CHARITY JOBS IN AFRICA

Organization: ACDI/VOCA
Country: South Sudan (Republic of)
Closing date: 04 Nov 2013

ACDI/VOCA is currently seeking a long term Business Development Coordinator for the FARM (Food, Agribusiness and Rural Markets) program, a current five-year, USAID-funded project in South Sudan. The program is designed to increase agricultural productivity in selected commodities, increase trade, and improve the capacity of producers, private sector and public sector actors in South Sudan to develop commercial smallholder agriculture. The FARM program fosters economic growth to reduce poverty and food insecurity by improving the competitiveness of staple food value chains (maize, sorghum, cassava and groundnuts) in which large numbers of smallholders participate.

The Business Development Coordinator position is based in Juba, and will provide capacity-building to farmer groups, agribusinesses, traders, producer organizations and financial institutions with the objective of increasing investment in agricultural production. This is in line with the core objectives of FARM in shifting from donor-sponsored to commercial agriculture. The responsibilities of the Business Development Coordinator are broadly defined as seeking to improve the capacity of agricultural value chain actors (whether farmers, producer organizations, agribusinesses, traders, etc.) to become credit-worthy clients, develop business plans, prudently use financial products, and invest in profitable market opportunities. The Business Development Coordinator will receive technical direction from the Trade and Marketing Director. Based in Juba, Business Development Coordinator will travel throughout the Equatorias to replicate successful models and provide an “investment lens” to other project activities.

Responsibilities:Organize farmer groups into formal cooperative groups and carry out mobilization meetings to form umbrella cooperative organizations.Develop bylaws, governance, leadership structures and registration.Mobilize members to raise share capital to start the cooperative organization and support registered cooperative organizations with recorded keeping and accounting systems.Develop business planning guidelines and conduct strategic business planning sessions for registered cooperative organizations.Carry out FaaB trainings at County levels to members of registered farmer organizations.Develop an M & E plan for organizational Systems Support intervention and implement the M & E plan to determine impact of engagement with farmers’ organizations.Provide ongoing support to cooperative production and business capacity.Identify critical investment needs among key farmer cooperative organizations.Develop the capacity of Input Providers and identify available input/service providers at state and county level.Support STTA for input providers’ business capacity needs assessment.Design and roll out appropriate support intervention to improve capacity.Identify and develop investment and financing options in strategic crop value chains to increase net returns to actors.Conduct Trader-Farmer Forums (TFF) for Cost Transparency and Price Negotiations.Identify MFIs/Banks ready to engage with farmer organization and agro entrepreneurs and assist farmer organizations and Agro-entrepreneurs in developing proposals for funding.Facilitate the provision of Seed Capital Grants (SCG) to model SACCos for on-lending to progressive farmers and farmer organizations.

Qualifications:Minimum 5+ years of experience working on agricultural development and competiveness projects. Master’s degree in relevant agriculture/agronomy technical field preferred.Demonstrated understanding of the value chain approach.Experience implementing activities in large, complex projects in challenging environments. Fluency in English required.

How to apply:

Please apply online at http://acdivoca.maxhire.net/cp/?E5556F361D43515B7E59192F77571C680D627B4D. No phone calls please. Only finalists contacted. Women and minorities encouraged to apply. EOE.