Project Coordinator - Business Support, Strengthening Nutrition in Priority Staples at Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN)

About the Role

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) is seeking a Project Coordinator, Business Support, SNIPS to coordinate the implementation of the Business Support component of the project. This role will be offered on a one(1) year fixed term contract, subject to availability of funding and will be based in Abuja, Nigeria.

The Strengthening Nutrition in Priority Staples Project (SNIPS) in Nigeria, in partnership with GIZ and the Green Innovation Centre for the Agricultural and Food Sector in Nigeria, is working on four priority value chains – Vitamin A Cassava, Vitamin A Maize, Rice, and Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato – to bring forward innovations with the potential to contribute to smallholder farmers' livelihoods and sustainable rural development. The project focuses on productivity, incomes, and jobs for smallholder farmers active in the priority value chains. This GAIN investment is an integrated plan to support and strengthen the GIC, adding a nutrition lens to make the intervention more nutrition-sensitive over the next two years in four GIC states, namely Kaduna, Benue, Nasarawa and Oyo states.

The Business Support component is designed to empower women and young people and unleash the creativity and energy of youth and women to support their families, succeed in agri-business, attempt to tackle malnutrition, and prevent foodborne illnesses and food and social insecurity. This component has increased women's and youth's involvement in value-added agriculture and entrepreneurship that directly addresses the specific challenges women and rural youth face in the four focal states for this project. It responds to opportunities to harness the political will at local, state, and national levels in Nigeria to invest in creating economic opportunities for women and youth in the production, processing, and sale of nutritious and safe foods. This is achieved by significantly increasing the knowledge and information available to women and young people about nutrition and food safety, increasing their participation in decision-making, and targeting business support and investments so they can bring forward innovations, increase livelihood opportunities and build nutrition sensitivity into the GIC value chains.

The Project Coordinator will support the Project Manager, Supply Chains for Commercialization and will be directly responsible for coordinating the implementation of the Business Support component of the project. The post-holder will be expected to develop strong relationships with relevant partners, exploiting synergies within GAIN and with external stakeholders to ensure continued, effective project delivery. The Project Coordinator, in close collaboration with the Project Manager, has overall responsibility for the day-to-day operational delivery, implementation, and monitoring of the project, specifically focusing on tracking the progress and status of project activities. They play a coordination role in GAIN's cross-functional project teams and support the maintenance of relationships with partners and stakeholders.

They are responsible for liaising with stakeholders within their assigned project components and ensuring that project outputs and activities are successfully implemented within approved plans, budgets, timelines, and quality standards

Key Responsibilities include

• Lead the development and delivery of comprehensive training programs for MSMEs, covering business optimisation, access to markets, financial literacy, food safety management systems (FSMS), and quality management systems (QMS).
• Identify funding opportunities and manage grants aimed at the growth and sustainability of nutritious businesses. Assist MSMEs in navigating the funding process, aligning with project objectives while adhering to financial and reporting guidelines.
• Collaborate with MSMEs and stakeholders to refine strategies for efficient nutritious food supply chains, incorporating nutrition-sensitive practices and innovations.
• Co-implement and co-manage frameworks to assess the impact of project interventions on MSME growth, food product quality and safety, and nutrition outcomes. Produce detailed reports for stakeholders, summarizing progress, achievements, and insights.
• Promote policies and practices that support nutritious food market development.
• Supports the Project Manager in preparing donors’ reports in collaboration with project, technical, funding, and support teams.

About you

The ideal candidate will have demonstrated experience providing technical support to MSMEs in accessing funding/financing and building their capacity in terms of business optimisation, access to markets, financial literacy while adopting food safety management and quality systems. You should have experience establishing partnerships with state governments , development agencies and regulatory bodies to support production and distribution of safe nutritious foods.

You should have direct experience working with MSMEs preferably in the nutrition space guiding on efficient food supply chains while incorporating nutrition sensitive practices and innovations through strategies such as social behaviour change communication.

Project management experience is critical to succeed in this role as the Project Coordinator will be responsible for coordinating the Business Support component of the  SNIPs project with expectation to develop strong relationships with key partners. You should have experience in day-to-day operational implementation and monitoring of a project.

An education background with a degree in agricultural economics, development studies, business management, sustainable development or related field is required. A deep understanding of private sector especially MSMEs is key to succeed in this role.