ETHIOPIAN AGRICULTURAL TRANSFORMATION AGENCY

Position:                          Senior Project Officer I – Capacity Building

Term of Employment:   Full time

Duty Station(s):              Addis Ababa

Required Number:         One

Salary & Benefits:           Competitive

BACKGROUND:

The Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) is a strategy and delivery-oriented government agency created to help accelerate the growth and transformation of the country’s agriculture sector. The ATA envisions that, by 2025, smallholder farmers are commercialized with greater incomes, inclusiveness, resilience and sustainability, contributing to Ethiopia’s achievement of middle-income country status.

The agency focuses on two primary national approaches to catalyze agricultural transformation. First, we support the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Resources (MoA), its affiliate institutions, and other partners to identify and address systemic bottlenecks within an Agricultural Transformation Agenda. Second, we support Regional Governments to accelerate the development of high-priority commodity value chains in clearly defined geographic clusters, through the Agricultural Commercialization Clusters (ACC) Initiative.

Our major activities include conducting strategic and analytical studies, providing technical implementation support, coordinating platforms to better integrate partners and projects, and designing and directly leading a number of implementation projects. Our headquarters are in Addis Ababa, and we have regional offices in Amhara, Oromia, SNNP, and Tigray regional offices, allowing us to work closely with a wide range of public, private and development sectors partners across the country.

Our Culture

We have an exceptional team of highly competent employees with a proven track record of success in managing complex activities and achieving transformational results.  Our culture is one where talented, dedicated and adaptable individuals are committed to doing their best and exhibit great teamwork to achieve excellent results.

At ATA, we provide an exceptional platform for people who want to achieve their highest potential and make a meaningful contribution to changing the country’s agricultural sector.  We offer rewarding work in a young, fast-paced growing organization with passionate, committed, motivated colleagues and excellent career development and training.  We recognize our most valuable assets are our staff and are committed to providing our employees with the tools, training, and mentorships necessary to achieve their career goals.

POSITION SUMMARY:

Along the agricultural value chain, agriculture-oriented enterprises play critical roles in developing infrastructure, producing, and distributing inputs, processing, marketing, retailing and exporting products, among others. However, these businesses are predominantly micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) that remain largely underdeveloped due to a number of barriers, particularly access to appropriate and timely financial products and services, talent and skill development, and supply chain and market linkages. There is thus a need for building the business skill/capability and interaction of targeted agricultural MSMEs as they are a catalyst to increasing rural incomes, improving food security, and are the building blocks to form larger enterprises spurring Ethiopia’s future economic growth. Thus, ATA has built a new MSME-focused project team – Agrihub – to expand the Accelerator model in the organization.

The Senior Project Officer – CB will be one of the Agrihub team members, responsible for a number of strategic and operational workstreams critical to leverage the project’s supports to help capacitate the MSMEs across ATA projects.  He/She will play an integral role in developing a deep understanding of the capabilities and needs of MSMEs across ATA projects in order to design and implement the highest impact Agrihub capability building and networking programs. In the most immediate future, the Capability Building and Networking SPO will lead detailed design and operationalization of Agrihub supports in terms of business skill development and group networking. Once these services are implemented, He/She will contribute to designing the fuller set of Accelerator-type of services to be offered by Agrihub in the longer term.

The SPO is responsible to manage both the CoE and Networking; and will officially report to AgriHub Project Team Lead having the following essential duties.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES:

Lead integrated and sustained MSMEs capability building supports;

• Partner closely with ATA project teams, regional partners, and BDS providers to identify, align, and provide the most impactful supports that enhance the business skill and business model of MSMEs.
• Develop a deep understanding of the existing capabilities and training needs of MSMEs; and manage the designing, developing and customization of impactful training topics and contents.
• Assess and identify ATA projects MSMEs with a viable business model for AgriHub intake
• Diagnose the business models of ATA projects MSMEs and provide applicable recommendations.
• Develop an implementation plan and organize quality and effective business skill development training, suitable for each ATA project MSMEs; and report performance and brief progress updates for the Agrihub project team.
• Organize and conduct group networking workshops for ATA projects MSMEs to support with business linkage and experience sharing among each other; and report performance and brief progress updates for Agrihub project team.
• Conducted post-training and group networking progress evaluation to measure performances; and share key outputs and learnings with Project team and regional partners.

Manage communications and coordination with ATA project teams, regional partners, and outsourced BDS providers to ensure effective planning and implementation of CoE and Networking activities;

• Collaborate with AgriHub team, ATA project teams, and regional partners to set KPIs and success metrics for CoE and Networking workstreams.
• Ensure clear communication, coordination, and implementation of MSMEs capability-building activities between ATA project teams, regional stakeholders, and partner BDS providers.
• Communicate key issues, learnings, and priorities of MSMEs to AgriHub team, ATA project teams, regional partners and BDS providers to co-design initiatives.

Own and manage workstream in order to ensure timely delivery of support to MSMEs and ATA project teams;

• Strictly follow the guidance provided by AgriHub Team Lead and develop an action plan and checklist for effective implementation of planned activities.
• Prepare and submitted biweekly quarterly, and annual reports for review and approval of AgriHub Team Lead.

Other

• The MSMEs Capability Building SPO is responsible for additional interventions assigned by the Agri Hub-Team Lead to meet the Agrihub team’s functions.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• MA/MSc in Business Administration, Agricultural Economics, Development Economics, Agribusiness, Finance, Management, Marketing, or other relevant subject areas.
• At least 6 years of relevant work experience in either one or more of the following: consulting, strategy, business development/management/administration, program/project coordination, investment facilitation, agribusiness, corporate finance, stakeholder management.
• Academic understanding of business topics (i.e. finance, marketing, investment, agribusiness).
• In-depth knowledge of Ethiopian trade and agricultural policies and strategies.
• Thorough knowledge and understanding of various regional and federal level institutions; extensive experience in facilitating dialogue with relevant public and private stakeholders.
• Proven experience in designing detailed project implementation plans and coordinating with multiple stakeholders to drive timely execution and ensuring on-budget delivery.
• Outstanding interpersonal and stakeholder management skills; ability to communicate consistently, clearly, and effectively to influence a range of stakeholders in a cross-cultural environment.
• Fluency in written and spoken English and Amharic, with excellent communication skills and a highly collaborative working style. Knowledge of other local Ethiopian languages is preferred.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-moving environment, with an emphasis on high performance, teamwork, accountability, monitoring and results measurement.
• Self-driven individual with the ability to work with minimal supervision; demonstrated track record of organization, multi-tasking, and time management skills; and ability to work within a multi-cultural environment.
• A strong set of personal values including integrity, honesty, and desire to be of service
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office tools.