Farm Service Center Manager-FAS

Job Description

Background and Purpose

The Food Security and Agribusiness Support (FAS) program is a USAID and Feed the Future-funded program implemented by CNFA in Egypt. The goal of FAS is to increase agriculture-related incomes of smallholder horticulture farmers in Upper Egypt. The program will achieve this goal by implementing a market driven, Lead Firm, approach that facilitates sustainable, pro-poor value chain development and helps smallholders increase access to high value domestic and export markets. The market-driven approach will be supported by four interrelated components: 1) improved on-farm production, 2) more efficient post-harvest processes, 3) improved marketing of agriculture crops and products, and 4) improved nutritional status, especially for women and children.

FAS delivers the Farm Service Center model by providing in-kind grants and business capacity building for input supply businesses to expand their offered products and services to enable them to become full-service FSCs. The objective of this component is to: 1. enable greater access for smallholder farmers to an affordable and wide range of inputs and commercial extension, mechanization, and testing services; and 2. increase input supply business capacities to ensure a robust and competitive market for input supplies and extension services in Upper Egypt. CNFA’s use of the FSC model in Egypt and other countries has shown that FSCs can have significant positive impact on the smallholders they work with, creating new jobs and increasing the use of effective inputs and good agricultural practices, including the use of new technologies.

Position Description

The Farm Service Center (FSC) Manager will manage the FSC support activities. This includes FSC grantee selection, FSC grant management, grant monitoring and evaluation, capacity building oversight, monitoring procurement, and integration of gender considerations.

This position will be full-time, based in Cairo or Luxor, Egypt, with frequent travel to Upper Egypt governorates.

Tasks

• Develop coherent FSC vision supported by FSC component annual work plan;
• Contribute to FAS project annual work planning and participate in project planning meetings;
• Responsible for management of FSC component team and supervision of FSC component staff;
• Extend training and coaching to all FSC component team members as useful or necessary;
• Oversee FSC rapid assessment processes to identify market and input supply business capacity gaps at the industry and firm levels;
• Coordinate work planning and implementation closely with other component leads and other project functions to ensure smooth and coherent project delivery;
• Ensure compliance of all activities with donor, CNFA and host country laws, rules and regulations;
• Contribute to all project reporting for internal, donor and other external audiences.

Technical delivery

• Coordinate linkages between newly established FSCs and producer organizations/smallholder farmers to strengthen mutually beneficial business relationships
• Collaborate with Gender Specialist to integrate gender-sensitive programming into FSC activities and grants
• Collaborate with FAS Marketing Team Lead on integration of FSC input delivery into piloted consignment contracts

Grants Management

• Oversee the grants program from solicitation to grant implementation and work in conjunction with technical and administrative staff to ensure the grants program is compliant with USG, CNFA, and FAS grants policies and procedures
• Supervise Grants Officer to ensure grants program is compliant and contributes to project objectives
• Maintain audit-ready procurement and grants files in compliance with CNFA and USG regulations and policies
• Monitor grant’ recipients progress towards achieving the expected results.
• Manage grants tracker to track grant disbursements
• Collaborate with procurement team to ensure in-kind equipment procurements are timely and fit within grant budgets
• Become familiar with current FAS FSC grant program and apply lessons learned and best practices to new FSC grants
• Perform other duties as needed

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in agriculture, agriculture economics, or relevant field is required
• Minimum of 15 years’ of relevant international work experience in private sector development institutional capacity building, strategy development, and integration of access to finance and gender considerations into development programming
• Experience managing large grants required, with experience managing USAID grants preferred
• Experience managing teams on market systems, private-sector engagement, input supply, extension, or horticulture development programs preferred
• Experience in horticulture-oriented development programming preferred
• Technical knowledge of agricultural equipment preferred
• Experience managing procurement or facilitating procurement preferred
• Prior USAID or other international donor experience preferred
• Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe applications
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Proven expertise and experience in coaching, training and mentoring of staff and partners
• Oral and written fluency in Arabic and English mandatory

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or protected veteran status. CNFA takes affirmative action in support of its policy to advance in employment individuals who are minorities, women, protected veterans, and individuals with disabilities.

Only those candidates selected for further consideration will be contacted

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.