AGRA

Location: Kampala, Uganda

Job Reference: APO/PD/UG/03/2024

AGRA and its Work

AGRA is an African-led institution that actively supports the drive towards inclusive agricultural transformation and sustainable food systems. We do this by empowering the continent’s 33 million smallholder farming households to transform their agriculture from a struggle to survive to profitable businesses. The continent’s farmers regularly face challenges, and we aspire to provide uniquely African solutions that respond to their agricultural and environmental challenges, leading to increased harvests for reduced hunger and more income. 

Working in alignment with the development priorities of our focus countries, we enable farmers to access improved and high-yielding seeds, gain knowledge on sustainable farming, and linkages to profitable markets. 

In our work, we aspire to build the alliances, partnerships, and networks required to drive an inclusive agricultural transformation. We work with our partners to create an equitable youth-friendly environment that harnesses the youth dividend on the continent to drive growth and facilitate open employment opportunities for young women and men. We achieve our key objectives through a focus on the following four areas of intervention:

1. Policy and state capability – We support governments in creating an enabling environment for private sector involvement in agricultural transformation. 
2. Seed systems – We trigger higher productivity by increasing the availability and access to improved seeds by farmers allowing them to increase their harvests for food security and better incomes. 
3. Sustainable farming – We support farmers in building resilient farming systems for sustained high yields through interventions such as mechanization and irrigation. 
4. Inclusive markets and trade – We work to increase the linkages between farmers, and other market actors for a positive, sustained cycle of commercialization and reinvestment.

Implementing Our New Strategy Through People

People are the heart of our organization and remain the true drivers of our delivery and our impact.

We work with incredible people and partners who have roots in farming communities across the continent combined with an inclusive and diverse workforce from over 24 nationalities. Our commitment to a call to action goes beyond ourselves as we arise to catalyze African Food Systems transformation by being Deeply collaborative, Executing Excellently, Sincerely Constructive and Increasingly Entrepreneurial aligned with our values of (I-RISE; Integrity, Respect, Innovation, Stewardship and Equity).

We are looking for people who are passionate about Africa to join our innovative, growing, and multidisciplinary team. Together, we can grow Africa’s food systems improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. Want to join us?

The Position

Associate Program Officer Job Reference: APO/PD/UG/03/2024

The Associate Program Officer (APO) will be responsible for supporting implementation of country strategy through grant-making and stakeholder convening, relevant country government relations and policy development and relevant country business development and resource mobilization.

S/He will support AGRA’s engagement with national government, donors, and other system actors  in the design and implementation of appropriate interventions and policies with the aim of catalyzing the growth of sustainable food systems in the country and creating an enabling environment for investment by smallholder farmers and agribusinesses.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Identifies, develops, and maintains strong relationships with other partners who are working to improve food and agricultural systems.
• Supports the team in identifying Clusters in key agricultural production areas.
• Identifies, supports, and guides efforts that enable smallholder farmers to sell their products and capture value from downstream activities.
• Leads efforts to facilitate economic transactions between value chain players and smallholder farmers.
• Facilitate data and information pipeline to monitor programs across themes – contributing to dashboard development, program standardization, and quality control in collaboration with the country team Africa.
• Promotes the agricultural transformation agenda with AGRA technical experts to develop appropriate partnerships.
• Collaborates across AGRA to identify and overcome policy-related constraints on technology development, dissemination, and uptake.
• Networks with broad stakeholders: financial institutions, grantees, universities, other funders, international organizations, beneficiaries. 

• Identify potential grantees and work with them to develop impactful interventions.
• Oversees and supervises consortiums.
• Devises ways to strengthen national capacities for policy design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.
• Work with cross-functional teams in making critical decisions during challenging situations.
• Reviews grant portfolio to ensure grantees are implementing programs in accordance with the contractual agreement.
• Oversees the grantee actual implementation process and provides relevant backstopping as may be required.
• Creates regular periodic reports as may be required by the Country Director/ Programs Lead. 
• Implements the specified program activities in accordance with approved annual work plans jointly formulated with the beneficiaries.

Key Qualifications and Experience required:

• A bachelor’s degree in agriculture, Agricultural Economics, Public Finance, Public Administration, or related disciplines, master’s degree is added advantage. 
• Professional experience in agri-business and development efforts in Africa
• Experience in grant making and in leading policy-related development initiatives.
• Experience designing and implementing projects/programs in public/private sectors with systems thinking will be added advantage.

If you believe you are the right candidate for this position, kindly submit your application with a detailed CV (including your e-mail and telephone contacts) to recruit@agra.org. Please quote the job reference number in the subject line of the application e-mail. 

Applications must be received on or before 22nd March 2024. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

For more information on the AGRA, visit www.agra.org. 

AGRA is an Equal Opportunity Employer