AGRA

Job Role: Head– Youth Employment for Food and Agriculture (YEFFA) Programs Delivery

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

Job Reference HPD/PD/06/2024

AGRA and its Work to Transform Agriculture

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.

Why Join Us?

People are the heartbeat of our organization and remain the true drivers of our delivery, impact, and success.

We have cultivated a workplace that fuels Depth in Collaboration, Excellence in Execution, Constructive Engagements, and a spirit of being Increasingly Entrepreneurial; all underpinned by our cherished I-RISE Values (Integrity, Respect, Innovation, Stewardship and Equity)

We work with incredible people and partners who have roots in farming communities across the African continent combined with an inclusive, diverse, and talented workforce from over 25 nationalities. Our commitment to a call to action goes beyond ourselves as we arise to catalyze African Food Systems transformation and improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

We are looking for people who are passionate about being part of a mission-driven team that is making a real difference on the continent; love to work on cutting edge Ag technologies; and able to grow their skills, expertise, and experience career growth, while enjoying very competitive compensation and benefits.

Are you ready to embark on this exciting transformative journey with us?

The Position: Head – YEFFA Programs Delivery Job Reference: HPD/PD/06/2024

The Head – Youth Employment for Food and Agriculture (YEFFA) Programs Delivery is responsible for supporting the Vice President – Programs Delivery in managing and implementing Mastercard Foundation-funded program across AGRA’s countries of operation.  The role holder will facilitate the work of AGRA teams operating at country level in pursuance of the program’s goals, objectives, and activities described above, with a particular emphasis on the smooth implementation of activities within each country, identification of grantees, and processing of grants.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Responsible for the overall project management, leadership and strategic guidance, and oversight to the Mastercard Foundation YEFFA Program, ensuring that it aligns with the AGRA’s goals and objectives.
• Serve as YEFFA Program focal point for continental and country level teams to ensure effective program management and delivery of results.
• Ensure technical rigor and efficient delivery of the program objectives, and timely implementation of the annual year plans.
• Support timely and impactful implementation of the YEFFA programmes at country and at continental level.
• Serve as the team lead for the program and ensure strong communication and coordination with and between divisions to effectively achieve program objectives.
• Ensure quality program delivery, and adherence to gender, safeguarding and environmental compliance in line with donor contractual obligations.
• Provide regular updates within AGRA on budget utilization, variation, achievement against targets, consolidation of lessons and insights.
• Galvanizes the program team to understand their perspectives on the YEFFA needs for advancing the uptake and impacts of their interventions in the countries.
• Support Country Directors and other key internal stakeholders in building and maintaining strong relationships with external key stakeholders, including government officials, and partners to successfully deliver the YEFFA program at country and continental level.
• Support the Monitoring Evaluation & Learning Team in the development of robust monitoring and evaluation frameworks to assess the impact and effectiveness of youth programs and initiatives and ensure timely reporting of results.
• Utilize data and feedback to continuously improve program outcomes and inform decision-making. Adapting the workplan to embrace the new evidence, learnings and insights from the ecosystem, evidence, and platforms function of the program.
• Liaise with the Director, Gender, Youth & Inclusiveness as well and Centre of Technical Expertise teams to ensure alignment with, and integration toward the execution of the YEFFA country and continental work plans.
• Support the Master Card Foundation and AGRA in their learning journey as they co-learn what works better and how to scale it up within the parameters of the program.
• Represent AGRA at Mastercard Foundation meetings and events (as and when required).
• Support the Development Cooperation team in their role as lead of the relationship with Mastercard Foundation to ensure coordinated and coherent communication on program delivery, impact, and success.
• Supports AGRA’s Communications and External Engagement team with programmatic successes, lessons learned and impact case studies through presentations, written and verbal communication.
• Direct transparent communications with partners, including negotiating scopes of work, addressing requisite revisions in programmatic work, and troubleshooting issues that may arise.
• Establish and monitor compliance with Mastercard Foundation regulations, procedures and AGRA’s institutional policies and guidelines.
• Coordinate the timely submission of donor deliverables (including coordination of biannual technical and financial reports, impact stories).
• Lead the operationalisation of the YEFFA governance structures and provide secretariat support towards the Program Steering Group and the YEFFA Strategic Advisory Group.
• Support the review of YEFFA related grant and consultancy proposals prior to their submission to the Grants Committee to ensure alignment with YEFFA goals and objectives.
• Have an oversight of expenditure to ensure value-for-money within budget limits.
• Ensure compliance with internal and external expectations for fiscal management including and financial reporting requirements.

Key Qualifications and Experience required:

• Bachelors degree in international development, public policy, or a related field.
• Masters or Doctorate Degree and/or Certification in Project Management is an added advantage.
• Experience working with and managing cross-functional and cross-cultural teams with domestic and regional activities.
• Experience in managing complex initiatives with proven ability to develop high impact partnerships.
• Proven leadership ability to influence, develop and empower employees to achieve their best with a team approach.
• Experience and proven capacity to communicate effectively with different counterparts (government authorities, heads of agencies, civil society, and the private sector) to align actors and build networks
• Experience in areas of agricultural markets, and food trade.
• Experience in managing Mastercard Foundation and/or other Donor funded programs.
• A working knowledge of French will be an advantage.

Technical Competencies

• Exceptional program management skills of complex initiatives (country, regional and continental levels).
• Strong analytical skills in market and trade analysis, as well as deal-making to leverage financing from private and public sector.
• Deep understanding of market systems development approach and the policy and regulatory enabling environment for functional markets and trade.
• An understanding of various African gender and youth laws and devolution related legislations; Understanding of international conventions on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
• Deep understanding of both the government and private sector policies and governance structures.
• Excellent organizational, and problem solving/decision making skills.
• Ability to incorporate data-driven approaches and new technologies into program design and implementation.
• Understanding of monitoring and evaluation frameworks to measure program impact, track progress, and identify areas for improvement.

Behavioral Competencies

• Ability to drive collaboration through inclusive and agile teaming, breaking siloes, sharing information celebrating joint successes.
• Ability to execute excellently by delivering high-quality work at speed, committing to decisions and plans, and increasing accountability to deliver impact at scale.
• Ability to be sincerely constructive in interactions with others by demonstrating trust, sincerity, and care, in recognition of our joint purpose.
• Ability be increasingly entrepreneurial by breaking hierarchies, embracing learning and innovation to unlock the potential of diversity and ideas.

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 5^th July, 2024. Due to the large volumes of applications, we usually receive, we will only be able to contact those candidates who are shortlisted.

AGRA is an Equal Opportunity Employer