Employer: Village Enterprise
Industry: Nonprofit/International Development/Social Entrepreneurship
Job Title: Field Associate
Position Type: Full time
Reports to: Product and Service Coordinator
Location: Keffa, Ethiopia
Duration: One year, renewable based on satisfactory performance and fund availability
Village Enterprise and HereWeGrow are partnering to address the interwoven challenges of poverty, gender inequity, and climate vulnerability facing smallholder coffee farmers in Ethiopia’s Keffa Zone. HARVEST - Households Advancing Resilience, Value chains, and Sustainable Transformation is a three-year, integrated project to address the poverty cycle in coffee producing small holder farmers in Gimbo and Shisho Ende districts of Keffa Zone. The proposed project combines Village Enterprise’s proven 12-month poverty graduation model–including seed capital grants, business and financial literacy training, mentoring, and savings groups with tailored climate- smart agriculture (CSA) and market linkage interventions. This integrated model will be delivered to households living in extreme poverty in the coffee-growing Keffa Zone. The project will train 8,100 entrepreneurs to launch 2,700 small businesses, enabling households to improve coffee quality and yields and increase and diversify incomes, ultimately lifting 52,000 individuals from poverty.
Full-time staff member who coordinates program implementation in remote communities and contributes to the growth and success of business groups (BGs) and business saving groups (BSGs) to be formed by the project. The Field Associate is a self-driven, self-sufficient staff member who excels at training others and coordinating activities, while also critically analyzing the program and providing feedback to senior management. He’ll be managing and supervising a number of Business Mentors (BMs) who will be directly engaging and working with households who will be running micro businesses.
Key Result Areas
Business Mentor Activities
Bi-weekly meetings and Induction Training for BMs
Program Reporting
Managing Partnerships
Internal activity coordination
Vision trip and Donor Visits
Business Mentor Performance Reviews, Capacity building and professional development
Communication and Management
Logistics
Administration
Safeguarding
Business Mentor Activities:
Manage all Business Mentors (BMs) in your region/project area, ensuring high-quality Program implementation
Ensure that BMs efficiently and effectively integrate key stakeholders activities in the VE implementation program.
Regular field visits (3-4 days a week) including at least 6 business spot checks per week to assess training and mentoring by Business Mentors and overall performance of businesses.
Spearhead the Village opening process in all the sub-districts (woredas and kebeles)
Guide Business mentor on First Grants (SBs) and Second Grant (PRs) applications for viable businesses and approve prior to submitting them to the P&S coordinator and Project Manager for review
Ensure BMs work plans are developed and followed and timely shared via google document
Bi-weekly meetings and Induction Training for BMs
Prepare bi-weekly meetings and agendas, and ensure they are always updated and shared
Train BMs on new forms that need to be collected, constantly reinforcing the importance and value of the data we collect and helping BMs troubleshoot issues as needed.
Work with M&E during each Biweekly to confirm that the BMs have collected the proper forms and uploaded them to the database
Lead and conduct Induction Training/onboarding for new BMs. This includes working closely with Country Staff to prepare agenda, schedule Field Visits, prepare materials
Work with finance associate to ensure that all induction and bi-weekly materials are printed or made available in a timely manner
Program Reporting
Work with the RM to collect, develop, validate, consolidate, revise and submit BM work plans in a timely manner.
Monitor the collection of the Mentoring Checklist and activity reports
Submit reports and minutes of any meeting attended on behalf of Village Enterprise.
Ensure updated reports on attendance is tracked and entered in relevant filing system
Managing partnerships
Help establish a relationship with Local Government officials, community leaders and other stakeholders.
The Field Associate represents the organization at district and kebele level including general meetings with local government leadership, humanitarian actors, local authorities, protocol meetings, security meetings, as well as sector program meetings in consultation with the P&S coordinator and PM.
Provide management with reports and feedback from government and partnership meetings as needed
Support the BMs to register all Business Savings Groups with relevant Government authorities
Develop and implement the district and kebele entry and expansion strategy in collaboration with the P&S coordinator and PM.
The Field Associate provides general support, guidance, and serves as focal point during program planning and reporting.
Internal activity coordination
Participate in planned meetings and bring a positive field perspective to these events.
Ensure BMs collect and submit success stories with photos as needed.
Support BMs in the implementation of pilots, studies and data collection as needed
Providing feedback and support to overall program, pilots and strategic expansion
Work with the innovations team to train other partners or organizations
Roll out pilots as well as act as focal persons for capturing ideas, learnings from the business mentors and communities and share with the innovations team.
