Vacancies at Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

The Position

Specialist – Implementation and Delivery Job Reference: PO/ATO/01/2026

Specialist- Implementation and Delivery will support the Center of Excellence (CoE) in building and strengthening the implementation and delivery capabilities of the teams of the two Agricultural Transformation Offices (ATOs) in Tanzania and Sierra Leone through deploying management and delivery tools, providing needs-based capacity building interventions, and sharing lessons and best practices. The specialist will work under the Lead – Implementation and Delivery to provide technical backstopping, curation of best practices, build capacities, and strengthen the center of excellence to emerge as a thought leader for delivery and institutional capacity.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Develop and strengthen multi-stakeholder coordination and accountability mechanisms for priority programs in current and/or future ATOs.
• Design and implement performance management and problem-solving frameworks; this entails designing tools and templates to be used in performance management.
• Develop and support the utilization of delivery tools and practices, delivery chain analysis, stakeholder mapping, prioritization, and root cause analysis.
• Develop data collection, organization, and analysis framework; and serve as a champion of evidence-based decision making.
• Provide needs-based technical support, coach, supervise, and manage delivery specialists/analysts within the ATO.
• Support Lead- Implementation and Delivery in the preparation of the center of excellence plan and budget, with a clear implementation plan and a results framework.
• Support ATOs to design and operationalize investment cases on priority value chains.
• Document lessons, produce knowledge products, and thought pieces related to the center of excellence delivery model and approaches.
• Engage and work with key government stakeholders to mainstream the delivery and institutional capacity
  approach.
• Coordinate with ATO staff and other partners to provide targeted capacity-building programs to drive priority programs.
• Direct and provide on-the-job coaching and learning by doing to relevant technical and administrative staff of the government and the ATO teams.
• Facilitate and work with governments to strengthen functional sectoral/multi-sectoral coordination platforms, working groups (ASWGs), and donor working groups (DWGs).
• Support the team in designing compelling resource mobilization pitches and engaging development partners to support priority programs.
• Map, target, and engage partners in agrifood systems to forge and operationalize new partnerships.
• Inspire and grow teamwork, partnership, and collaboration among the ATO and government teams to enhance performance and impact.
• Conduct delivery chain analysis across actors and the ecosystem to provide evidence-based recommendations to the ATOs.
• Assess constraints and key drivers of performance, motivations, and perceptions of delivery system actors and provide evidence based recommendations to catalyze agrifood systems transformations.
• Develop and lead systematic routines, frameworks, and dashboards, and track performance and ensure accountability.
• Design and provide need-based capacity building strengthening packages to enhance leadership skills and delivery functions in consultation with the AGRA and other partners.
• Instill and enforce the discipline of delivery culture and routinization by instilling management routines and digital tools to plan/prioritize, set targets, solve problems, a data-tracking system, evaluate, and report performance against agreed targets.
• Identify systemic constraints and key drivers of performance, motivations, and perceptions of delivery system actors and provide evidence-based recommendations.
• Facilitate and coordinate functional sectoral/multi-sectoral platforms with clearly defined roles & responsibilities, structures, and systems among actors to effectively roll out implementation.
• Track, evaluate, and report performance outcomes to ensure accountability mechanisms and learnings across the implementing partners in the delivery system.

Key Qualifications and Experience Required:

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in business administration, Public Policy, Economics, Management, public/development administration, Rural Development, or any other relevant field from an accredited institution.
• An advanced degree in the fields mentioned above will be an added advantage.
• Minimum 8 years’ professional experience in building and operating delivery mechanisms within or outside food systems; this entails establishing and/or running Agricultural Transformation Offices, Presidential.
• Delivery Units or other types of delivery mechanisms
• Experience in institutional capacity building of government institutions.
• Proven track record of managing complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives with tangible results.
• Experience in working with multi-stakeholder platforms and processes, or other complex collaboration and partner management platforms across sectors.
• Strong knowledge of Africa’s food system context and political savviness.
• Exceptional collaboration skills to actively strengthen delivery culture through coaching, mentoring, and capacity building to enhance team and institutional performance.
• Ability to identify systemic constraints and conduct systemic analysis and provide evidence-based innovative solutions.
• Deep understanding of market and government systems, agribusiness ecosystems, value chain dynamics, and market systems to identify viable entry points for private sector engagement and investment.
• Ability to map, engage, and coordinate with key ecosystem and delivery chain public and private sector actors, internal and external stakeholders across agrifood systems, to foster alignment, coordination, and synergy around government priority programs.

