Senior Technical Expert II: Agro Processing Entrepreneurship

ETHIOPIAN AGRICULTURAL TRANSFORMATION INSTITUTE (ATI)

Job Announcement

Position:      Senior Technical Expert II: -Agro Processing Entrepreneurship

Term of Employment:         One year with a possibility of extension

Duty Station:                       Addis Ababa

Required Number:              One

Application Deadline:         September 15,2024

BACKGROUND

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 centre of innovative solutions to catalyse and contribute to the transformation of the 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 focuses of the Institute respond 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 coordination and networking with multiple stakeholders.

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 team work 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.

Program and position summary

ATI has designed a program called “Agriculture-focused Dignified Employment for Youth in Ethiopia” (ADEY) to address the challenges youth and women unemployment and increase the participation of young people in the labor market, particularly in the agriculture sector. ATI has mainstreamed youth employment, gender equality, climate-smart, and nutrition-sensitive agriculture in all its programs and projects with the primary objectives of increasing access to sustainable and inclusive job opportunities for youth, inclusivity, and the sustainable use of natural resources while building resilience capacities to shocks at all levels. 

ATI, among others, currently works with more than 3 million smallholder farmers (540,300 are women and youth) engaged in the Agricultural Commercialization Clusters (ACC) and digital agriculture programs designed to improve production and productivity while supporting other actors along the value chain. 

Taking ATI’s reputable experiences, ADEY program was designed to create inclusive and dignified work opportunities in ACC woredas and Somali region for over six hundred thousand youths. The program supports youth employment through market-based agricultural value chain development, Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise (MSME) capacity development, and facilitating access to finance, market and inputs. To promote youth engagement in agriculture and enhance competitiveness of youth-owned MSMEs in the sector, ADEY will implement social behavioral change activities and targeted training to develop agribusiness skills.  The program will also collaborate with other partners to create enabling environment for youth employment through policy interventions. 

ADEY will leverage and largely build on ACC infrastructures and complement its outcomes through employment creation for youth women and men.  Horticulture and grain crops production and processing value chain activities will be implemented in seven regions (Oromia, Amhara, Tigray, Sidama, South Ethiopia, Southwest Ethiopia, and central Ethiopia). The intervention in poultry, bee keeping, dairy farming and processing will also be implemented in the targeted areas. These interventions are designed to create employment opportunities for youths, predominantly females, through engaging them in the production, aggregation, processing of grains, horticulture, poultry, apiculture, dairy and animal feeds. 

 The program will support small and medium youth enterprises to engage agri-inputs, crops and livestock agri-business targeting at each segment of commodity specific value chain including agro-processing of primary products. It will promote small-scale business development by young females, specially focusing on important agribusinesses such as food processing and value addition such as edible oil processing, soybean milk processing, honey processing etc.

Position Summary

The agro-processing senior project officer-II (SPO-II) will be responsible for implementing and coordinating the overall interventions planned in ADEY and other related projects, particularly on primary and secondary value additions along the value chain of selected horticulture, grain, and livestock commodities. He/she will be based at ATI’s headquarters, with frequent field trips to the regions, and strive to achieve the program objectives with measurable outcomes. To achieve this, he/she will be responsible for the planning, implementation, monitoring, supervision, and coaching of agro-processing related interventions implemented by regional agricultural transformation centers and six sub-granted implementing partners. He/she will be responsible for providing supports to youth enterprises and implementing partners on agro-processing such as market-oriented small-scale food processing, dairy product processing, edible oil processing, honey processing, soymilk processing, etc. He/she will facilitate youth enterprise linkages with agro-industries to facilitate forth and backward linkages and support them to implement safety and quality control measures. He/she will also be responsible for necessary data collection, reporting, compilation, documentation, including success stories, and sharing of lessons as per the ATI and donor’s standards. 

ESSENTIAL DUTIES and RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Proactively assess, identify, and promote potential and viable agro-processing businesses and marketing opportunities for youth employment, predominantly for female youths.

• Support MSME engagement and development in different agro-processing activities, particularly secondary value-added products for grain, horticulture, and livestock commodities.

• Strategize to ensure linkages with key implementing partners and stakeholders to develop functional collaborations to support engagement of youth-owned MSME in agro-processing.

• Develop standard training modules on small-scale agro-processing businesses and provide technical training to the program and implementing partners staffs.

• Provide business development services to youth-owned MSME engaged in agro-processing to ensure success and sustainability.

• Empower the MSMEs on value additions including packaging, labelling, branding, and development of secondary products based on industry knowledge and skills.

• Support and advise youths on standard and legal requirements and procedures for MSME business registration and licensing, business administration, and access to finance.

• Develop or update standard guidelines on procedures for controlling food safety and quality, and provide supports to ensure its implementation by the youth enterprises.

• Support youth enterprises in identification, procurement and installation of small-scale machines for agro processing.

• Support youth enterprises in business plan development on agro-processing business activities in collaboration with other partners.

• Provide technical support to youth MSMEs on organizational and human resource developments.

• Provide supports and advise to youth MSMEs on food waste management and disposal, including uses of by-products to convert into new business opportunities (e.g., preparation of compost and animal feeds).

• Facilitate input-output market linkages, contract farming and engagement of service providers, including financial institutions and input suppliers.

• Facilitate youth MSMEs linkage with producer and consumer associations, agro-industries, and marketing enterprises.

• Support and advise youth enterprises in new product and service developments, and in financial management.

• Prepare, compile and submit quarter, semi-annual and annual reports.

• Ensure gender and safeguarding are mainstreamed in the design and implementation of agro-processing business activities.

• Closely support and work with women organizations to ensure participation and benefit of the young women. 

Required qualifications, competencies, skills, training, and experience 

• Minimum of master’s degree in agro-processing, food science and nutrition, food science and technologies, agri-business or other related fields.

• Minimum of 8 years of relevant experience, especially working on agro-processing -and supporting MSMEs.

• Good experiences in food safety and quality control system along the food value chain. 

• Experiences in identifying, forming, and supporting agro-processing business enterprises, MSMEs. 

• Strong technical skills of primary and secondary value additions, development of new products, value propositions and marketing.

• Knowhow on MSMEs linkages with large scale agro-processing industries and understanding how the backward and forward linkages are functioning.

• Knowledge and experience national strategies and policies on youth employment especially in the in the agriculture sector, MSMEs engagement, and food safety and quality control systems.

• Experiences in input-output market linkages, particularly to ensure strong linkages among agro-processors, producer and consumer associations, and service providers.

• Strong experience in implementation and management of donor-funded projects.

• Experiences in multistakeholder collaboration, partnership and management of clients.

• Skills in business plan development and business advisory services for entrepreneurship development.

• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and reporting skills.

• Ability to work under pressure and deliver quality results.

• Strong team working skills.

• Strong English communication skills (both verbal and written), including ability to create and deliver compelling presentations.

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 https://apply.ata.gov.et

• It is mandatory to mention the position title under the subject line of your application email.  

• Please DO NOT submit scans of certificates with your application.  

• Women are highly encouraged to apply. 

• NB. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.