Program Manager- StreFas Project at TechnoServe

Job Summary:

• The Program Manager -Strengthening Farmers and SMEs Resilience through Climate Smart Grain Production in Nigeria (StreFas) will work under the supervision of the Country Director/Program Director to provide overall project leadership to the StreFas team in Kaduna and Nasarawa States and the goal is to reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions through regenerative agricultural practices. This goal will be achieved primarily through upskilling Maize, Rice, Sorghum, and Soybean farmers in regenerative agricultural practices. The Program Manager will also provide technical support to facilitate farmer behavioral change from conventional agriculture to regenerative and climate-adapted agriculture. In addition, s/he will gather market intelligence, monitor performance, and provide guidance while managing relationships with donors, implementing partners, and sub-awardees to achieve project objectives. The tasks outlined below are the key responsibilities of the employee, however, s/he will be expected to perform other tasks that are necessary within the context of the evolving needs of the project.

Program/Practice/Department Overview:

• The StreFas Project aims to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions through regenerative agricultural practices and at the same time develop an inclusive, sustainable, scalable, and adaptable regenerative agriculture solution to help smallholder farmers (SHFs) and local SMEs (aggregators) more resilient and produce low-carbon grains in Nigeria. The three-year project will provide a guaranteed structured market for farmers to produce high-quality grains yearly, with a significant quantity of grains produced from environmentally sustainable practices. The project aims to impact up to 25,000 SHFs directly as beneficiaries of the program. Importantly, StreFas will sustain and scale up the successful elements of the regenerative agriculture pilot of the recently concluded Developing Inclusive Grain Value Chains in Nigeria (DIGVCN) project.

Primary Functions & Responsibilities

• Takes full ownership of the StreFas project and drives the delivery of targets.
• Ensure efficient and effective implementation of project activities, output, and outcomes as laid out in the executed contract.
• Engage the relevant practice teams internally to get maximum support that ensures the successful delivery of the project.
• Optimize team performance and ensure that members are adequately capacitated to conduct their respective project activities and upskilled in critical areas of the project such as carbon credit calculations.
• Lead the development of a project work plan and ensure timely and quality delivery of project Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
• Ensure timely preparation of donor reports according to prescribed guidelines and format.
• Support HR in the recruitment and onboarding process of new hire replacements
• Develop training curriculum for farmers and coordinate all required training, including training-of-trainers (ToTs), and ensure all training manuals are updated throughout the life of the project.
• Enhance strong stakeholder engagement with government, private sector, business associations, community associations, and financial institutions as needed.
• Manage and mitigate potential program risks; develop and continuously review project risk management measures.
• Work closely with the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) specialist to ensure proper and timely reports of the program for internal communication and action. Oversee the sharing of best practices and lessons learned from the project and lead program communication activities.
• Manage project budget to ensure that burn rate targets are achieved.
• Understand, respect, and promote TechnoServe’s values, vision, and strategy in the implementation of assigned duties.
• Any other tasks that may be assigned about the evolving needs of the project.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Agriculture, Agribusiness, Agronomy, or relevant Social Sciences/ Humanities disciplines.
• Minimum of 7 years’ experience working with communities living on less than $2 a day to improve their livelihoods.
• Alternatively, a Master’s degree with 5 years’ experience.
• Demonstrated experience of working with a corporate donor for at least 5 years.
• Demonstrated knowledge and understanding of regenerative agriculture, carbon credits, and greenhouse gas emission reduction through regenerative practices.
• Demonstrated experience in leading technical studies such as environmental impact assessment, baseline, and endline evaluation studies, and so on.
• Demonstrated experience in report writing.

Preferred Qualification:

• Ability to engage and advise senior-level stakeholders, including senior management of private sector companies, donor representatives, and others.
• Ability to manage budget as assigned and aligned with the donor requirements.
• Demonstrated experience in data collection and analyses, especially in the areas of agriculture and project key performance indicators.