Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency Project Officer II – eVoucher Jobs

Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency Project Officer II – eVoucher Jobs

Job Id: 221801

Category: Agriculture

Location: Addis Ababa

Career Level: Senior Level (5+ years experience)

Employment Type: Full time

Salary: Competitive

Job Description

Vacancy Announcement

Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency

Position: Project Officer II – eVoucher

Term of Employment: Full Time

Duty Station(s): Addis Ababa

Required Number: One year with possibility of extension

Salary & Benefits: Competitive

Application Deadline: September 13, 2019

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 (MoALR), its affiliate institutions, and other partners to identify and address systemic bottlenecks within an Agricultural Transformation Agenda.

Second, we support Regional Governments to accelerate 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 sector 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 team work 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 in 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:

Among the flagship deliverables of the Rural Financial Services program is the implementation of the new Input Voucher System (IVS) for input distribution.

Under this new system vouchers for inputs (fertilizer, seed, chemical) are purchased by a farmer at a financial institution (MFI) for either cash or credit and then redeemed at a multi-purpose cooperative.

The benefit of the new system is to offer access to credit for farmers, remove the burden of handling of large amounts of cash from the cooperative system and reduce the exposure of regional governments under the guarantee provided to secure a loan to import inputs.

The system was successfully piloted in five woredas in Amhara in 2014, reaching over 150,000 farmers. In 2015, the system was scaled up in Amhara and piloted in other major regions to reach 2 million farmers.

This position will officially report to the program Director, Rural Financial Services.

Essential Duties:

Apply agricultural finance knowledge, especially in input/output finance; financial literacy; and micro-insurance in implementing the eVoucher project and supporting team members and stakeholders;

Manage the automation of the manual input voucher sales

system designing the features of the technology which uses android phones and Near Field Communication (NFC) tags to register farmer profile and entitlements;

Design guidelines and policies for the change management of the automation project with regional stakeholders;

Follow up with the technology service provider on deliverables, timeline and performance according to the contract;

Oversee the work plan, procurement, trainings, payment and donations related to the E-voucher project implementation;

Persuade senior regional stakeholders to get a buy in for the pilot and scale up of the automation project by presenting the advantages of using this system;

Supervise and provide continuous support to officers and agents of MFIs, RuSACCOs and primary cooperatives implementing the system;

Handle change management issues that may arise from automating the manual system through a technical working group represented by all the relevant regional bureaus;

Leads and supports team members in identifying, structuring, and prioritizing problems, and developing and applying appropriate frameworks across rural finance projects;

oversee and coach project team members in identifying, structuring, and prioritizing problems, developing and applying appropriate frameworks and approaches, collecting data and high impact analysis and drawing out robust insights and recommendations;

Independently create and frames high-quality quantitative and qualitative analyses using multiple formats (excel, power point, etc.);

Independently develop, validates and prioritizes actionable recommendations for rural finance projects;

Develop high-quality output with minimum errors and minimal guidance required; leads and supports team members to do the same

Manage own timelines and/or multiple workstreams to meet deadlines with high-quality output; oversees team members through prioritizing and assigning workstreams and tasks, overseeing stakeholder interaction, and regularly validating progress against deadlines

Proactively identify major risks, issues, and potential opportunities affecting work stream or project delivery, and communicates to supervisor with solution options;

Identify all required resources, including budgetary, human resources and logistics, to ensure deliverables are properly executed; develops solution options, and communicates upward as required

Organize and lead regular communications and discussions with multiple project stakeholders; builds independent working relationships with up to mid-manager level stakeholders;

Demonstrate a strong understanding of cultural and political dimensions of stakeholder, their impact on recommendations, and how to address these; supports team members in identifying and addressing sensitivities;

Lead and support capability building for regional counterparts, Fellows and other partners, through training, ongoing coaching and support;

Job Requirements

Bachelor or master’s degree in Business, Economics, Agriculture, Public Policy, International Development and other relevant subject areas.

At least 6 years (for Bachelor’s) or 4 years (for Master’s) of experience in Rural Financial Services Projects and Initiatives.

Interest in and familiarity with Ethiopia’s agricultural sector, agricultural and rural development.

Genuine intellectual curiosity and desire to innovate and bring large-scale change.

Excellent oral and written communication and stakeholder management skills.

Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and data gathering skills.

Strong willingness to learn, and ability to be a real team player.

Ability to thrive in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial environment, with an emphasis on high-performance, results and accountability.

Strong personal values including integrity, honesty and desire to be of service.

Fluency in English and Amharic required.

knowledge of Oromiffa is advantageous.

How to Apply

Application Instructions

We invite all candidates meeting the required qualifications to send (i) a cover letter and (ii) CV (maximum 3 pages) at http://apply.ata.gov.et

Also, please Do Not submit scans of certificates with your application form.

Women are highly encouraged to apply.

NB. Only short listed candidates will be contacted.

Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency Project Officer II – eVoucher Jobs