AGRA

Head – Inclusive Finance

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

Job Reference: IF/IMTF/04/2025

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 small-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 link 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.

1. Youth, Gender, and Inclusiveness – We enable women and youth to contribute to and benefit from agriculture for their economic empowerment.

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 by improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

Want to join us?

The Position

 Head – Inclusive Finance Job Reference: IF/IMTF/04/2025

 AGRA’s approach is to build an inclusive agricultural finance system based on partnerships and opportunities that will reduce the cost and risk of agricultural finance. The strategy focuses on three critical integrated components that can make the agricultural finance system work inclusively for food crops. These are: availability of concessional, blended capital, capable providers of financial services, and finance-able SMEs and farmers.

Head – Inclusive Finance will be responsible for designing and implementing a strategy to improve the availability of affordable financial services (credit, investment capital, savings, insurance, etc.) to the actors across the agricultural value chains, including smallholder farmers. The person should be committed to delivering, be agile and responsive to different stakeholders and opportunities. S/he should be entrepreneurial and open to innovative ideas and able to draw and build on consultative input from other AGRA stakeholders where needed.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Lead and manage AGRA’s Inclusive Finance sub-unit in scaling AGRA’s transferable assets in inclusive finance through leveraging partners’ funds and making catalytic investments in new solutions that can reduce the cost and risk of agricultural finance.
• Lead the implementation and regular review and adjustment of AGRA’s Inclusive Finance Strategy, including the hypothesis, the theory of change, action, and the interventions.
• Lead our SME and BDS ecosystem development strategies within and across input and output markets, mechanization, gender and youth inclusion, as well as around policy and state capability.
• Drive AGRAs efforts in shaping the continental policy and regulatory agenda on agri-lending as a critical driver of agriculture transformation driven by small farmers and SMEs.
• Co-lead in the implementation of inclusive finance and insurance initiatives and programs at country and regional levels, such as MAJI, REGAIN, RK-FINFA, among others.
• Identify, build, and maintain strong relationships with other partners, working to improve access to finance for agriculture in Africa to understand the landscape of current efforts, refine AGRA’s role in ensuring appropriate access to financial services for food systems actors, and to improve collaboration in investments that further this work by sharing the lessons that inform future.
• Inspire high-level intellectual leadership to enable the team to develop innovative solutions that reduce the cost and risk of agricultural finance and catalyze private sector investment in food systems in Africa.
• Build and maintain a wide network of stakeholders and contributors to the inclusive finance Including networks such as SAFIN, AMEA, AFRACA, and others.
• Disseminate insights and results through written and verbal
• Inspire and grow teamwork, partnership, and collaboration among the center of expertise and country teams to raise the overall quality of deployment of financial resources in AGRA’s grant-making activities.
• Achieve talent development of existing staff, hiring new staff as necessary, and managing team dynamics of the team to ensure a high-performance team.
• Direct and provide coaching to relevant program and country staff and
• Oversee the current Inclusive Finance investments to ensure that they are being executed effectively and make any adjustments needed.
• In partnership with the Resource Mobilization team, contribute to fundraising of sufficient resources to AGRA’s operations, as well as investments directly into dedicated programs in the IMT&F business line.
• Represent AGRA on governing bodies of returnable grant investments (ABC fund, IAHCL, and ASIF) and report on those portfolios.
• In partnership with the monitoring and Evaluation team, set indicators of success and support the measurement plans for these indicators to be well-defined (SME performance, leverage) and effectively implemented for each investment

Key Qualifications and Experience Required:

• Master’s degree in finance, rural development, business, economics, or another relevant field.
• Bachelor’s degree from a reputable academic institution in a relevant field, such as agriculture, agricultural economics, rural development, business, or economics.
• Experience spanning operational, strategic managerial, and leadership in the financial services sector, preferably in Africa, specifically in the areas of rural and agriculture finance, advisory and analysis, knowledge development and dissemination, and partnership development.
• Proven writing and communication skills, including an ability to edit and/or produce final strategy documents and proposals for external review.
• Deep familiarity with the agricultural finance landscape in Africa, including its challenges and opportunities, and ability to develop creative and innovative solutions that improve access to financial services for Agri SMEs and farmers.
• Strong networks that can be leveraged to reduce cost and risk of Agri-financing in partnerships can reach the scale and depth necessary to achieve a sustainable food systems transformation.
• Familiar with key developments, research, and industry trends centered on innovative products for financial inclusion such as blended finance, long and short-term credits, savings, and insurance.
• Ability to engage in high-level policy dialogue with regulators, central banks, and financial service providers to promote enabling environments for inclusive finance.
• Strong skills in managing large-scale inclusive finance programs and donor-funded initiatives, ensuring alignment with KPIs, timelines, and impact targets.
• Ability to translate innovative concepts and models into investment opportunities for AGRA’s grant-making activities.
• Fluency in English required; ability to communicate in French is an added

If you believe you are the right candidate for this position, please submit your application, including a detailed CV (with your email and telephone contacts), to recruit@agra.org. Please quote the job reference number IF/IMTF/04/2025 in the subject line of the application e-mail.

Applications must be received on or before 25^th April 2025. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

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

 AGRA is an Equal Opportunity Employer