Ethiopia: Senior Director, Agricultural Commercialization Clusters (ACC)

Vacancy Announcement

ETHIOPIAN AGRICULTURAL TRANSFORMATION AGENCY

Position: Senior Director, Agricultural Commercialization Clusters (ACC)

Term of Employment: Fixed

Duty Station(s): Addis Ababa

Required Number: One

Salary & Benefits: Competitive

Application Deadline: July 1, 2018

BACKGROUND:

The Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) has been established by the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) to identify and address systemic bottlenecks to Ethiopia’s agricultural development. The Agency does this through problem-solving, implementation support, and capacity building of stakeholders involved in implementation of interventions that address the systemic bottlenecks. The Agency reports to a Transformation Council chaired by the Prime Minister and whose co-chair is the Minister of Agriculture.

The Agricultural Commercialization Clusters (ACC) initiative has been introduced in Ethiopia to apply a geographically-focused approach for rapidly enhancing priority commodity agricultural value chains throughout the country. The implementation of this initiative will support agricultural sector transformation by enhancing and supporting existing structures of government, private-sector and other non-governmental partners, to address systemic as well as commodity- and geography-specific bottlenecks in agricultural value chains.

Agricultural commercialization clusters are defined as geographically concentrated networks of producers, agro-industries, traders and other private and public actors engaged in the same industry and that are inter-connected and building value networks, either formally or informally, when addressing common challenges and pursuing common opportunities. This concept builds on previous federal and regional efforts for value chain development, including part of the government’s focus on Economic Growth Corridors and crop production and productivity Initiatives in priority woredas. The current approach advocates for a more focused and market-driven solution with significant coordination and support between federal and regional bodies.

POSITION SUMMARY:

The Federal ACC is an office in the ATA mandated to coordinate Federal engagement on ACCs across Regions, provide effective upward reporting to the higher federal government office and Federal and Regional stakeholders, mobilize domestic and external resources, and provide training and capacity building to regional counterparts. The Federal ACC Senior Director will lead and oversee all operations of the ACC and report directly to CEO.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES:

The main responsibilities of the Federal ACC Senior Director include:

Leadership

• Lead ATA’s Federal ACC engagement with the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Resources, other relevant Federal level Ministries and Agencies in the implementation of ACC target deliverables
• Support the ATA Regional Directors in their engagement with the Regional Presidents and Regional Transformation Councils as well as with the Bureaus of Agriculture and other relevant Regional stakeholders
• Lead the alignment of national and regional strategies and programs to deliver increased results in effectively impact cluster level VC concept
• Support effective cross-sector and public-private stakeholders' coordination and problem-solving of issues at the national level, including alignment with other national and regional strategies and programs
• Provide effective timely upward reporting to the Agricultural Transformation Council
• Ensure effective regular communication and reporting with the various government offices, and key public, private and development partner stakeholders
• Harmonize re/organization efforts and new national priorities to achieve organization strategic outcome

Project Management

• Deliver on the outcomes and directions provided by the Agricultural Transformation Council to ensure that all tasks related to the ACC Initiative are completed in a timely manner
• Ensure stakeholder coordination, planning, reporting, problem solving and implementation support activities by ACC Support Teams in clusters across the Regions is effectively overseen Ensure effective capacity-building support to Regions on issues related to the ACC Initiative.
• Lead process of performance management from the cluster, Regional and Federal levels in connection with annual plans and national targets
• Ensure annual plan and execution is consistent with organization target with over 90% budget utilization rate across region and programs

Resource Mobilization

• Engage in mobilization of domestic and external resources for the ACC Initiative, including development of project proposals as necessary
• Facilitate private sector investments and provide on-going problem-solving support by closely working with the concerned stakeholders

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Master's degree or above in Agricultural sciences, Economics, Agribusiness, Business Management, or other relevant fields.
• At least fifteen (15) years professional experience supporting areas such as

              o planning and implementation of agricultural growth or

              o market-led value chain development and upgrading activities (preferably including project                       management of large-scale agricultural development, agro-processing and/or agribusiness                    focused initiatives).

• At least eight (8) years of leadership and/or managerial experience.
• Good experience of working at Federal, regional and civil society or private sector sectors.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills including thorough knowledge and understanding of various regional level and federal level institutions; extensive experience in facilitating dialogue with relevant public and private stakeholders
• Fluency in English and Amharic required; fluency in regional language(s) advantageous.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, with highly collaborative working style.
• Experience in working with multi-cultural teams preferred.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving and reporting skills.
• Strong set of personal values including integrity, honesty and desire to be of service.
• Ability and willingness to shoulder responsibilities under hectic conditions (in terms of overlapping assignments that may happen occasionally).
• Ability to thrive in a fast-moving environment, with an emphasis on high performance, teamwork, accountability and results.

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS

We invite all candidates meeting the required qualifications to submit (i) a cover letter, (ii) CV (maximum 5 pages), and (iii) a completed ATA Application Form athttp://apply.ata.gov.et.

Womenare highly encouraged to apply.

NB. Only short listed candidates will be contacted.