Program Management Officer

Program Management Officer – MAJI

Location: Maputo, Mozambique

Job Reference: PMO/PD/MZ/01/2025

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:

Policy and state capability – We support governments in creating an enabling environment for private sector involvement in agricultural transformation.
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.
Sustainable farming – We support farmers in building resilient farming systems for sustained high yields through interventions such as mechanization and irrigation.
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.

About MAJI

The MAJI (Mozambique Agricultural Jobs and climate resilient Investment) program aims to increase the availability of finance and support catalytic investments that allow farmers and agri SMEs to operate at scale and become more resilient to climate shocks. This includes supporting investments in agriculture value chains that are suited to the changing climatic context and avoiding those that increase climate vulnerability; promoting specific climate-smart alternative agricultural practices; incentivizing the adoption of mitigation and adaptation measures to minimize climate and biodiversity risks such as inappropriate use of pesticides, land degradation, deforestation etc. and modelling the impact on smallholder vulnerability and exposure to climate, financial, food insecurity and social risks.

The program investments will de-risk, stimulate, and incentivize financial intermediaries, including private capital and public fund managers, to provide innovative financing to farmers, early-stage aggregators, processors, and agribusinesses. In addition, the MAJI program will build a strong and coherent portfolio of investable agri-businesses that can be of interest to other financiers, investment vehicles, including private investors.

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

Program Management Officer – MAJI Job Reference: PMO/PD/MZ/01/2025

The Program Management Officer – MAJI, will be the team leader and responsible for the implementation of the Finance and Investment component of the MAJI program in Mozambique, including the planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting on the Program as laid out in the Terms of Reference, submitted proposal and contract with FCDO.

MAJI seeks to enhance access to financial and non-financial services for agribusinesses in Mozambique in view of making these businesses more climate aware and resilient. The Program Management Officer will work closely with AGRA’s Mozambique country team as well as with the operational support units and Inclusive finance unit based in Nairobi.

S/he will manage the MAJI program, which aims to improve incomes, create better/more jobs for women and men in Mozambique and support their resilience to climate shocks. The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), through the British High Commission (BHC) Maputo, has entered an arrangement with AGRA and AECF as a subcontractor to incubate, co-create and eventually establish a specific and dedicated Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) that enhances financing of the agricultural sector. The catalytic funding aims to facilitate and mobilise more investment into Agri-SMEs by incentivising the adoption of more climate adaptation and mitigation measures and by linking smallholder farmers to sustainable, appropriate, and climate-resilient value chains.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Review Mozambique’s agribusiness sector, it’s access to financial and non-financial services and the binding constraints to their growth.
Identify and map financial services available to agribusiness and the challenges the supply and demand side of agrifood finance face
Identify and map non-financial services providers and their service offer in investment readiness, climate resilience building, business support, inclusive business modelling, etc.
Lead the co-creation of the instrument design: catalytic grants for agrifood businesses, credit enhancement for financial services providers, technical assistance in climate resilience and job creation.
Supports the development of a pipeline of agribusiness from AGRA and FCDO Value Chain programs, financial institution’s clientele and networks, and other donor programs and agribusiness initiatives in Mozambique.
Designs and implements investment readiness and BDS provision programs literacy support for pipeline companies and farmers in close collaboration with the PFIs, with the option for outsourcing or insourcing these services.
Develops, launches, and evaluates Expressions of Interest from agribusinesses to participate in the MAJI program, following the criteria formulated in the design.
Analyzes and selects submitted EoIs, including proposed innovations to enhance agribusiness financing and resilience building, for approval from FCDO.
Oversee the development of Terms of Reference (TORs) for Technical Service Providers (TSP) for implementing capacity building and investment readiness support plans.
Oversees the monitoring of TSPs’ performance and provides technical backstopping support to partners on agricultural finance, gender, and youth mainstreaming.
Proposes and promotes innovations at the PFI and business advisory/financial literacy levels to reduce the cost and risk of agricultural lending.
Leads knowledge management (KM) in collaboration with the AGRA and AECF teams in knowledge management.
Leads the development of knowledge products, publications, videos, policy briefs and the dissemination thereof.

Key Qualifications and Experience required:

Experience in structuring innovative, catalytic financial instruments and de-risking mechanisms for financial institutions and agribusinesses.
Knowledge of climate adaptation and mitigation strategies in the agrifood sector and financing mechanism available for resilience building.
Good network of financial services providers, agribusinesses and relevant government actors in Mozambique.

A master’s degree in finance, Business economics, Agricultural Economics, or related discipline
Extensive experience leading teams and managing programs in access to finance for agricultural SMEs and financial sector development preferably in Mozambique.
Ability in conducting needs assessments, terms of reference development, procurement processes and management of consultants and trainers in the agricultural finance sector.
A sound knowledge of, and experience in, financial sector and agribusiness development in Mozambique.
Proven management skills include donor reporting, budget control, planning and team engagement.
Fluency in Portuguese and English.

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 24^th January, 2025.

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

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