Associate Program Officer

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/ML/02/2024

The Associate Program Officer (APO) will be responsible for assisting in executing country implementation plans through management of programmatic grant activities. 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 Mali.
• 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 Monitoring & Evaluation teams to ensure delivery of milestones and tracking of results.
• Collaborates 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.
• Any other tasks may be required.

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 21st February 2024. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

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

AGRA is an Equal Opportunity Employer