Vacancy Announcement
ETHIOPIAN AGRICULTURAL TRANSFORMATION AGENCY
Position: Independent Contractor – Accounting Mentor
Term of Employment: Six months with possible extension
Duty Station(s): Addis Ababa
Required Number: One
Salary & Benefits: Competitive
Application Deadline: December 3, 2017
BACKGROUND:
The Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) has been established by the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) to identify and address systemic bottlenecks to Ethiopia’s agricultural development. The Agency does this through problem-solving, implementation support, and capacity building of stakeholders involved in implementation of interventions that address the systemic bottlenecks. The Agency reports to a Transformation Council chaired by the Prime Minister and whose co-chair is the Minister of Agriculture.
Agriculture oriented enterprises essential to make value chains competitive are largely missing, in particular across the downstream end of the value chain In Ethiopia. A number of challenges have contributed to the absence of sufficient number of agriculture enterprises, chief among them is an under-developed business ecosystem “building blocks” such as access to appropriate and timely financial services, management and sector expertise, support businesses, and under-developed downstream processing/manufacturing capabilities. There is thus a need for targeted support to spur the growth of agriculture oriented enterprises that can address this gap.
In many other countries, well-designed and well-financed Agribusiness Accelerators have shown the ability to fill such gaps through comprehensive business development services and funding for start-ups and growth agro-enterprises. The Ethiopian Agribusiness Acceleration Platform (EAAP) project will test and validate the accelerator concept for Ethiopia. The EAAP, in its initial years, will have both value chain focus as well as product and service offerings to demonstrate its impact. It will anchor its activities around identification and operational capacity building of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for investment readiness and scale up, and provision of matching seed grants to the most promising SMEs. The value chain focus for testing the accelerator model will be on Honey and beeswax given its agro-ecological strengths, strong existing demand sinks, high degree of investment attractiveness, strong government support, and other parallel investments that create opportunities for significant leverage.
The EAAP aims to support the transformation of businesses in the honey and beeswax space, and by extension the ecosystem within which they operate, through facilitating access to four Core Services: Finance, Markets, Expertise and Talent across three program tracks: Acceleration, Incubation and Ecosystem. The Acceleration track focuses on scaling relatively mature enterprises using a customized, high-touch approach, including the use of Advisory Board and mentor groups across private and public sectors, with expertise in areas such as finance, markets, business strategy and the apiculture industry.
POSITION SUMMARY:
The EAAP project has admitted a local private enterprise as one of the participants in the Acceleration Track. Access to finance, as one of the targeted core four services of the project, is a critical component to catalyze growth of agribusinesses engaged in honey and wax processing. The project believes that an accounting mentor with deep understanding of the financial situations and needs of the enterprise, and who can suggest and facilitate financing solutions through connecting with financial institutions and/or other innovative means of financing will be of immense value to the enterprise.
As such the project is looking for an individual with significant experience in preparing and appraising financial statements and hands-on-experience in cost accounting techniques acceptable at national and international levels. The Accounting mentor in close consultation with the Management team of the enterprise and EAAP project team is generally expected to provide accounting and mentorship services based on the country’s and internationally accepted accounting principles and practices.
This position will officially report to the Project Manager of the Ethiopian Agribusiness Acceleration Platform. Working days are flexible based on deliverables.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS