess and identify the specific demand for impactful technologies and strategies from country and regional partners.
• Donor Engagement: Lead efforts in donor communication and the development of compelling proposals to secure funding.
• Technology Evaluation: Identify scalable technologies and evaluate their readiness for implementation, targeting specific impact goals.
• Synergistic Innovations: Recognize and cultivate collective technologies, innovations, and policies that work synergistically to achieve scalable impacts.
• Partnership Development: Foster partnerships and lead the co-design of innovative scaling strategies with stakeholders.
• Collaborative Strategy Design: Work closely with partners and broader stakeholder groups to co-create strategies, frameworks, and processes for effective scaling.
• Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL): Co-design monitoring and evaluation frameworks, including impact assessment criteria, data collection, verification methods, and feedback mechanisms.
• Leadership and Progress Monitoring: Facilitate leadership in overseeing progress, managing stakeholder expectations, and ensuring timely project deliverables.
• Scientific Contributions: Contribute to the writing of peer-reviewed papers, technical notes, and comprehensive project reports.
• Communication: Maintain effective communication with broader partnerships and ICRISAT teams to ensure alignment and collaboration.

Qualifications:

• PhD in Natural Resource Management/agricultural extension/agricultural economics/ social sciences, or a related field with a minimum of atleast 5 years of relevant experience.
• Research Competencies: Demonstrated expertise in research design, execution, data collection and analysis, data visualization, and scientific writing, particularly in areas of scaling and impact assessment.
• Multistakeholder Engagement: Proven experience in facilitating multistakeholder processes, developing shared visions and consensus, and executing complex activities that drive impact.
• Knowledge of Science for Development: Strong understanding of the multidisciplinary and contextual aspects of science for development, recognizing the interplay between technologies, policies, and local contexts.
• Research Leadership: Demonstrated track record in research leadership and management in areas related to monitoring, evaluation, and impact assessment.
• Publication Record: Documented history of peer-reviewed scientific publications.
• Communication Skills: Exceptional written and verbal communication skills in English, including proficiency in scientific communication and report writing.
• Organizational Skills: Strong capacity to prioritize tasks, manage workload, show initiative, and operate effectively under pressure.
• Interpersonal Skills: Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to collaborate effectively within a dynamic, interdisciplinary, and multicultural team.

General:

This is a contractual position for a period of 36 months.

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The ideal candidate should be an expert with considerable experience in business research, strategic consulting, project planning and execution, industry networking, promotion, marketing and business development. The incumbent will work with other ICRISAT and other CGIAR staff and local partners to design. He/she will also have the opportunity to contribute to business development.

Responsibilities:

•  Lead the implementation of agribusiness projects across various locations in Africa
• Contribute to project proposal preparation and report writing for donors
• Facilitate project design/development and institutional partnerships with the private sector for AIP through networking and liaison
• Develop marketing, promotion and branding strategy for various projects
• Contribute to donor acquisition and servicing based on the target deliverables
• Strengthen farmer-based organizations and conduct technical training for farmers and extension officers focusing on farming as a business as well as handhold MSMEs
• Assist in development of MIS platforms for various projects on need basis 8. Develop mechanisms of working with ICRISAT scientist on public-private partnership (PPP) models to enhance the outcomes and impacts of ICRISAT project interventions
• Liaise with the international donors for the establishment of similar platforms in the developing countries of the world.
• Organize programs, trainings, conference, seminars for start-ups, entrepreneurs, farmerbased organizations/cooperatives, MSMEs among other key actors.
• Strengthen farmers’ organizations and conduct technical training for farmers and extension officers focusing on farming as a business.
• Track the progress of AIP projects in Africa for its effective delivery of services to it clients.
• Liaise with the Scientists sand team members of other programs to explore new funding opportunities, while enhancing the operations of AIP for increased impact.
• Any other assignment as assigned by the immediate supervisor and ICRISAT Leadership Team.

Required skills:

• A Postgraduate degree in Agribusiness Management or a related field is a must for this position
• A minimum of 7 years of hands-on career experience working within agribusiness ecosystems including sound project management skills, preferably in the ESA region.
• Solid and up-to-date understanding and experience in agribusiness incubation, operation of start-ups and digital entrepreneurship.
• Proactively meet the needs of the incubatees and assist them with technology validation, business development, mentoring, and funding among other services.
• Help with go-to-market strategy and assist with fundraising for the incubatees through HNIs network, and Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists.
• Plan and execute workshops/events/webinars/expos to promote incubation services, incubatees and generate a pipeline of new incubatees and partners.
• Prior proven experience in running an agribusiness incubator will be an added advantage.
• In consultation with the CEO of the Agribusiness Incubation Platform, liaise with the international donors for the establishment of agribusiness incubators in Africa.
• Good computer skills, especially in MS OFFICE applications.
• Effective communication skills in spoken and written English and networking skills with ability to communicate in local languages a plus.
• Demonstrated strategic thinking and time management skills with good ability and demonstrated expertise to write, plan business research, analyze data and complete timely reports.
• Proven coordination/leadership skills, ability to work with multi-disciplinary teams with proven sensitivity to cross-cultural and gender issues and interact effectively with the Institute's partners and service providers.
• Willingness to travel extensively in the WCA region and to other ICRISAT operational regions as needed.