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The Position

Program and Administration Officer Job Reference: PAO/ATO/01/2026

The Program and Admin Officer will ensure the smooth operations of the ATO, including coordinating with and backstopping the in-country program coordinators. The role supports the full grants management cycle for AATI-funded programs—including the grant-related documentation to support grants design, review, and monitoring of in-kind grants—ensuring timely donor and other reporting, processes adhere to AGRA’s policies and donor requirements. This role further contributes to efficient office operations, event coordination, information management, and reporting, thereby enhancing the overall performance and effectiveness of the CoE and its support to Agriculture Transformation Offices (ATOs).

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Coordinate day-to-day administrative, financial, and logistical functions of the CoE to ensure seamless implementation of planned activities.
• Support the development and tracking of workplans, budgets, and procurement plans to align with CoE and ATO priorities.
• Manage documentation workflows and filing systems to ensure easy retrieval and information integrity.
• Contribute to drafting and consolidating reports, presentations, and other internal or donor-facing documents.
• Support the design, preparation, and monitoring of in-kind grants and ensure compliance with AGRA’s grant management procedures.
• Facilitate internal reviews and quality checks on project and grant documentation before approval.
• Coordinate training, workshops, and learning programs.
• Act as the primary administrative liaison between the CoE, the AATI-supported AATIs, and other AGRA departments (Finance, HR, Procurement, Partnerships, Communications, M&E) to always ensure smooth running of ATO and CoE operations.
• Coordinate internal and external meetings, workshops, and missions, including scheduling, logistics, travel
  arrangements, and documentation.
• Support communication with ATO teams to monitor progress, follow up on deliverables, and ensure alignment of timelines.
• Build and maintain effective relationships with administrative focal points and program teams to strengthen coordination and information flow.
• Support internal communications, announcements, and dissemination of updates within the CoE.
• Ensure timely preparation of donor and other reports and processing of contracts, procurement requests, and expense reports in collaboration with relevant departments.
• Track implementation of grants and administrative activities, providing periodic updates and alerts on pending tasks.
• Maintain accurate and up-to-date databases and dashboards for grant tracking, deliverables, and performance indicators
• Support compliance monitoring by ensuring accurate documentation and audit readiness of grants and procurement records
• Draft and circulate minutes, action trackers, and follow-up matrices from meetings, ensuring timely closure of action points.
• Document and share lessons learned, success stories, and best practices from CoE operations and
  administrative processes.

Key Qualifications and Experience Required:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Project Management, Development Studies, or related field from an accredited institution.
• An advanced diploma or postgraduate certificate in Administration, Grants Management, or Program Coordination is an added advantage.
• Familiarity with ERP or project management systems (e.g., SAP, Salesforce, or Asana) will be an asset.
• Certification in Project Management (e.g., PMP, PRINCE2), Office Administration, or Grants and Compliance Management is desirable.
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in administrative, program coordination, or operations management roles within international or donor-funded organizations.
• Proven experience in grants management, reporting, compliance monitoring, and operational coordination.
• Strong record in supporting complex projects involving multiple partners and timelines.
• Experience in report preparation, data management, and stakeholder coordination.
• Demonstrated ability to manage competing priorities and meet deadlines under pressure.
• Demonstrate the ability to manage multiple administrative processes simultaneously while maintaining high standards of accuracy and timeliness.
• Effectively prioritize tasks, streamline workflows, and ensure administrative procedures are completed in accordance with organizational policies.
• Ability to align work plans, timelines, and deliverables with program objectives while ensuring proper documentation is maintained.
• Demonstrated ability to support the preparation of accurate, timely, and comprehensive reports in line
  with donor requirements and CoE performance reporting standards.

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Key Duties and Responsibilities

