Vacancy Announcement

ETHIOPIAN AGRICULTURAL TRANSFORMATION AGENCY

Position:                           Senior Technical Expert I – Business Development

Term of Employment:    Full Time

Duty Station(s):               One year with possibility of extension

Required Number:          One

Salary & Benefits:            Competitive

Application Deadline:     August 29, 2020

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 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:

The Government of Ethiopia (GoE) approved the Livestock Master Plan (LMP) which aims at transforming traditional family farms into improved market-oriented systems, to improve household incomes, food security, livestock product consumption and nutrition, and to contribute to national economic growth.  In addition, the GoE has decided to scale up its investment and institutional support to the livestock and fisheries sector by launching a new flagship Project:  the Livestock and Fisheries Sector Development Project (LFSDP) which aims at supporting the government’s strategy for livestock growth and transformation as articulated in the GTPII and LMP, and focuses particularly on the subsistence level and smallholder farmers, where the maximum benefits can be obtained for both the sector and its participants.   The development objective of this project is to increase productivity and commercialization of producers and processors in selected value chains (dairy, red meat, poultry and fisheries), strengthen service delivery systems in the livestock and fisheries sectors, and respond promptly and effectively to an Eligible Crisis or Emergency.

As part of the 2nd memorandum of understanding signed between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), the ATA will hold responsibilities for agreed activities as technical support provider for LFSDP, which includes hiring and seconding one highly qualified technical expert working on business development services (BDS) to the MoA dedicated to support the Ministry in the implementation of LFSDP.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES:

• Support the implementation of Livestock and Fisheries Sector Development Project (LFSDP) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Resources of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.

• Conduct a study to determine financial viability for intermediate & advanced sub projects as indicated in the amendment document.

• Based on the assessment result, develop model business plans on selected livestock commodities for intermediate & advanced sub projects.

• Develop timeline for the provision of training in consultation with the ATA Livestock Team and Federal project coordination Units (PCU) of the MoA.

• Conduct TOT to relevant stakeholders from project regions and woredas on the developed intermediate and advanced sub projects and model business plans, and on preparation of intermediate and advanced sub-projects in six project implementation regions (Amhara, Oromia, SNNPRS, Tigray, Benishangul Gumuz and Gambella).

• Coaching/mentoring of ToT trainers on cascading the training effectively and beneficiaries on business plan development and implementation.

• Compile lessons learnt from the training and field visit and write report including things that require attention on business plan development.

• Assist a study on basic sub project market linkage challenges and develop market linkage strategies for basic, intermediate, and advanced sub-projects.

• Provide technical support on intermediate and advanced subproject profile preparation, detail business plan preparation, and support the screening and implementation process of selected value chains supported by LFSDP (dairy, red meat, poultry, and fisheries).

• Support and facilitate regional and woreda commodity cluster value chain platforms.

• Provide other technical content support that helps identify gaps and recommend ways to develop the Livestock value chains.

• Implement other related activities as and when requested by the project coordinator.
• Provide advisory services to Federal and regional PCU related to the activity.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• PhD/ Master’s degree in agri-business, livestock value chain development, agricultural economics, or other relevant disciplines.

• At least 4 years of experience for PhD and 6 years for MSc degree in Business Development Service (BDS), agricultural business development and planning, and related areas with focus on smallholder farming in mixed crop livestock system.

• Knowledge of current agricultural marketing systems, agri-business, livestock value chains development issues in Ethiopia.

• Sound experience on finical viability study for agribusiness planning, development, and evaluation preferably in livestock sector.

• Excellent experience on Bankable Agri-Business Plan Preparation, agri-Business performance management, learning systems and monitoring & evaluation preferably in livestock sector.

• Practical experience in business planning and developing business linkages between producers and buyers and working across livestock value chains in Ethiopia.

• Sound experience on public and private agribusiness partnership development and management.

• Experience in prioritizing and sequencing both programmatic and operational activities.

• Understanding of Ethiopia’s agriculture sector in general and livestock sector in particular, with a broad perspective on how the entire system operates and how public, private, and informal actors operate within the system.

• Highly facilitative and collaborative leadership style.

• Good data management and analytical skills.

• Excellent skills and experience in use of computers and common office applications.

• Practical experience in testing and scaling up relevant solutions at the local level.

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

• Ability to build relationships with all kinds of people.

• Excellent adaptive problem-solver in challenging work environments.

• Strong set of personal values including integrity, honesty, and desire to be of service; and
• Fluency in Amharic and working knowledge of English are essential.