AGRA

 Readvertisement: Associate Program Officer

Location: Bamako, Mali

Job Reference: APO/PD/ML/02/2025

 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

 Associate Program Officer Job Reference: APO/PD/ML/02/2025

 The Associate Program Officer (APO) will assist in executing country implementation plans by managing programmatic grant activities under their assigned portfolio. This role will manage stakeholder engagements with relevant country government, technical private sector partners and other institutional partners to fulfil programmatic development and management. S/He will support in the design of appropriate programs and initiatives with the aim of creating an enabling environment for investment by smallholder farmers and agribusinesses.

 Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Identifies opportunities for collaboration with small, medium and large agribusinesses in the geography.
• Supports program officers in designing and implementing programs and initiatives according to country strategy.
• Ensure donor compliance, updates and timely reporting, adherence to donor requirements, monitor progress on the ground.
• Work with M&E teams to ensure delivery of milestones and tracking of results.
• Collaborate with other players to create synergies between AGRA funded programs and other agricultural initiatives.
• Represents AGRA at grantees fora and liaises with project focal staff for areas where special attention/alignment is needed by program officers.
• Supports the Country Program Lead and Program Officers to assess and identify capacity needs and gaps in grantees ability to implement projects.
• Supports program officers in creating road maps documenting the resources and constraints to agricultural transformation.
• Organizes periodic audits, stakeholder forums and other administrative functions.
• Documents and knowledge-sharing of the success stories, best practices and lessons learnt.
• Assists in assessing projects to help identify and resolve Project issues, thus ensuring the Project stays on schedule and within budget.
• Supports in assessing grant portfolio to ensure grantees are implementing project in accordance with the contractual agreement.
• Oversees capacity building of grantees in data capturing, management and reporting.
• Creates regular periodic reports as may be required by the Country Program Lead and special products managers.
• Implements selected ICT platforms and ensures that they are integrated with the other on-going AGRA in country programmatic work in focus countries.

Key Qualifications and Experience required:

• A bachelor’s degree in agriculture, Agricultural Economics, Public Finance, Public Administration, or related disciplines
• Fluency in English and French
• Professional experience in agri-business and development efforts in Africa
• Experience in grant making and in leading policy-related development initiatives.

If you believe you are the right candidate for this position, kindly submit your application with a detailed CV in both English & French (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 21^st February 2025. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

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

 AGRA is an Equal Opportunity Employer