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The ideal candidate should be an expert with considerable experience in community nutrition and/or public health and with a passion to leverage the potential of grain legumes, dryland cereals and oil seed crops to promote nutri-sensitive “Food Systems Transformation” towards improving the quality of people’s diets/dietary diversity and health. The incumbent will contribute to the design of innovative and multisectoral interventions that lead to nutrition outcomes.

Duties and Responsibilities: 

• Bring a community nutrition/public health lens to nutri-sensitive “Food Systems Transformation” approach applied by ICRISAT in project development, planning, and implementation.
• Provide support on technical issues related to health (i.e., malnutrition, anemia, lifestyle diseases etc.), nutrition, dietary behavior, agri-food environments towards promoting nutri-sensitive Food Systems /value chains, globally.
• Design and undertake dietary and nutrition assessments using mixed methods to support development of nutrition-specific/sensitive agricultural interventions for improving household diet quality and nutrition especially for women and children.
• Conduct research on issues associated with increasing consumption of grain legumes and dryland cereals, food and nutrition, dietary quality and dietary diversity.
• Implement community-based initiatives to increase awareness on linkages between agriculture, nutrition, hygiene, and health with emphasis on production, processing/cooking and consumption of safe and nutritious grain legumes, dryland cereals and oil seeds crops and other foods.
• Contribute to develop and implement monitoring/nutritional assessment (i.e., baseline, midline, endline anthropometry studies) and evaluation plans, sampling and study design, and analytical protocols for nutrition-specific/sensitive agricultural interventions.
• Closely collaborate with project partners to set up a behavior change communication (BCC) team in planning, implementing, and monitoring of nutrition activities and interventions.
• Contribute to research, and develop standards and guidelines for food safety and hygiene to ensure safety and hygiene across: production, transportation, storage and handling of raw materials and cooked/processed products, from the human health aspect.
• Develop, maintain and strengthen partnerships for research and development in agriculture, food and nutrition, postharvest and gender and youth programming aspects, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Contribute to the development of survey materials/ focus group discussions (FGDs), training materials, tools and facilitate capacity building on nutrition and improving household dietary diversity and resilience.
• Contribute to ICRISAT's knowledge sharing and capacity strengthening activities with respect to ICRISAT’s ”Nutrition, Dietary Behavior and Smart Food” cluster initiatives, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Assist the Global Research Program Director – Enabling Systems Transformation, Regional Director, East and Southern Africa and Institute’s Leadership to mobilize new financial resources by way of externally funded nutrition related projects to sustain the Institute’s activities globally.
• Facilitate other ICRISAT scientists, project partners as well as donors and development partner visits to project sites.
• Build technical capacity in local communities to assist target project districts in developing an approach to guide the implementation of nutrition interventions. Mentor NARS, NGO scaling partner staff, and student interns in relevant areas of community nutrition research.
• Assist in writing high-quality peer reviewed articles and publish in high impact factor publications; Develop productive partnerships to further ICRISAT’s “Nutrition, Dietary Diversity and Smart Food” cluster” and its 3 Global Research Programs and actively participate in regional and international nutrition and health research communities and networks.
• Perform other related duties as assigned by the Cluster Leader for “Nutrition, Dietary Diversity and Smart Food” and immediate functional Supervisor. 

Program Specific Skills: 

• Proven ability in using nutrition R&D tools and study designs to generate evidence for public health nutrition research and apply evidence-based nutrition interventions.
• Proven experience in quantitative and qualitative data collection, computation, and statistical analysis, preferably with a research and development organization implementing integrated agriculture-nutrition-health related projects.
• Knowledge and proven experience on undertaking anthropometric studies in children under 5 years old, as per WHO recommendations: organization of an anthropometric survey, field work procedures, data processing, quality assessment, analysis, and reporting, will be an added advantage.
• A good track record in achieving impact and producing high quality technical reports/publications.
• Experience in networking with multiple project partners in the field of nutrition and health. Ability to speak and write English fluently, with very good working knowledge of French will be desirable.
• A self-starter and ability to plan and work independently with minimal supervision.
• Possess demonstrated strategic thinking and time management skills.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and be able to work as a member of an interdisciplinary team in a multi-cultural environment and should be able to interact effectively with project partners and service providers.

  Requirements: 

• A PhD in community nutrition, public health, nutritional epidemiology, or related discipline from a recognized institution with a minimum of four (4) years working experience in international studies being desirable.
• At least five (5) years working experience in international agricultural or nutrition research with practical hands-on experience in community/public health etc. interventions.
• Experience in developing and implementing projects addressing malnutrition and anemia (especially among women and children in vulnerable communities) and lifestyle diseases through food/nutrition-based approaches.
• Experience in ‘linking agriculture to nutrition and health’ is a distinct advantage.
• Experience in an international and multi-disciplinary/cultural environment is an asset.