Vacancy Announcement
ETHIOPIAN AGRICULTURAL TRANSFORMATION AGENCY
Position: Deliver Unit Head, Amhara BoA Delivery Unit
Term of Employment: One year with a possibility of extension
Duty Station(s): Amhara Bureau of Agriculture, Bahir Dar
Required Number: One
Salary & Benefits: Competitive
Application Deadline: January 31, 2021
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 ATA 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 the development of high-priority commodity value chains in clearly defined geographic clusters, through the Agricultural Commercialization Clusters (ACC) Initiative and other programs.
The ATA is currently in the process of launching a Delivery Unit in the Amhara Bureau of Agriculture to directly support their work on the implementation of prioritized initiatives. Delivery Units have played a critical role in accelerating the execution of development initiatives in many countries, particularly in Africa, East and Southeast Asia, including Ethiopia which ATA helped set-up. The Amhara Regional Delivery Unit will be jointly overseen by the Amhara BoA and ATA senior management.
The Delivery Unit will be active in several key areas:
- Support RBoA leadership in identifying a small set of well-defined priorities.
- Facilitate the detailed planning for the prioritized focus areas including the identification of indicators and target setting.
- Lead the roll-out of enhanced planning, project management, and reporting tools, processes, and systems to facilitate adequate tracking and reporting on the progress of prioritized focus areas.
- Embed sufficient follow-up and quality control methods to ensure timeliness and accuracy of priority area reporting by implementation owners.
- Lead proactive identification of key issues in specific activities or overall initiatives and provide analytical and technical problem-solving on these issues.
- Formulate and test recommendations for issues by driving decision-making at senior levels of government.
- Provide timely reporting to the Amhara BoA Head for prioritized focus areas.
- Provide analytical problem-solving support to senior leadership on high priority requests, such as analysis of trends, strategic planning, or policy analysis for areas related to priority focus.
- Strengthen the execution and day-to-day project and activity management capacity of RBoA staff.
- Drive delivery and transformational mindset as opposed to status quo mode of operation.
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 teamwork 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 to 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 Head of the Delivery Unit - seconded to Amhara Regional Bureau of Agriculture, will report to the Head of the Bureau where the DU is placed. The DU Head will work closely with the RBoA leadership and staff to align on strategic priorities, develop detailed priority area plans and targets, put in place regular performance monitoring and management routines, problem-solve for critical issues, and progressively escalate matters that require the senior leaders’ involvement. The DU Head will also be responsible to regularly seek feedback on DU performance, produce monthly performance reports and conduct enhancements to ensure any issues in the implementation of this new model are proactively identified and addressed.
The DU Head’s primary responsibility is to effectively deliver on the agreed strategic priorities through effective day-to-day management of the DU staff & activities and by ensuring commitment on delivery work from internal/external stakeholders. The DU Head will directly manage a team composed of two Delivery Members and work in close collaboration with the Technical Support Unit (TSU) composed of Senior Technical Experts. Further, the head will work closely with other senior leaders in the Amhara Regional Bureau of Agriculture, ATA’s Amhara Regional Office, and get guidance and support from ATA HQ Systemic Interventions Senior Director to ensure effective delivery of defined priority goals.
Candidates for these roles must therefore bring a can-do attitude and enjoy working in a fast-paced organization that is mission- and results-driven. An ideal DU head candidate must have strong leadership, senior stakeholder management, and team management experience and a track record of effectively leading the planning and execution of major programs, projects, or initiatives. They also must demonstrate very strong analytical and critical thinking skills, attention to detail, and excellent written and verbal communication, and program and project management skills. Strong candidates should demonstrate the ability to exercise good judgment in a variety of situations, multitask, and work under pressure and competing priorities.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES
o Ensure DU staff catalyse delivering mindset as opposed to status quo mode of operation.
o Develop clear annual plans, targets, and budgets for the Delivery Unit, ensuring the units time is being spent on the right priorities.
o Ensure the effective engagement of members with initiative owners and other stakeholders.
o Provide coaching and manage the performance of DU staff.
o Lead day-to-day problem-solving activities of the DU team with the priority area implementation owners to identify root causes of issues challenges and develop impactful recommendations.
o Collaborate with RBoA leadership/staff, the TSU, ATA regional and federal project teams and ATA Analytics Team or outside consultants as needed to solve more complex issues.
o Manage Delivery Members, supporting them with work planning and prioritization, clearing roadblocks, and skill-building.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS: