Agriculture, Livelihoods and Landscapes Program Director (Ghanaians Only)
Accra, Ghana (On-site)
Trending
Job Description
About CRS
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. CRS works to save, protect, and transform lives in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS’ relief/development work is accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance, and peacebuilding.
Job Summary:
CRS Ghana seeks an Agriculture, Livelihoods and Landscapes Program Director who will be responsible for the development of agricultural market systems, livelihoods and landscapes, climate smart agriculture, nature-based solutions, and resilience programming. This person will serve as the technical lead for activities under the agriculture sector for CRS programs in Ghana.
The Agriculture, Livelihoods and Landscapes Program Director will provide technical oversight of the development and implementation all CRS activities in Agriculture. The Market Systems and Resilience (MSR) activities will facilitate the development of a competitive market space in northern Ghana that is inclusive. CRS Ghana is aiming for the development of a resilient and sustainable demand-driven, market led, livelihoods and landscapes agriculture programming in the country, including climate-smart agriculture, nature-based solutions, market systems, and resilient agriculture.
The Agriculture, Livelihoods and Landscapes Program Director will manage and provide technical oversight of the development and implementation of the Country Program (CP) Agriculture and Livelihoods programming portfolio. This includes monitoring the close-out of a discretionary funded project, the Ghana PASP Network Project, start-up of a multi-million dollar, MasterCard Foundation project, an Agriculture and WASH integrated discretionary funded project and provision of technical expertise for ongoing business development opportunities including with a large, consortium-led MasterCard Foundation opportunity to provide financial inclusion services to last-mile farmers and a cross-sectorial Helmsley Charitable Trust proposal combining WASH, Agriculture and Health initiatives. The Agriculture, Livelihoods and Landscapes Program Director will also be instrumental in upcoming business development opportunities in landscape restoration including exploring the possibility of integrating climate change and carbon credit into agriculture programming. The Director’s management skills and knowledge will ensure that the CP delivers high-quality programming and continuously works towards improving the impact of its agriculture and livelihoods activities.
This position will report to the Head of Programming and will be based in Accra, Ghana, with frequent travel across Northern, Upper East, and Upper West regions of Northern Ghana. Under the agriculture portfolio, CRS works in partnership with the Navrongo-Bolgatanga Diocesan Development Office, Tamale Archdiocesan Development Office, Yendi Diocesan Development Office, Damongo Diocesan Development Office, Farmer Training Center in Bolgatanga, Regional and District Departments of Agriculture and other relevant agencies, including the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. The Agriculture, Livelihoods and Landscapes Program Director will work closely with the partners to achieve the goals of the project.
Roles and Key Responsibilities:
- Provide management, guidance, and technical oversight throughout the project cycle to ensure project design, start-up, implementation, and close-out are in line with CRS quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices, including budget management, implementation planning and monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning activities.
- Lead the start-up of a multi-million USD MasterCard Foundation project, Harnessing Agricultural Productivity and Prosperity for Youth (HAPPY), which mobilizes young women and men across agricultural value chains of soya, rice and poultry and seeks to provide employment opportunities for the youth particularly young women in agriculture and adjacent sectors.
- Represent and raise the profile of CRS Ghana’s Agriculture, Livelihoods and Landscape capacity at strategic technical events, conferences, workshops, etc., through presentations, papers, systems strengthening approaches, and other technical outputs.
- Lead country program efforts to pre-position CRS for growth opportunities in agriculture, market led agriculture, livelihoods and landscapes and climate change programming.
- Serve as Technical Lead on proposals, including finalizing a large, multi-sectoral, public-private sector initiative aimed at providing innovative financial inclusion services to last-mile farmers.
- Support community identification and entry activities, including establishing relationships with key community leaders and stakeholders using the Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) approach.
- Lead community mapping activities, including community-based agribusiness dealer mapping and financial services provider mapping, as well as mapping to strengthen value chain development and Private Agriculture Service Provider (PASP) and Community-Based Agent (CBA) models.
- Leads activities to promote improved use of production and post-harvest handling practices and services by smallholder farmers by linking them to agro-dealers and service providers to provide sensitization training, workshops, and demonstrations.
- Lead activities to support commercialization and access to finance for smallholder farmers through promotion of VSLAs and SILCs, access to mobile money, and financial literacy training.