• Direct and oversee the functioning of the CoE, lead the central team members to support the effective implementation of the ATO's priority programs.
• Support ATOs to design & operationalize investment cases on priority value chains.
• Engage and work with the ATOs teams and other related teams to understand their needs and jointly plan, prioritize, design an implementation plan, and manage performance to foster ownership and commitments to embed effective routinization of delivery functions and culture.
• In collaboration with ATOs, identify, map, target, and engage with anchor firms, potential local and foreign private sectors committed to working with smallholder farmers in priority flagships.
• Advise governments and delivery structure leads on how to design, operationalize and strengthen existing or new delivery structures for effective CAADP 3.0 NAIP coordination and delivery.
• Manage a network of delivery structures and of specialist delivery support organizations, for CAADP 3.0 NAIP across the continent and facilitate inter-connectedness and peer-learning among them.
• Coordinate and ensure quality planning, prioritization, and budgeting, tracking and performance management processes of the center of excellence unit, and the ATOs with clear KPIs and an implementation plan.
• Design and implement innovative approaches, systematic routines, delivery tools (playbooks, stocktakes, delivery chain analysis, prioritization, root cause problem-solving, etc.)  and results framework while leveraging integrated government programming (IGP) to support the delivery capacities of the ATOs and countries
• Support the ATOs with tools and frameworks to support the establishment and effective functioning of coordination mechanisms, ensuring alignment across stakeholders.
• Provide access to a wealth of knowledge on food system transformation and effective delivery strategies through best practices, case studies, and lessons learned from other regions and countries.
• Catalyse and foster synergy & alignment between AGRA business lines, country offices, ATOs teams, and partners.
• Map delivery chain analysis across actors and ecosystems to provide evidence-based recommendations to the ATOs
• Identify binding constraints and key drivers of performance, motivations, and perceptions of delivery system actors and provide evidence-based recommendations to catalyze agrifood systems transformations
• Design and provide need-based capacity building, strengthening packages to enhance leadership skills and delivery functions that ensure sustainability
• Design and introduce standard quality delivery services to enhance the capabilities of the ATOs teams to catalyze agrifood systems transformation, with a demonstrated measurable impact.
• Coordinate and provide need-based structured capacity building programs, including on-the-job coaching and learning by doing.
• Collect and analyze data regularly to track and monitor the performance progress of the ATOs against milestones & targets and ensure evidence-based feedback to take timely actions.
• Document best practices, produce knowledge products, and lessons related to the ATOs delivery model and other delivery mechanisms.
• Embed and facilitate accountability mechanisms for effective execution of plans across the delivery system.
• Monitor, track, and report the performances of the ATOs regularly.
• Coordinate with internal and external partners to provide targeted capacity-building programs to the ATO team members.
• Support the design business and investment cases, pitch to local and international private sector investors across the priority value chains in collaboration with the ATOs and relevant institutions 
• Engage with new wave countries to assess their demands for ATO-type and/or other delivery mechanisms.
• Recruit and enable talent management and development employees and manage team dynamics to ensure high-performance and positive employee experience.
• Embed and enforce the discipline of delivery culture and routinization by instilling management routines and digital tools to plan/prioritize, set targets, solve problems, use a data-tracking system, evaluate, and report performance against agreed targets.

Key Qualifications and Experience Required:

• Master's degree in Business Administration, Public Policy, Economics, Management, public/development administration, Rural Development, or any other relevant field from an accredited institution.
• An advanced degree in the fields mentioned above will be an added advantage
• Professional experience, with at least 4 years in supervisory roles in economic growth, public administration, or the development sector.
• Hands-on expertise in delivery structures in an African government, with first-hand experience applying deliverology and performance management tools, frameworks, and best practices.
• Strong understanding of the economics of agro-industrial policy and of market systems.
• Experience in institutional capacity building of government institutions.
• Experience engaging the private sector to improve the enabling environment.
• Proven track record of managing complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives with tangible results.
• Experience in working with multi-stakeholder platforms and processes, or other complex collaboration and partner management platforms across sectors.
• Strong knowledge of the African context and global food systems is highly desired.
• Demonstrated expertise in designing a prioritized implementation plan with clearly articulated KPIs, time-bound responsibilities, tracking, and monitoring performance consistently.
• Ability to map, engage, and coordinate with key ecosystem and delivery chain public and private sector actors, internal and external stakeholders across agrifood systems to foster alignment, coordination, and synergy around the Feed Salone Strategic priorities and deliverables.
• Ability to establish sound relationships and cross-functional partnerships, identify and respond to current and future stakeholders’ needs, thereby providing quality delivery services.
• Ability to set ambitious and measurable goals, inspire and mobilize teams to deliver desired outcomes and results that lead to success.
• Ability to design compelling investment and resource mobilization plans and proposals.
• Ability to establish sound relationships with the Ministry of Finance/treasury, private sector, development partner working groups, and development finance institutions to secure resources and investment on priority flagship initiatives.
• Must possess a deep understanding of market and government systems, agribusiness ecosystems, value chain dynamics, and market systems to identify viable entry points for private sector engagement and investment.
• Exceptional ability to communicate effectively, negotiate partnership terms, and influence senior-level decision-makers in the private sector, government, and development community.
• Ability to provide strategic direction and operational oversight with demonstrated competence in leading multidisciplinary teams, setting priorities, allocating resources, and ensuring alignment with institutional strategy and CAADP 3.0 objectives.
• Exhibits strong political awareness and contextual understanding, enabling effective navigation of complex institutional, cultural, and governance environments.
• Ability to conduct delivery chain analyses, identify binding constraints, and diagnose performance drivers and incentives with Proven capacity to translate evidence into actionable recommendations and adaptive management decisions