Business Development Officer – Coffee & CSOs EU Project Jobs – Farm Africa
Job Title: Business Development Officer – Coffee & CSOs
Organization: Farm Africa
Funding Source: European Union (EU)
Duty Station: Kanungu, Uganda
Reports to: Country Director
About US:
Farm Africa is an international non-governmental organization working to end hunger and bring prosperity to rural Africa. We work to increase the incomes and improve food security of smallholder farmers, pastoralists, agro-pastoralists, and forest dwellers in East Africa. A core part of our strategy is to ensure that our interventions are both economically sustainable and scalable. The systematic integration of market linkages in implementing programmes is crucial to our ability to scale our interventions cost-effectively. Farm Africa has the ambition to be the leading European NGO specialising in Agriculture, Natural Resource Management and Market Engagement.
About EU Project:
Farm Africa has the ambition to be the leading European NGO specialising in Agriculture,
Natural Resource Management and Market Engagement. It has recently been awarded a grant by the European Union for a €615,000, three-year project supporting young coffee farmers in Western Uganda’s Kanungu district. The project focuses on building the capacity of Civil Society Organisations (CSO) to create employment and self-employment opportunities within the coffee value chain for 4,800 young women and men Kanungu district. A broad range of CSOs will be engaged in the project ranging from coffee growers cooperatives to national stakeholder platforms representing both young farmers and coffee farmers.
Key project activities will include capacity building of four Coffee Grower Cooperatives (CGC) – in particular growing their membership of young women and men, delivering extension services using smartphones and promoting sustainable production methodologies to their members. At the same time the project will support the establishment of washing and processing facilities as well as specialist trainings to enable CGCs and their members to increase the quality and quantity of coffee produced, and ultimately enter export and premium markets.
Job Summary: The Business Development Officer – Coffee & CSOs is responsible for building the business and commercial capacity of coffee growers’ cooperatives, input SMEs, and coffee farmers’ groups. The BDO will also be responsible for capacity building and mentoring of the wider field team on market-based approaches to development and business development, as well as ensuring best practices in these areas are integrated into all field activities. In addition, the BDO will contribute to Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning (MEL) activities, particularly with regards to developing and disseminating record keeping tools for the different stakeholders engaged in business-focused activities. The post-holder will be based in Farm Africa’s Kanungu office, and will be reporting in to the Project Coordinator – Coffee & CSOs.
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
Delivery of markets and business-focused activities in line with the Coffee and CSOs project implementation plan:
- Ensure that business development-related project activities are implemented and outputs achieved as planned and within the agreed budget including:
- Assess and analyse existing businesses (SMEs) supporting the sustainable coffee production and provide business training – supporting them to build their customer base including access finance to grow their businesses
- Support district committees and associations in growing their member base, improving their governance and developing income generating activities to enable them to cover regular operational costs
- Participate in the assessments of the cooperatives organizational capacities
- Provide business development and access to finance training and continuous support to the cooperatives using FA standard packages
- Provide mentoring and ad hoc support to the extension workers of the cooperatives on business development and access to finance
- Ensure that Farm Africa Approaches to business development, access to finance and trade facilitation are used to guide high-quality delivery
- Ensure that business development and markets focused activities are aligned with, and mutually supportive of other interventions in the same areas
- Work with the Project Coordinator (PC) and the Project Accountant and Administrator (PA&A) to ensure all activities are planned and conducted according to the organization and the donor financial and procurement requirements and procedures.
- Work with TWIN (implementing partner) to ensure collaboration between delivery of all business development activities, market linkages and supporting cooperatives and farmers to achieve market requirements, including certification standards
Support project management and coordination
- Support the PC & PA&A with activity planning and budgeting as requested
- Keep abreast of business development activities being implemented by other partners operating in a similar intervention area and sharing this information with the PC and wider team as appropriate
- Proactively identify and monitor any risks to non-delivery and, where required, develop and implement action plans to address issues identified
- Support the PC to identify and analyze the causes of spend variances to the budget and make recommendations on actions to be taken as required
Monitoring, evaluation and reporting
- Contribute to internal and external reporting, with a particular focus on collecting and collating information from the supported Coffee Growers’ Cooperatives and SMEs in line with set targets or standards.
- Regularly report on implementation learnings, and make recommendations on areas for improvement or changes in delivery strategy to the PC
- Contribute to the development and implementation of the Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning Plan (MLP) – and in particular support with developing data collection tools that will gather relevant business data from the cooperatives, SMEs and farmers’ groups engaged in the project
- Contribute to quarterly internal progress reviews and annual project performance reviews and workshops
- Collect information for stories, case studies and lessons learnt on market linkages and business development
Play a key role in delivering the wider objectives of both the Coffee and CSOs project, and Farm Africa’s work in Uganda.
- Participate in project team meetings as requested by the Project Coordinator.
- Support the wider project delivery team to integrate market approaches within work plans and stakeholder engagements
- Work in close collaboration with TWIN in ensuring that knowledge, learnings and tools are shared
- Maintain regular and effective communications with the wider project team, Uganda Country Office and implementing partners
- In consultation with the PC, act as an ambassador, promoting the project and the work of Farm Africa, including hosting visitors, speaking at workshops, conferences and meeting donors and other officials as and when required
- Contribute to the development of relevant Farm Africa policies and strategies
Qualifications, Skills and Experience:
- The ideal candidate for the Farm Africa Business Development Officer – Coffee & CSOs job placement must hold a Degree or equivalent in in a relevant field, such as agricultural economics, rural development, business or economics
- Broad knowledge and understanding of market-based approaches to development and particularly approaches which encourage greater participation of women and youth
- At least two years’ experience working for an INGO or agri-business
- Experience of supporting the growth of businesses within the agriculture sectors
- Experience of capacity building CSOs, cooperatives and/or small or micro enterprises
- Experience of planning and delivering project activities and reporting on their impact
- Experience of designing or delivering interventions that specifically encourage or maximise the participation of youth
- Experience of supporting producer organisations to formalise the operations and access finance
- Experience of supporting smallholder farmers to enter formal markets
- Desirable
- Experience conducting organisational capacity assessments
- Experience of working in coffee value chain
- Experience of conducting market assessments
- Experience in designing and conducting business development trainings for micro-enterprises or SMEs
- Experience of developing record keeping tools for micro/small enterprises
- Experience of delivering activities focusing on the economic empowerment of rural women
- Ability to build strong relationships with stakeholders and communities based on trust and collaboration
- Ability to communicate and share knowledge with a broad range of stakeholders with differing backgrounds and abilities.
- Problem identification, analysis and solving of complex issues
- Fluent written and spoken English
- Ability and willingness to travel widely and frequently both within and outside Kanungu district
- Confident user of Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint
- Willingness to ride a motorcycle in the field, with a valid riding permit (Class A)
- Fluency in Runyankore / Rukiga
Desirable
- Further relevant academic qualification in the area of agricultural economics, rural development, business or economics
- Knowledge and understanding of the coffee value chain in Uganda
- Working knowledge of sustainable consumption & production (SCP) principles
- Multi stakeholder facilitation skills
- Ability to influence others in order to drive change
How to Apply:
All suitably qualified and interested candidates should send an updated CV, salary history, and a two-page supporting statement detailing how you meet the person specification to ugandarecruitment@farmafrica.org including “Business Development Officer C&C” in the subject line.
NB: Please DO NOT send additional documents such as certificates and references with your application. Shortlisted candidates ONLY will be required to provide these documents during the interview process. Interviews are expected to take place w/c 23rd July 2018 at Farm Africa’s country office in Kampala. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
Deadline: 11th July 2018 by 5.00pm EAT
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