- Ensure timely and appropriate project expenditures in line with financial plans and efficient use and stewardship of project material sources.
- Support the country program in developing a collaborative understanding of underlying drivers and environmental and economic impact of land degradation within agricultural landscapes/water catchments.
- Provide technical advice and guidance to increase country programs’ knowledge and understanding of agricultural landscape planning and spatial analysis to implement sustainable land management and nature-based solutions to restore vital ecosystems services and improve livelihoods.
- Provide technical advice to the country program to understand the climate change, environment and agricultural policy and strategies, map key stakeholders and identify entry points to dialogue with government, private sector, and civil society.
- Contribute to capacity strengthening initiatives in agriculture market systems, livelihoods and landscapes programming for staff and partners through the development of learning and training strategies and agendas/curricula conducting trainings and workshops, and mentoring and coaching for country program staff.
- Effectively manage talent for market systems and resiliency project. Manage team dynamics and staff well-being. Provide coaching, strategically tailor individual development plans, and complete performance management for direct reports.
- Lead the development of program learning- identify opportunities for learning, research and publications in the area of Agriculture, Livelihoods and Landscapes and implementation of MEAL policy. Facilitate the dissemination of promising practices and lessons learned to contribute to the agency knowledge management agenda. Ensure integration of innovations and best practices
- Provide support to project Program Managers and Senior Project Officers on project risk and compliance.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with ability to make sound judgment and decisions and offer innovative solutions
- Strong relations management abilities. Ability to relate and collaborate with people at all levels internally and externally. Strategic in how you approach each relationship.
- Proven ability to interpret MEAL data and use to adaptively management programs / projects
- Excellent oral and written skills with good presentation and facilitation skills
- Proactive, resourceful, solutions-oriented, and results-oriented
- Knowledge of finance and private sector investment
- Understanding of agricultural policy environment in targeted counties and value chains required
Preferred Qualifications
- Good experience in project grants management, including project design, preferably for grants from multiple public donors, including USAID and other major international donors.
- Demonstrated ability to write high quality technical proposals.
- Staff management experience and abilities that are conducive to a learning environment.
- Experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information management systems.
Required Languages -English
Travel – Must be willing and able to travel up to 30%.
Supervisory Responsibilities
Responsible for supervising Agriculture, Livelihoods and Landscapes, Program and MEAL Managers, senior project officers and technical advisors.
Key Working Relationships:
Internal: Country Representative, Head of Programming, Business Development Specialist, Finance Manager, Localization, Partnership and Capacity Strengthening Advisor, Sector Influence Advisor, Risk and Compliance Officer, Senior/Regional Technical Advisors: Agriculture, Livelihoods and Landscapes, Gender, Private Sector Enterprises and Youth.
External: Ministry of Food and Agriculture Ghana, local, district and regional government departments, donors, Church partners, universities and research institutions, and other partners.
Responsibilities
- Provide management, guidance, and technical oversight throughout the project cycle to ensure project design, start-up, implementation, and close-out are in line with CRS quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices, including budget management, implementation planning and monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning activities.
- Lead the start-up of a multi-million USD MasterCard Foundation project, Harnessing Agricultural Productivity and Prosperity for Youth (HAPPY), which mobilizes young women and men across agricultural value chains of soya, rice and poultry and seeks to provide employment opportunities for the youth particularly young women in agriculture and adjacent sectors.
- Represent and raise the profile of CRS Ghana’s Agriculture, Livelihoods and Landscape capacity at strategic technical events, conferences, workshops, etc., through presentations, papers, systems strengthening approaches, and other technical outputs.
- Lead country program efforts to pre-position CRS for growth opportunities in agriculture, market led agriculture, livelihoods and landscapes and climate change programming. eMkiEUd BIpnb
- Serve as Technical Lead on proposals, including finalizing a large, multi-sectoral, public-private sector initiative aimed at providing innovative financial inclusion services to last-mile farmers.
- Support community identification and entry activities, including establishing relationships with key community leaders and stakeholders using the Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) approach.
- Lead community mapping activities, including community-based agribusiness dealer mapping and financial services provider mapping, as well as mapping to strengthen value chain development and Private Agriculture Service Provider (PASP) and Community-Based Agent (CBA) models.
- Leads activities to promote improved use of production and post-harvest handling practices and services by smallholder farmers by linking them to agro-dealers and service providers to provide sensitization training, workshops, and demonstrations.
