Job Description
Program Description
The USAID Yalwa Activity is a 5-year $29.15 million-dollar project implemented by CNFA in the Tillaberi, Maradi, and Zinder regions of Niger. As a key part of the second phase of USAID’s Regional Resilience in the Sahel Enhanced (RISE) Initiative, Yalwa will strengthen market systems to sustainably improve household incomes and nutritional status. To achieve this goal, Yalwa will implement interventions across the following mutually reinforcing result areas: 1) enhanced performance of commodity market systems; 2) increased utilization of quality inputs and services; and 3) increased local consumption of nutritious, safe food. While predominantly focusing on the cowpea, small ruminants and poultry value chains, interventions will address barriers and constraints to progress across the broader market system, while also integrating market-based strategies to promote consumption of nutritious, safe foods. Taken together, these efforts will improve the resilience of market systems by establishing profitable linkages between producers and buyers, with a particular emphasis on women and youth.
Duties and Responsibilities
The main responsibility of the COP is to provide overall leadership, management, and technical direction of the Activity. Key duties are:
- Provides a unified vision across technical result areas and manages strategic relationships with USAID, RISE II partners, and public and private sector stakeholders;
- Oversees technical, financial, and managerial leadership of staff, sub-awardees, and consultants to ensure cohesive execution of program interventions to achieve impact;
- Ensures gender and youth strategies are meaningfully integrated across all interventions;
- Serves as primary liaison with USAID and CNFA home office, directing staff to identify and resolve issues and adjust programming to reflect USAID’s technical direction;
- Ensures timely submission of reports to USAID, strengthening program staff capacity in gender, market systems, finance, grants, procurement, management, and reporting;
- Ensure that program’s technical approach, methodologies and activities are technically sound, feasible and relevant to the success of the program;
- Supervise relevant senior staff in accordance with organizational chart;
- Ensure effective monitoring of field, as well as field operations, and oversee the implementation of program activities;
- Provide technical direction and oversee the technical performance of local sub-awardees and support productive business partnerships;
- Plan/facilitate workshops to develop/review quarterly and annual work plans/milestones in collaboration with the Activity team and sub-awardees to ensure efficient implementation of programmatic activities towards achieving quarterly, annual and LOP indicator targets, as well as meaningful participation and positive impacts for women and youth;
- Oversee the development and monitoring the budget of the activities implemented by the program team;
- Develop and maintain a cohesive, effective and integrated technical team;
- Oversee the drafting of terms of reference (TOR) or scopes of work (SOW) for needed local consultancy services;
- Facilitate a culture of learning and adaptive management to proactively respond to crises, opportunities, and new needs of USAID and other stakeholders;
- Oversee monitoring and reporting by field teams to capture impact and adapt activities based on learning and preparation of annual work plans, progress reports, and budgets.
Qualifications
- At least eight years of experience in senior management of development programs of similar or greater scope and complexity (USAID experience strongly preferred);
- Professional experience working in the Sahel required;
- A minimum of a Master’s degree in a relevant subject or a Bachelors degree with an additional four years (making 12 years) of relevant technical work experience;
- Demonstrated leadership, strategic thinking/planning, management, and presentation skills;
- Strong interpersonal and supervision skills managing multicultural and high-performing teams;
- Proven ability to establish close, trusting relationships with donors, Implementing Partners, host government officials, and other stakeholders;
- Significant relevant technical experience, preferably in comparable settings;
- Written and oral French and English language competency, equivalent to tested FSI R4/S4
About the Organization
About CNFA:
CNFA is a not-for-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., dedicated to stimulating economic growth in the agricultural sector by nurturing entrepreneurship, private enterprise and market linkages. CNFA specializes in fostering private sector investments in training, new technologies and marketing as a means to increase the overall competitiveness of agricultural value chains, to expand exports, and to develop skills in the rural workforce. CNFA assists smallholders in increasing household-level food security and nutrition through improved agricultural practices, introduction of new varieties, diversification of crop production, food preservation and storage, development of farmer-based organizations (FBOs) and strengthened linkages to markets.
