ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION:
Established in 2006, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is an African-based organization, with a vision of a food secure and prosperous Africa achieved through rapid, sustainable agricultural growth based on smallholder farmers, majority of whom are women. Its programs develop practical solutions to significantly boost farm productivity and incomes for the poor while safeguarding the environment. AGRA works to catalyze a uniquely African Green Revolution by creating transformative partnerships.
Background: AGRA is implementing the project Financial Inclusion for smallholder farmers in Africa project (FISFAP), funded by the Master Card Foundation. The project will be implemented in Kenya, Tanzania, and Ghana between years 2015 and 2020. FISFAP’s overall goal is to reduce food insecurity and increase the incomes of about 700,000 smallholder farmers in target countries by 2020 through financial institutions and agriculture value chain actors, especially agro dealers, aggregators-warehouse operators, and farmer based organizations. The project will also work with financial value chain actors such as banks, crop insurance, and MFIs.
ABOUT THE JOB:
AGRA is seeking a Project Team Leader - FISFAP. S/he will be responsible for providing overall leadership and direction in strategy development and planning of the project and delivery of interventions as well as program and organizational learning. S/he will serve as the liaison with organization's senior leadership, donor, government counterparts, partners, and other stakeholders as identified to coordinate the project activities.
Tasks and Responsibilities:
- Plan and mobilize all technical resources required for the delivery of the program;
- Coordinate with organization's pipeline development and investment linkages to deliver on the program priorities, as well as coordinate with organization's other programs;
- Maintain multi-stakeholder relationships in organization's innovative finance portfolio including government, private sector, research institutes, and NGOs;
- Coordinate with organization' monitoring learning and evaluation (MLE) team responsible for the monitoring evaluation and learning agenda, communications team, budget/financial reporting, and research activities under the program;
- Serve as the principal point of contact for the donor and the advisory officer to the director, agri-finance in planning, implementation, and evaluation services of the overall FISFAP program;
- Provide leadership in selection and supervision of implementing partners;
- Ensure the quality of the financial services related trainings for both financial institutions and smallholder farmers/MSMEs;
- Serve as a point of contact on issues for key stakeholders, both internal and external;
- Provide support in external relationship management, keep current of key developments in partner institutions;
- Represent organization with broad stakeholders: smallholder farmers, other funders, international organizations, other beneficiaries;
- Maintain a wide network of stakeholders and contributors to the work.
Qualifications:
- Master’s degree in Business, Economics, Finance, or Rural Development Studies or a related field and more than 13-15 years of experience in international development;
- Results-oriented, accountable, with proactive leadership skills. Ability to lead by example, drive change, and move from program concept to on-the-ground reality;
- Determined, hard-working, individual who is prepared to work around barriers that arise in the course of an initiative;
- Have an optimism that African farmers and consumers can benefit from agricultural financing;
- Ability to excite others about new opportunities and new ways of getting old jobs done;
- Self-motivated ‘doer’, able to work both with autonomy and with a team, in diverse cultural contexts;
- Demonstrated capacity for working effectively within multi-disciplinary teams for collective success;
- Intellectually curious and hungry to learn, embodying a spirit of continuous improvement, informed by rigorous monitoring and evaluation;
- Confident with a direct, honest, and respectful approach to provide advice and critical feedback;
- Outstanding and demonstrated sense of personal integrity, high ethical standards, and professional accountability;
- Strong communication skills including negotiation/persuasion, report writing, presentation and Microsoft Office skills.
HOW TO APPLY:
Interested candidates can send their resume and cover letter to fisfap@agra.org