- Lead activities to support commercialization and access to finance for smallholder farmers through promotion of VSLAs and SILCs, access to mobile money, and financial literacy training.
- Ensure timely and appropriate project expenditures in line with financial plans and efficient use and stewardship of project material sources.
- Support the country program in developing a collaborative understanding of underlying drivers and environmental and economic impact of land degradation within agricultural landscapes/water catchments.
- Provide technical advice and guidance to increase country programs’ knowledge and understanding of agricultural landscape planning and spatial analysis to implement sustainable land management and nature-based solutions to restore vital ecosystems services and improve livelihoods.
- Provide technical advice to the country program to understand the climate change, environment and agricultural policy and strategies, map key stakeholders and identify entry points to dialogue with government, private sector, and civil society.
- Contribute to capacity strengthening initiatives in agriculture market systems, livelihoods and landscapes programming for staff and partners through the development of learning and training strategies and agendas/curricula conducting trainings and workshops, and mentoring and coaching for country program staff.
- Effectively manage talent for market systems and resiliency project. Manage team dynamics and staff well-being. Provide coaching, strategically tailor individual development plans, and complete performance management for direct reports.
- Lead the development of program learning- identify opportunities for learning, research and publications in the area of Agriculture, Livelihoods and Landscapes and implementation of MEAL policy. Facilitate the dissemination of promising practices and lessons learned to contribute to the agency knowledge management agenda. Ensure integration of innovations and best practices
- Provide support to project Program Managers and Senior Project Officers on project risk and compliance.
Qualifications
Basic Qualifications
- Master’s Degree in International Development, Economics, Business, Agricultural or Rural Development or another relevant field.
- Minimum of 10 years’ experience in relevant project management experience, such as work in economic growth, value chain development, or agricultural development programs is required; at least 5 years’ of senior management experience required.
- Proven track record as program manager or technical leader of donor-funded agriculture programming.
- Experience with climate-smart agriculture and crosscutting objectives (e.g., gender, youth).
- Experience with staple crops, such as maize, soybean, groundnut, and cowpea, and high-value export-oriented crops, such as horticulture, shea, and other tree crops a plus.
- Knowledge of market facilitation approach (M4P) is required.
- Knowledgeable and experienced with international development contracting policies and procedures, specifically USAID. Experience working with grantees preferred.
- Experience in systems strengthening for government and non-government stakeholders.
Agency-wide Competencies (for all CRS Staff)
These are rooted in the mission, values, and guiding principles of CRS and used by each staff member to fulfill his or her responsibilities and achieve the desired results.
- Integrity
- Continuous Improvement & Innovation
- Builds Relationships
- Develops Talent
- Strategic Mindset
- Accountability & Stewardship***Our Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations. Catholic Relief Services carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. We welcome as a part of our staff people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need.
Disclaimer: This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.
Note: All positions requiring residence or frequent travel outside their home country must undergo and clear a pre-employment medical examination.
CRS’ talent acquisition procedures reflect our commitment to safeguarding the rights and dignity of all people – especially children and vulnerable adults – to live free from abuse and harm.
CRS welcomes candidates from the countries and regions in which we work. In the event the successful candidate is an expatriate or global telecommuter, the anticipated duration of the assignment is informed by a term limit, based on the type and level of the job and the needs of the agency.
CRS is an Equal Opportunity Employer
About Us
Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. CRS works to save, protect, and transform lives in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS’ relief and development work is accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance and peacebuilding.
About the Team
CRS’ talent acquisition procedures reflect our commitment to safeguarding the rights and dignity of all people – especially children and vulnerable adults – to live free from abuse and harm.
CRS welcomes candidates from the countries and regions in which we work. In the event the successful candidate is an expatriate or global telecommuter, the anticipated duration of the assignment is informed by a term limit, based on the type and level of the job and the needs of the agency.
CRS is an Equal Opportunity Employer
Job Info
- Job Identification 3000967
- Job Category Program Management
- Posting Date 05/09/2024, 10:55 AM
- Locations Plot No. 30/8, Accra, Greater Accra, GH (On-site)
- Apply Before 05/23/2024, 09:00 AM
- Degree Level Master’s Degree
- Job Schedule Full time
- Job Shift Day
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Plot No. 30/8, Accra, Greater Accra, GH