Closing date: 29 September2017, 24:00 hr
Report to: Programme Manager and State Minister, BENEFIT-ISSD Ethiopia and Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources (MoANR) respectively
The position
With the position of Senior Seed Sector Expert, you will be supervised by the BENEFIT-ISSD Ethiopia Programme Manager and State Minister of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources (MoANR). BENEFIT-ISSD Ethiopia is an abbreviation for the Bilateral Ethiopia Netherlands Effort for Food, Income and Trade (BENEFIT) partnership, Integrated Seed Sector Development in Ethiopia (ISSD Ethiopia) programme. BENEFIT-ISSD Ethiopia has been facilitating a number of innovations in the Ethiopian seed sector and implementing activities in the four regional states of Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR and Tigray since 2012, and even earlier in what were called the Local Seed Business (LSB) project and Partnerships for Innovation project. To this end, the programme has been supporting seed producers (farmers, informal groups, seed producer cooperatives, public and private companies); strengthening seed value chains; facilitating an enabling policy environment in collaboration with MoANR, the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) and others; and building the capacities of professionals in the seed sector.
Some of the programme’s innovations (e.g. direct seed marketing, regional seed regulatory entities and joint planning for early generation seed production) are being institutionalized at regional and federal level, with the intention to still have many more innovations embedded in national regulatory frameworks. Need has been created to deploy a Senior Seed Sector Expert, who would contribute to strengthening the development of vibrant seed sector in Ethiopia by facilitating seed sector multi-stakeholder innovation processes. As an interested candidate for this position, this job advertisement explains the key responsibilities and duties of this role.
Key Responsibilities:
BENEFIT-ISSD aims to improve access to quality seed
The goal of BENEFIT-ISSD Ethiopia is to improve female and male smallholder farmers’ access to and use of quality seed of new, improved and/or farmer preferred varieties to sustainably increase agricultural productivity. The programme builds upon eight years of experiences in supporting the development of a vibrant, pluralistic and market oriented seed sector in Ethiopia. In this, its current phase starting January 1st, 2016 and ending December 31st 2019, BENEFIT-ISSD Ethiopia strengthens seed producers in three different seed systems (informal, intermediary and formal); enhances the performance of seed value chains within these seed systems; and contributes to an improved enabling environment for the seed sector. In addition, the programme strengthens professional capacities for implementing the ISSD approach.
ISSD Ethiopia is implemented in four regions of Ethiopia through multiple partnerships
BENEFIT-ISSD Ethiopia is one of the partners of BENEFIT. BENEFIT stands for Bilateral Ethiopia Netherlands Effort for Food, Income and Trade. It is a partnership among four programmes in the country and with the Ethiopian agricultural sector itself, funded by the Dutch Government. BENEFIT-ISSD is implemented by five regional units
hosted at four universities (Bahir Dar, Haramaya, Hawassa and Mekelle) and Oromia Seed Enterprise in four regions of the country, supported by a programme management unit and BENEFIT Partnership Coordination Unit (PCU), both located in Addis Ababa, and by Wageningen University & Research, the Netherlands.
A diplomatic and well-organized senior seed sector expert with mediation, facilitation and project management skills (at senior level) and a demonstrated interest in innovation processes, multi-stakeholder partnerships and the Ethiopia seed sector. The candidate should have excellent inter-personal communication skills; be systematic; a team player; collaborative; accommodating; supportive; reasonable; constructive; and be hardworking.
The Senior Seed Sector Expert should have knowledge, experiences, and skills in:
To perform the function optimally, you should be able to:
Applicants must satisfy all of the following minimum requirements:
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