Vacancy Announcement

ETHIOPIAN AGRICULTURAL TRANSFORMATION AGENCY

Position:                           Senior Technical Expert II – Soil Health and Fertility

Term of Employment:    One Year with possibility of extension

Duty Station(s):               Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Required Number:         One                                                                            

Salary & Benefits:           Competitive

Application Deadline:     July 11, 2021

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 smallholder farmers are commercialized with greater incomes, inclusiveness, resilience and sustainability, contributing to transformed agriculture by 2030.

The agency focuses on two primary national approaches to catalyze agricultural transformation. First, we support the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), and its federal and regional affiliate institutions and other partners to identify and address systemic bottlenecks within the sector’s development plan. 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) Program.

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, with regional office representations 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 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:

The Senior Technical Expert (STE) will lead the soil information system, research, and extension component of the Soil Health and Fertility Management (SHFM) project and collaborate with the Senior Director of the Systemic Interventions vertical to implement priority interventions in the soil ecosystem within ACC. The STE is also responsible to bridge soil intervention implementation gaps and create system integration between research, extension, and farmers in the soil ecosystem.

MAJOR DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

The Senior Technical Expert will be responsible for:

• Problem Solving: Support the effort in the identification of critical bottlenecks, designing of different components of the SHFM project, and defining implementable recommendations in the SHFM project.
• Implementation support: Identify areas where there is a need to support partners and design and implementation support strategy to enable partners to execute their deliverables in the required quality and timely manner.
• Work plan management and execution: Design work plan for soil information system, research, and extension components of the project management and follow up the execution of the work plan by regional teams and contact persons from external implementing institutions, mainly the Ministry of Agriculture and Regional Bureaus of Agriculture, RARIs, EIAR, and other institutions.
• Coordination: Ensure alignment of different stakeholders and follow-up implementation of interventions of the project related to soil information system, research, and extension. Implement the systems integration role through effective engagement with both internal project teams and external stakeholders.
• Capacity building: Ensure sharing of competencies for building the capacity of implementing institutions specifically in soil information systems mainly in supporting the enhancement of the national soil information system (NSIS) being developed by MoA and build digital expertise in the soil ecosystem.
• Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning: Support design and execution of MEL for each activity in soil information system, research, and extension component of the soil ecosystem in accordance with ATA’s overall MEL framework
• Serve as an STE, responsible for the implementation, values, culture, and management of the SHFM project more specifically related to soil information system, research, and extension component.
• Develop effective and collaborative partnerships with stakeholders across the soil-landscape (government, business, research institutions, universities, cooperatives, farmers’ organizations, farmers, donors, etc.) in the delivery of priority sector objectives.
• Proactively identify opportunities to support stakeholders so that they can execute against their missions in the SHFM project and support them in the mobilization of needed financial, human, or organizational resources for project execution
• Regularly report to the NRM director on progress, challenges, and constraints of the work
• Support the NRM director in the preparation and manage the ATA SHFM Project budget; obtain approval from the Director and monitor budget utilization against the allocation.
• Work collaboratively with other ATA programs to achieve synergies that impact the broader agricultural system.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• An MSc. or above in Soil Science, Agronomy, Agricultural Extension, Agroecology or equivalent.

• A minimum of 8 years’ successful post-qualification experience in agricultural soil information system, research, and extension, 3 of which should have been spent working on issues pertaining to soil health research and development.

• Demonstrated expertise in soil information systems, research, and extension.

• Deep understanding of Ethiopia’s agricultural system, with a broad perspective on how the entire soil eco-system operates and how public, private, NGO and informal actors operate within the system.

• Experience in piloting and scaling up relevant solutions at both national and local levels, while building productive partnerships across sectors.

• Strong in-country network in Ethiopia in the agricultural sector, both at the national and the regional levels.

• Good knowledge in data soil handling, modeling, soil information systems, development of soil extension training and dissemination materials.

• Oral and written fluency in English and local/regional language is essential.  Fluency in at least one additional Ethiopian language is a plus.

• Highly facilitative and collaborative style with the ability to build relationships across diverse cultures and organizations.

• Passion for participation in cultivating and developing high-performance peer teams while incorporating cooperation, open communication, and social relationship.

• Excellent adaptive problem-solver in a challenging environment, with the ability to think strategically and prioritize program activities under dynamic conditions.

• A strong set of personal values including integrity, honesty, and desire to be of service.

• Excellent stakeholder management skills including thorough extensive experience with government institutions, development partners, private sector stakeholders, and farmer groups Demonstrated team player with good people management skills.