Vacancy Announcement
ETHIOPIAN AGRICULTURAL TRANSFORMATION AGENCY
Position: Senior Technical Expert I - Research, Extension and Farmer Engagement, RDU
Term of Employment: One year with possibility of extension
Duty Station(s): Regional Bureau of Agriculture (Amhara, Oromia, SNNP and Tigray)
Required Number: Four
Salary & Benefits: Competitive
Application Deadline: February 21, 2020
BACKGROUND:
The Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) is a strategy and delivery-oriented government agency created to help accelerate the growth and transformation of the country’s agriculture sector. The ATA envisions that, by 2025, smallholder farmers are commercialized with greater incomes, inclusiveness, resilience and sustainability, contributing to Ethiopia’s achievement of middle-income country status.
The agency focuses on two primary national approaches to catalyze agricultural transformation. First, we support the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), its affiliate institutions, and other partners to identify and address systemic bottlenecks within an Agricultural Transformation Agenda. Second, we support Regional Governments to accelerate development of high-priority commodity value chains in clearly defined geographic clusters, through the Agricultural Commercialization Clusters (ACC) Initiative.
ATA is currently in the process of launching a Delivery Unit in the Regional Bureaus of Agriculture to directly support them on their work on the Agriculture Commercialization Cluster (ACC) and the Transformation Agenda Deliverables (TAD). Delivery Units have played a critical role in accelerating execution of development initiatives in many countries, particularly in Africa, East and Southeast Asia, including Ethiopia. ATA has helped the set-up a Delivery Unit at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture. The Delivery Unit will be jointly overseen by the Regional BoA and ATA senior management.
Our Culture
We have an exceptional team of highly competent employees with a proven track record of success in managing complex activities and achieving transformational results. Our culture is one where talented, dedicated and adaptable individuals are committed to doing their best and exhibit great team work to achieve excellent results.
At ATA, we provide an exceptional platform for people who want to achieve their highest potential and make a meaningful contribution in changing the country’s agricultural sector. We offer rewarding work in a young, fast-paced growing organization with passionate, committed, motivated colleagues and excellent career development and training. We recognize our most valuable assets are our staff and are committed to providing our employees with the tools, training and mentorships necessary to achieve their career goals.
POSITION SUMMARY:
The Senior Technical Expert (STE) will work closely with the Deputy Heads, the core team, and other colleagues at the Regional BoA and Affiliate institutions to provide technical support to the owners / implementers for interventions under Component 1 - ‘Research, Extension and Farmer Engagement’. (detailed below)
Component 1: Strengthen Research, Extension and Farmer Engagement
This component addresses major bottlenecks in the research and extension system as well as farmer outreach. Research centers are under-resourced in terms of skill, equipment, and finance, which makes it challenging for them to research and introduce new and improved technologies, farming techniques, and inputs. In addition, partly due to weak linkages between the research and extension systems, farmers often fail to use the best agronomic practices even when they can afford to do so. The core objectives of this component are to strengthen the institutional capacity of research centers, introduce new technologies and approaches, develop new strategies and plans, enhance current extension packages, enhance the capacity of extension agents, undertake full package demonstrations, and equip farmers with agronomic and agro-meteorological information.
The STE must have strong interpersonal and stakeholder management skills, technical expertise and problem-solving experience, as well as initiative design, planning, implementation management and reporting experience. The STE will report directly to the Delivery Unit Head, and have a second, functional reporting line to the responsible Deputy Head(s) of the Regional BoA. This position provides an opportunity to be on the front lines of Ethiopia’s growth and transformation into a middle-income country. The Delivery Unit is part of the respective Regional ATA Office vertical and will be embedded in the Regional Bureau of Agriculture.
The successful candidate for this role will have the technical expertise to effectively drive the interventions within the component, strong analytical and critical thinking skills, experience influencing others in large organizations to simplify, focus and have urgency, and a passion for both results and capacity building. We are applying private sector style rigor to major social issues that can transform Ethiopian society.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES: