Agribusiness Officer at Self Help Africa

Job purpose

• SHA is looking for a dynamic, high performing individual to fill the role of Agribusiness Officer. The post holder will unlock agribusiness opportunities that will involve women and youth across different nodes of sorghum, millet, soya bean, groundnut, and horticulture value chains. The ideal candidate will have a track record of working with micro, small and medium enterprises in the agricultural sector across a range of value chains.

Key Responsibilities

Agribusiness Support

• Establish and maintain processes and systems which ensure strong continued linkages between participants and Market actors across all the value chains of implementation.
• Map and identify market actors of agribusinesses and provide advisory on tailor made support to MSMEs with a focus on access to market, market information service and access to financial management services.
• Facilitate participants’ linkage to financial institutions to unlock opportunities and access to financial products while fostering good partnership between SHA and the financial institution.
• Provide advisory for agribusiness owners to improve in agricultural ventures through B2B and other relevant techniques.
• Provide advisory for enterprises in accessing market information through market intelligence sources and digital platforms.
• Support to ensure high level of accountability to participants, stakeholders and donor ensuring effective feedback mechanism, regular communication, timely production and submission of plans, reports and assessment.
• Provide advisory to facilitate linkages between Aggregators and major off-takers to increased access to market.
• In collaboration with capacity building team, facilitate training on marketing skills, negotiations skills and Digital marketing.

Stakeholder Collaboration

• Leverage experience and understanding of Agribusiness and service providers within the Agricultural space.
• Map and identify main Agribusiness players/actors/partner institutions to offer Agribusiness trainings and additional business development services.
• Collaborate with financial institutions, government agencies, private sectors and others to create linkages between MSMEs and funding providers.
• Identify and facilitate input/equipment financing schemes for MSMEs.
• Effective Implementation and Programme Quality
• Coordinate business collaboration and work closely with the Program Manager on the overall project strategy on Agribusiness.
• Coordinate monitoring and evaluation Support to ensure quality assurance and oversight on business collaboration and partnerships, which includes regular field visits in Kano.
• Coordinate project documentation and maintain an updated database for market actors in agribusiness across the 5 value chains.
• Transparency, Compliance and safeguarding
• Employ the highest standards of openness, transparency and accountability to ensure good financial management in line with SHA’s zero-tolerance approach to fraud, bribery and corruption.
• Demonstrate commitment to safeguarding, protection, gender mainstreaming and inclusion of vulnerable population including people with disabilities.
• Provide support to establish feedback, complaints and response mechanism across communities of implementation to ensure programmatic and operational decisions are informed by local perspectives and priorities and contribute to the protection of program participants at the LGA level.

Accountability

• In line with Self Help Africa’s commitments under the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS), the job holder will:
• actively promote meaningful community participation and consultation at all stages of the project cycle (planning, implementation, M&E).
• work with relevant colleagues to ensure that the Community Feedback and Response Mechanism (CFRM) is functional and accessible, that feedback and complaints are welcomed and addressed.
• work with relevant colleagues to ensure that information about CFRM, safeguarding and expected staff behaviour is disseminated among programme participants and communities.

Key relationships

• Internal:Programme, Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning, Finance & Admin, Procurement, HR & Admin, Security and Communications teams.
• External: World Food Programme, Government Agencies, Private Sector Partners, Entrepreneurship and Agribusiness Networks, Educational Institutions, Consultants and Subject Matter Experts, International Development Organisations.
• Knowledge, Experience and Other Requirements

Qualifications and Experience:

• University degree in Agriculture, Agribusiness, Agric Extension or Agricultural Sciences related field.
• A minimum of 4 years proven experience working in Agribusiness space supporting agripreneurs in unlocking opportunities within the Agricultural sector.
• High level of computer literacy with a solid command of Microsoft Office suite.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team
• Professional experience in learner-centred training methodologies and coaching.
• Familiarity with the local context and communities in Kano State.
• Understand agribusiness opportunities across the selected value chains in Kano.

Skills:

• Excellent leadership and coordination skills (and ability to coordinate several tasks at once and managing priorities)
• Effective communication, problem solving and decision-making skills and diplomacy in communication
• Respect for cultural diversity and gender sensitivity
• Team leadership and mentoring
• Monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning
• Communication, networking, facilitation and mobilisation.
• Organisational development
• Reporting and documentation

Desirable:

• Gender and intercultural sensitivity
• Positive outlook and team spirit
• Adaptable and responsive disposition relative to the demands of the Programme
• Women are strongly advised to apply.