Position:                            Agricultural Advisor

Term of Employment:   One year with a possibility of extension

Duty Station(s):              Tigray - Mekelle

Required Number:         Two

Application Deadline:    July 21, 2023

BACKGROUND:

The Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI) is a strategy and delivery-oriented government Institute created to help accelerate the growth and transformation of the country’s agriculture sector. The ATI envisions to be the leading center of innovative solutions for the transformation of Ethiopian Agriculture by 2030.

The Institute focuses on two primary national approaches to catalyze agricultural transformation. First, we support the Ministry of Agriculture (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 the 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, Sidama, South-West, 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 ATI, 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 Senior Agriculture Advisor works directly with Tigray Bureau of Agriculture and Natural Resource (BoANR) to ensure meaningful planning and target setting, timely and accurate reporting, and rigorous and practical problem-solving. he/she supports BoANR ‘s leadership on the follow-up of day-to-day activities, high priority requests, including trend analysis, strategic planning, and/or policy analysis. In addition, he/she will work to support the Agriculture Commercialization Cluster (ACC) and Recovery plan implementation to link with the Tigray Agricultural Transformation Centre (ATC).

The Senior Agriculture Advisor will report to BoANR head and consult with TATC Senior Director. The Senior Agriculture Advisor is part of the Tigray Regional ATC vertical and will be embedded in the Tigray Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Development. The successful candidate for this role will have strong analytical and critical thinking skills, experience influencing others in large organizations to simplify, focus and have urgency, and a passion for both results and capacity building.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES:

• Communicate with BoANR head and assist in advising and implementing effective Agricultural activities.

• Develop regular performance monitoring routines with senior leadership, initiative owners and relevant stakeholders.

• Prepare regularly report on agricultural activities implemented, success stories, lessons learned, and other pertinent information.

• Proactively identify and prioritize key issues and bottlenecks for ACC/TAD implementation, through discussions with implementing teams, reviewing reports and data analysis

• Provide technical support to stakeholders.

• Compile Agricultural information, data, and statistics.

• strengthen the linkage with stakeholders.

• Promoting agricultural services, post-harvest handling, and value addition technologies

• Provide guidance and advice on the latest technologies related to agriculture.

• Establish robust annual planning, target-setting, and budgeting processes with ACC/TAD owners.

• Support rollout of enhanced planning, project management and reporting tools, processes and systems to track and report on progress of priority activities.

• Strengthen execution and day-to-day project and activity management capacity of the BoANR staff.

• Lead problem-solving and solution development with the respective teams.

• Collaborate with technical/agricultural colleagues, Project Management team, Performance Management team (planning and evaluations), Analytics team, or outside consultants as needed to solve more complex issues

• Work with respective unit to develop materials and provide capacity building support on planning, activity management / execution, reporting and problem-solving.

• Advise in the production of value-added reports for decision-making through analysis and synthesis of data, and provision of recommendations.

• Perform other duties as assigned 

Job Requirements

• Master’s or PhD Degree required, preferably in Agricultural fields, business management, business administration, project management economics, statistics, development studies, or related.

• Minimum 12 years for Masters and 6 years for PhD relevant work experience out of which 6 years is in leadership and managerial positions.

• Experiences in Project Management, Strategy, Business Analysis, Business Development, Management Consulting, Project Design, or other relevant fields.

• Experience in both design/strategy and implementation/operations required. Experience in delivery management is desired.

• Excellent critical thinking and analytical skills, with experience applying these for both strategy and implementation/operations.

• Strong team player with excellent relationship management, capacity building, facilitation, training and presentation skills, and a passion for change and delivery.

• Experience navigating complex organizations with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders.

• Self-starter with strong motivation, ownership, and commitment to drive transformation and the current Tigray situation.

• Can act as a champion for change and can effectively support change management efforts.

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

• Strong knowledge and skills in Microsoft Office Suite, and various program/project management and data and reporting systems.

• Fluency in English and Tigrigna languages required.

How to Apply

We invite all candidates meeting the required qualifications to submit (i) a cover letter and (ii) a CV (maximum 5 pages) using THIS LINK

Please DO NOT submit scans of certificates with your application.

Women are highly encouraged to apply.

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.