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:

The Holder of Project Officer II Position will be key member of Regional office of the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), reporting to the Regional Implementation Support Director. The position holder is expected to provide effective support in areas such as strategy development, strategic and operational planning, program management, problem solving around implementation issues, stakeholder coordination and reporting. In addition, in some circumstances, Project Officers II may lead and/or oversee the work of a Junior Project Officer, ensuring their development goals are set, identifying and addressing development needs through coaching, feedback, stretch opportunities, and effective performance management.

The Project Officer II position is therefore very fast-paced and varied, and often quite challenging but also very rewarding. This is a fantastic opportunity for a very motivated individual with strong analytical skills, and with experience with strategy development, program planning and management, to step up into a career focused on delivering agricultural sector transformation. ATA provides best-in-class training to our staff, as well as regular actionable feedback taking into account each staff member's specific development objectives and career goals. Through these and other professional development activities, the holder of PO II position develop her/his skills at a highly accelerated pace.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES:

Support strategy development, strategic and operational planning, including:

• Identify, scope and structure problems into cases

• Develop and apply appropriate analytical frameworks and approaches

• Develop and manage case work plan, including deliverables, timelines, and stakeholder input and validation

• Identify and mobilize key required resources, including budgetary, human resources, etc. to ensure execution

• Lead data collection and oversee the completion of high-impact analysis for robust recommendations

• Proactively identify risks and issues affecting case and develop mitigation actions to overcome implementation obstacles, promptly communicate upward for validation

• Lead the delivery of high-quality analyses, documents and presentations with communicating key insights

Where applicable,

• Ensures development goals of team member(s) are set effectively and assessed in a timely way

• Identifies and addresses development needs of team members

• Provides coaching, feedback, stretch opportunities, and effective performance mgmt.

Support program management, stakeholder management and coordination, implementation problem-solving, and reporting, including:

• Present ideas and respond to queries clearly and concisely in team meetings and externally

• Prepare, engage in and lead regular briefings and update with stakeholders

• Prepare performance and financial reporting utilizing standard tools and templates

• Synthetize implementation lessons learned for future refinement / best practice sharing

• Bachelor’s or Master's degree with minimum GPA of 3.0 and above and focus on Business, Economics, Agriculture, Public Policy, International Development and other relevant subject areas

• 4-6 years relevant work experience in management consulting or other strategically and analytically focused roles in public, private or development sector organizations

• 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 analytical, problem-solving, and data gathering skills

• Excellent oral and written communication skills, with highly collaborative working style

• Experience with project and stakeholder management preferred

• Experience in working within multi-cultural teams preferred

• 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, and the working language of the specific region required.