Senior Program Manager, Digital Agricultural Advisory Services (DAAS)

Job Description

Devex is currently assisting Digital Green in their search for a Senior Program Manager. This role is remote, based out of the United States of America and will report to the Director of Strategy, based in San Francisco, California.

Job Summary

The Senior Manager, Digital Agricultural Advisory Services (DAAS) role is a critical part of a signature program in the midst of a period of growth at Digital Green. The primary function will be to provide headquarters program management support, partnership coordination, and thought leadership for the DAAS program.

The DAAS project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is led by Digital Green in partnership with Precision Agriculture for Development (PAD) and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and driven by the interests and priorities of the Ethiopian government. It aims to help farmers adopt relevant customized advisories delivered via digital channels while strengthening extension systems using a combination of technology solutions and capacity building, systems change, and partnership. DAAS will enable the development of FarmStack, a data transfer protocol to enable connections between disparate systems, and help test and scale FarmStack’s use cases across multiple agricultural value chains in Ethiopia. The DAAS project is a five-year project (September 2019-2024) and is currently in its second year of operation.

Roles and responsibilities

DAAS donor management

• In partnership with the Ethiopia Country Director, manage the relationship with donors for the DAAS project.
• In partnership with the DAAS Product Director, manage and lead donor communications including the management of monthly update calls to provide status updates with input from the Ethiopia DAAS team, technology & product teams, consortium partners and other functions like MEL, Communications & Gender

DAAS partnership management

• Liaise with consortium members & sub-awardees at headquarters level. Organize regular calls and other communications with key partners as needed
  Provide timely support and guidance to the consortium members and ensure that they are meeting the overall strategic objectives for the DAAS project

DAAS project & budget management

• Ensure proper programmatic execution of DAAS, ensuring program deliverables are on track, and activities align with strategy and learning agenda on an ongoing basis
• Manage the overall project budget to track expenses, make projections, ensure cost-efficiency, and ensure achievement of financial deliverables such as cost-share
• Oversee personnel allocation to the project, regularly reviewing timesheet reports to support level of effort tracking and personnel planning.
• Work with DAAS product director to coordinate activities & internal meetings across technology, product, programs and strategy teams within Digital Green. Attend Ethiopia taskforce meetings to support use case/ activity prioritization based on standardized and consistent processes/ frameworks (e.g., developed in partnership with design firms like iDEO)
• Work closely with Ethiopia Program Director who manages components of the DAAS project; and overall field implementation and budgets for programs in Ethiopia
• Drive the communications and advocacy strategy for DAAS in partnership with Digital Green’s communications team to ensure that project results are effectively communicated. Support to include: copy editing and formatting external and internal communications documents, and regular content sharing on the DAAS website.
• In partnership with the Head of Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning (MEL) in Ethiopia, oversee the MEL plan, including designing, tracking and updating indicators and following through with donor approvals and engagement with third party impact evaluator for DAAS
• Lead completion of annual reports, and any other donor reports
• Proactively identify issues and risks related to program implementation and suggest relevant course corrections; Provide regular updates to the
• Ethiopian Leadership Group on the progress of the ramp-up and proactively seek support in managing potential issues that arise

DAAS Administrative support

• Coordinate all procurements of goods and services out of the US for the DAAS project, which includes collecting quotes, preparing procurement documentation, inputting into ERP, drafting contracts, and reviewing invoices for payment
• Coordinate with the Senior Grants Manager on administrative execution of all requirements for sub-award management, including ensuring sub-recipient selection and engagement steps are completed and saved in Box prior to engaging a sub, drafting contracts, coordinating invoices for payment, and supporting on-going monitoring efforts.
• Manage data for the project, ensuring all key information and project documentation is stored appropriately in Box, and provide relevant orientation to project staff on Box (as needed).

Strategic support & thought leadership

• Ensure that DAAS project objectives aligns with Digital Green’s organizational strategy while contributing to organizational enablers such as MEL and gender
• In partnership with the Country Director and Director of Strategy, provide strategic vision & thought leadership to support FarmStack & its growth
• Support the product and tech teams track relevant developments in the Agtech/ Ag data sector, support the development and refinement of business model hypotheses for FarmStack; & cultivate new partners/users for FarmStack, including private sector & agribusiness actors
  

Skills and Experience

• Master’s degree in international development, agriculture, rural development, business, ICT for development or agriculture, or relevant field of study preferable
• A minimum of 10 years of progressively responsible work experience;
• Project management for large multi-year development projects; Experience managing Agtech projects with an East Africa/ Ethiopia focus preferable
• Experience in overseeing program monitoring and evaluation, project reporting and communication efforts; understanding of BMGF reporting requirements preferable
• Experience working in matrixed organizations with multiple dotted line relationships requiring the ability to exert informal influence across multiple teams (tech, product, comms, MEL etc)
• Experience with cross-sectoral partnerships (especially across technology teams and government partners) working across multiple time zones and with people from diverse cultures
• Experience in budgeting and financial management of large scale projects
  

To be successful as a member of the Digital Green team, you will also:

• Have a passion for our mission and a strong desire to impact an up-and-coming non-profit organization.
• Be an innovative and creative thinker – you are not afraid to try something new and inspire others to do so.
• Have a very high level of personal and professional integrity and trustworthiness.
• Have a strong work ethic, take initiative, and require minimal direction.
• Work well independently as well as part of a team.
• Possess a service-oriented approach towards supporting the team.
• Thrive in a fast-paced and fun environment.

About the Organization

About Digital Green

Digital Green is a global development organization that empowers smallholder farmers to lift themselves out of poverty by harnessing the collective power of technology and grassroots-level partnerships. We join forces with governments, private agencies and, most importantly, rural communities themselves to co-create digital solutions that are of the community and for the community. When farmers have the tools they need to connect with one another, they’re far more likely to apply what they’ve learned on their farms and in their households–improving their own livelihoods and those of others in their community, in a manner that’s nutrition-sensitive, climate-resilient, and inclusive. So far, Digital Green has reached 2.5 million rural community members across over 8,000 villages in India, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Ghana, Niger and Tanzania. Collaborating with over 20 partners, Digital Green has helped facilitate the production and dissemination of over 7,000 localized videos in 50 languages. In addition to this, through our online training courseware, we have trained 17,000 frontline workers, 7,000 of whom have been trained through mobile applications. Digital Green operates from offices in San Francisco, New Delhi, Addis Ababa and Washington, DC. Digital Green is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in the US. For more information, please visit Digital Green’s website: www.digitalgreen.org.Digital Green is entering an exciting phase of development as it expands its activities to additional countries in Asia and Africa. As part of this expansion, Digital Green is building a small team of exceptional individuals with a passion for finding solutions to pressing development problems, a curiosity about complex issues facing the world’s poor, and a drive to tell our story. This is an exciting opportunity to join Digital Green’s new and growing team, supporting our ongoing programs, country expansion and start-up operations.