Position:   Project Officer  II- Cluster Coordinator  

Term of Employment: One year with possibility of extension

Duty Station(s): Oromia (Based at  Babile)

Required Number: One

The Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI) was established by the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) to identify systemic bottlenecks, conduct studies, and provide recommendations, provide implementation support, manage projects, create linkages and coordination among activities and agricultural development programs. The Institute 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 that, to be the leading center of innovative solutions to catalyze and contribute to the transformation of Ethiopian Agriculture by 2030 where smallholder farmers are commercialized with greater incomes, inclusiveness, resilience, and sustainability.

ATI provides a unique 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 teams with the tools, training, and mentorships necessary to achieve their career goals.

The programmatic focus of the Institute responds to a core set of needs identified by the Ministry of Agriculture and other sectors along commodity value chains. Across the programs, the ATI engages public, private, and non-governmental stakeholders to support strategic planning, manage and strengthen implementation capacity and test innovative models. Currently, ATI is tasked to coordinate the revised Agriculture and Rural Development policy agendas of the sector and such sectoral level delegation requires high level expertise in the policy areas and skillsets in coordination and networking with multiple stakeholders.

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.

The Cluster Development project within ATI has been established to improve income of smallholder farmers (SHFs) by helping them to increase agricultural yield and achieve greater commercialization. The project is expected to develop farmer production clusters (FPCs) which is an approach of grouping farmers with adjacent farm plots to consolidate their farm activity, develop them like a business entity and access targeted support across the value chain. 

The Cluster coordinator will work across the three ACC crop segments (Input, production & market linkage) and will reports to the Regional Director. The Cluster Coordinator will drive day-to-day coordination of implementation activities in the ACC by public, private, and development sector stakeholders, as agreed in the ACC target-setting and operational-planning process.

ACCOUNTABILITY:

The cluster coordinator is accountable to support clusters with ACC prioritized interventions or projects across the value chain and ensure the interventions or projects contributes to increasing level of farmers' aggregation and adoption of improved production practices through effective delivery of the following KPIs:

• Farmers know about and get registered in FPCs, 

• Land covered under FPCs/ACC with full package recommendations increased.

• Volume of production and priority commodity productivity under FPC/ACC increased.

• Volume of marketable surplus under FPC & ACC woreda increased.

• Involvement of farmers in the bottom up FPC plan preparation ensured.

• ACC planning and M&E system integrated into respective zonal system and processes.

• VCA forums are facilitated and conducted regularly.

• Support and follow up HDP project activity implementation in the zones. 

Duties and Responsibilities:

Specific responsibilities for the cluster coordinator in the ACC Project include, but not limited to: 

• Mainstream use of planning, program management and reporting processes and tools developed by the National and Regional cluster development teams and by other local stakeholders, to ensure effective decision-making.

• Coordinate planning (including preparation and circulation of meeting agendas, presentation decks, and cluster reports) and facilitating of cluster commodity value chain alliance meetings and other activities within the cluster and its follow ups.

• Ensure strong program management within the FPC/ACC through driving day to day coordination of interventions and reporting, verifying status and progress of interventions, proactively identifying issues and solution options, working with stakeholders to ensure effectively joint problem-solving.

• Escalate issues and needs which cannot be addressed at the ACC level to regional director where appropriate, including support around coordination, resources, capacity-building, policy, and other systemic interventions.

• Oversight and tracking of relevant ATI-owned interventions implemented by another ATI team.

• Follow up woreda focal persons and VC members and report regularly on progress.

• Coordinate DAs for periodic and yearly FPC assessment.

• Ensure upward reporting meets needs for Regional and National stakeholders.

• Record and document cluster level basic databases including cropping system and all agricultural data and information’s, any ATI intervention projects and ACC Woreda agricultural basic data . 

• Engage on delivery of full package training for Zonal and woreda experts and DAs in collaboration with Zonal and Woreda office of agriculture.

• Provide FPC technical support/backstopping, implementation monitoring and supervision in collaboration with Zonal and Woreda Agricultural office 

• Actively participate on clusters level monitoring. 

• Organize learning field days for ACC/FPC participant farmers in collaboration with the Zonal Office of Agriculture.  

• Facilitate capacity-building activities for IDPs and follow up on HDP project implementations across the zones.

• Liaise with community leaders, IDPs/refugees, local stakeholders, and humanitarian organizations in the zones to ensure effective and coordinated HDP project implementation.

• Organize, collect, and maintain accurate data on IDPs/refugees for proper targeting and resource allocation.

• Ensure timely updates of beneficiary lists, service mapping, and activity documentation.

• Ensure transparent, inclusive, and equitable beneficiary selection for HDP project activities .

• Document best practices in collaboration with the Zonal Office of Agriculture and share to other areas.

• Facilitate market linkage platforms for FPCs with potential buyers to enhance contract farming/marketing.

 Job Requirements

• The cluster coordinator is responsible for additional tasks assigned by the Regional ACC Director to meet the team’s functions.

• Education: Master’s degree in Agronomy, Crop Science, Plant Science, Agriculture, Crop Protection, Plant Breeding, Irrigation Agronomy, Dryland Agriculture, Rural development, Agribusiness, Agricultural Economics   and other relevant field .

• Experience: At least 4 years of professional experience

• The cluster coordinator is expected to have in-depth knowledge of agriculture and rural development particularly on Agricultural policy and regulatory framework in Ethiopia including specifically

Required Qualification, Competencies, and Experience:

• In-depth experience and know how of agricultural commercialization, agri-business / agro-industry, or industrial cluster or corridor initiatives in Ethiopia,

• Possess excellent stakeholder management skills including knowledge and understanding of various public and private stakeholder relationships in the ACC, extensive experience in facilitating dialogue with them.

• Strong knowledge and skill on identifying and problem-solving challenges to agricultural value chain development, as well as best practice program and project management approaches and monitoring and evaluation activities.

• Understanding of private sector, commercial farming, market-based programming experience with a particular focus with smallholder farmers. 

• Experience working with IDPs, refugees, or emergency response programs is highly desirable.

• Good understanding of humanitarian principles and protection standards.

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

• Fluency in English and Afan Oromo, written and spoken, is essential; knowledge of other local Ethiopian languages preferred.

• Experience in working within multi-cultural teams .

• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.

How To Apply

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS

We invite all candidates meeting the required qualifications to submit (i) a cover letter and (ii) a CV (maximum 5 pages) to THIS LINK.. It is mandatory to mention the position title in both the subject line of your cover letter and the Outlook email subject line. Please DO NOT submit scans of certificates with your application.

Women are highly encouraged to apply 

NB. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.