Country: Kenya
Closing date: 30 Nov 2016
Project Background:
The East Africa Trade and Investment Hub (the Hub) boosts trade and investment with and within East Africa. It does this by deepening regional integration, increasing the competitiveness of select regional agricultural value chains, promoting two-way trade with the United States (U.S.) under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and facilitating investment and technology to drive trade growth intra-regionally and to global markets. The Hub supports the U.S. Government’s presidential **Trade Africa **and* Feed the Future*** initiatives.** Within the latter, the Hub plays a coordinating role at the regional level, in the area of policy and regulatory interventions to support intra-regional trade of staple crops. This includes work in standards, especially those related to plant and animal health, and addressing technical and non-technical barriers to trade, with the fundamental purpose of contributing to food security and nutrition.
Position Objectives and Duties:
The Senior Agriculture and Food Security Advisor will contribute to the design and will lead the implementation of strategies to address broad-based policy changes to advance regional integration and agricultural growth, including increasing the predictability of the policy environment, reducing tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, and supporting the implementation of harmonized standards.
Agriculture and agribusiness component is the flagship regional activity for Feed the Future (FtF) and reflects the objectives of USAID’s Bureau for Food Security and the Regional International Economic Office in Nairobi. The Advisor will also guide the Hub’s technical assistance to improve the competitiveness of staple value chains focusing on promoting financing and trading mechanisms, facilitating commercial partnerships, and supporting the evolution of sustainable market information systems and information communication technology (ICT) to promote regional trade and increase profitability for farmers and private-sector businesses.
The Senior Agriculture and Food Security Advisor will be responsible for, but not limited to, the following detailed tasks:
- Lead the implementation of the FtF Initiative at the regional level -- design and lead strategies to improve the enabling environment for agriculture, including providing support to partner-country governments, regional trade associations, and regional economic communities, specifically EAC, to harmonize trade, facilitate harmonization and implementation of science-based food safety and nutrition standards, and support improved regulations that support trading of commodities, warehousing and financing systems that increase farmer income and increase trade opportunities;
- Oversee technical assistance to improve the regional competitiveness of commodities throughout the regional value chains, including facilitating commercial partnerships, and supporting the evolution of sustainable market information systems and ICT to promote regional trade and increase profitability for farmers and private-sector businesses.
- Facilitate private sector engagement and investment among various levels of target value chains including but not limited to producer, processor, wholesaler and exporter levels.
- Coordinate operational integration of all components to achieve optimal results and impact.
- Consult with USAID’s Regional Agriculture and FtF personnel in Nairobi and bilateral missions as appropriate in designing and executing work plan activities that have been developed in consultation with USAID bilateral missions and formalizing strategic partnerships.
- Work closely with COP and EATIH team to ensure an integrated approach in producing deliverables as outlined in the Work Plan and Rolling Milestones and Deliverables document.
- Assure timely, organized, integrated, quantifiable reporting on Component 2 activities, initiatives, results, lessons learned, and success stories.
Qualifications:
- Degree in Agronomy, or agricultural economics, and advanced degree (s) in agricultural economics and/or trade economics.
- Thorough understanding of Feed the Future, from the theoretical and practical perspectives.
- Demonstrated experience and understanding of possible reforms to the agri-business environment investment constraints that hinder growth in the sector
- Methodical research skills with analytical capabilities to collect distill and interpret data.
- Innovative and pragmatic problem solver with demonstrable skills for prioritization and organization of tasks.
- Demonstrated leadership skills and the ability to work well within a team
- Excellent English report writing and communication skills
Supervisory Responsibilities:
- Senior Agricultural Agriculture and Food Security will supervise the Component 2 team, composed on 2 specialists.
Reporting:
- Senior Agricultural Agriculture and Food Security will report to the Chief of Party.
How to apply:
Interested candidates, please use the link to apply directly for the position.
https://chm.tbe.taleo.net/chm04/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=DAINC&cws=1&rid=2866