Work with M&E to deliver quality BM refresher activities
Support in BMs in phone troubleshooting and in guiding BMs through quality data collection protocols
Vision trip and Donor Visits
Represent Village Enterprise values and program to donors, Vision Trips and visiting staff
Work with management to arrange field scheduling for visitors
Coordinate all preparations at the field level
In some cases, work on the weekends to accommodate donor and staff visits
Business Mentor Performance Reviews, Capacity Building and professional development
Submit quarterly reports to the P&S coordinator and PM, Human Resource Coordinator on Business mentor performance
Work with the HRC and PM to identify professional development opportunities for BMs and implement them
Work with the HRC to conduct performance reviews for BMs
Assist with the improvement and development of monitoring activities and materials for business mentors
Communication and Management
Attending and active participation in regular weekly meetings with supervisors and other forums as convened (MMMs, FA Calls, One on ones etc)
Ensure BMs collect and submit success stories with photos and bring to the attention of the communications associate eye catching programmatic scenarios for follow up.
The Field Associate ensures that VE procedures and donor regulations are applicable to a project implemented in the area of operation concerning program, logistics, fraud control, protection of vulnerable groups and special interest groups in collaboration with the HRC and P&S coordinator and PM.
Logistics:
Field Associate is in charge of overseeing and reporting on the logistics the field team including enforcement of field safety guidelines and adherence.
Responsible for monitoring and reporting equipment usage and storage, planning, and maintenance of equipment and the functioning of the means of communication appropriate for the respective field staff.
Administration:
The Field Associate is responsible for overseeing the management of day-to-day field operations including monitoring and reporting on staff attendance, staff leave and authorization of minor emergency field expenses in consultation with the HRC/RM.
Timely filing and safekeeping of necessary program documents i.e attendance, work plans.
Regular and accurately updating of web based documents like google sheets, google documents with relevant programmatic information.
Safeguarding – “Safeguarding at Village Enterprise is everyone’s responsibility and it begins with me”
Continuously sensitize program participants on safeguarding.
Ensure compliance with Village Enterprise safeguarding policies
Report any incident of safeguarding in program operations for appropriate action/follow up.
Living Our Values:
Ubuntu: We serve people living in extreme poverty with respect, empathy, and dignity regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion, or education level, and value our common humanity.
Passion: We believe passionately in our mission and the ability of people living in extreme poverty to improve their lives.
Integrity: We operate with the highest levels of integrity and trustworthiness.
Innovation: We value innovation as a means to reduce poverty and treat new ideas, new technologies, and new partners as opportunities to grow our impact.
Sustainability: We are committed to ensuring that our businesses and our organization are sustainable in the long term.
Job Requirements
Qualifications
University degree or equivalent in development, program management, international development or other relevant field, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
Minimum experience of 2 years working in antipoverty, VSLA, financial inclusion programs.
Additional (Mandatory) Requirement:
Applicants must submit a letter of support from their respective woreda administrations (Shisho- Ende, Gimbo, and Bita) confirming their residency in their respective woredas of Kaffa Zone and their eligibility to work within these woredas. This letter should be included with your CV and cover letter as part of the application packages.
Key competencies
Providing detailed and timely feedback where necessary
The Field Associate provides detailed, relevant feedback when requested
He/she should think of how to improve synergies of the team and improve workflow as a team
Should have IT and computer skills, especially in MS Office, google docs and email
Great quality of work output
Ability to build and lead a team, resolve conflicts
Ability to enhance capacities of team members
Outstanding communication skills both in writing and spoken, and via other forms.
Excellent oral and written communication skills. Fluency in Amharic & Kaffagna is a MUST. Ability to speak or understand English is desirable.
How To Apply
Interested candidates who meet the required qualifications coupled with a passion for changing lives of the extreme poor are invited to submit their applications and resume (PDF) – your cover letter should explain why your experience and background make you the ideal candidate for this position and should be no more than one page.
Follow THIS LINK to submit your application.
Submit applications until November 28, 2025.
Note: Please do not contact Village Enterprise to enquire as to the status of your application. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action:
Village Enterprise will provide equal employment and advancement opportunities to all individuals. Employment decisions at Village will be based on merit, qualifications and abilities.
Village does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, gender identity, age, disability, marital status or any other characteristic protected by the law. Village Enterprise will make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with known disabilities unless doing so would result in undue hardship to daily operations.
Village Enterprise is a corruption, solicitation or bribery free organization. We or any of our employees or associates do not charge money from job applicants before, during or after recruitment. Please report malpractices through our safeguarding Tollfree hotline 8495.
