Business Development Officer – Coffee & CSOs EU Project Jobs – Farm Africa

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Organization: Farm Africa
Funding Source:
European Union (EU)
Duty Station: Kanungu, Uganda
Reports to: Country Director
About US:
Farm Africa is an international non-governmental
organization working to end hunger and bring prosperity to rural Africa. We
work to increase the incomes and improve food security of smallholder farmers,
pastoralists, agro-pastoralists, and forest dwellers in East Africa. A core
part of our strategy is to ensure that our interventions are both economically
sustainable and scalable. The systematic integration of market linkages in
implementing programmes is crucial to our ability to scale our interventions
cost-effectively. Farm Africa has the ambition to be the leading European NGO
specialising in Agriculture, Natural Resource Management and Market Engagement.
About EU Project:
Farm Africa has the ambition to be the leading European NGO
specialising in Agriculture,
Natural Resource Management and Market Engagement. It has
recently been awarded a grant by the European Union for a €615,000, three-year
project supporting young coffee farmers in Western Uganda’s Kanungu
district.  The project focuses on building
the capacity of Civil Society Organisations (CSO) to create employment and
self-employment opportunities within the coffee value chain for 4,800 young
women and men Kanungu district. A broad range of CSOs will be engaged in the
project ranging from coffee growers cooperatives to national stakeholder
platforms representing both young farmers and coffee farmers.
Key project activities will include capacity building of
four Coffee Grower Cooperatives (CGC) – in particular growing their membership
of young women and men, delivering extension services using smartphones and
promoting sustainable production methodologies to their members. At the same
time the project will support the establishment of washing and processing
facilities as well as specialist trainings to enable CGCs and their members to
increase the quality and quantity of coffee produced, and ultimately enter
export and premium markets.
Job Summary:  The Business Development Officer – Coffee
& CSOs is responsible for building the business and commercial capacity of
coffee growers’ cooperatives, input SMEs, and coffee farmers’ groups. The BDO
will also be responsible for capacity building and mentoring of the wider field
team on market-based approaches to development and business development, as
well as ensuring best practices in these areas are integrated into all field
activities. In addition, the BDO will contribute to Monitoring, Evaluation
& Learning (MEL) activities, particularly with regards to developing and
disseminating record keeping tools for the different stakeholders engaged in
business-focused activities. The post-holder will be based in Farm Africa’s
Kanungu office, and will be reporting in to the Project Coordinator – Coffee
& CSOs.
Key Duties and Responsibilities: 
Delivery of markets and business-focused activities in line with the
Coffee and CSOs project implementation plan:
  • Ensure that business
    development-related project activities are implemented and outputs
    achieved as planned and within the agreed budget including:
  • Assess and analyse
    existing businesses (SMEs) supporting the sustainable coffee production
    and provide business training – supporting them to build their customer
    base including access finance to grow their businesses
  • Support district
    committees and associations in growing their member base, improving their
    governance and developing income generating activities to enable them to
    cover regular operational costs
  • Participate in the
    assessments of the cooperatives organizational capacities
  • Provide business
    development and access to finance training and continuous support to the
    cooperatives using FA standard packages
  • Provide mentoring and ad
    hoc support to the extension workers of the cooperatives on business
    development and access to finance
  • Ensure that Farm Africa
    Approaches to business development, access to finance and trade
    facilitation are used to guide high-quality delivery
  • Ensure that business
    development and markets focused activities are aligned with, and mutually
    supportive of other interventions in the same areas
  • Work with the Project
    Coordinator (PC) and the Project Accountant and Administrator (PA&A)
    to ensure all activities are planned and conducted according to the
    organization and the donor financial and procurement requirements and
    procedures.
  • Work with TWIN
    (implementing partner) to ensure collaboration between delivery of all
    business development activities, market linkages and supporting
    cooperatives and farmers to achieve market requirements, including
    certification standards
Support project management and coordination
  • Support the PC &
    PA&A with activity planning and budgeting as requested
  • Keep abreast of business
    development activities being implemented by other partners operating in a
    similar intervention area and sharing this information with the PC and
    wider team as appropriate
  • Proactively identify and
    monitor any risks to non-delivery and, where required, develop and
    implement action plans to address issues identified
  • Support the PC to identify
    and analyze the causes of spend variances to the budget and make
    recommendations on actions to be taken as required
Monitoring, evaluation and reporting
  • Contribute to internal and
    external reporting, with a particular focus on collecting and collating
    information from the supported Coffee Growers’ Cooperatives and SMEs in
    line with set targets or standards    .
  • Regularly report on
    implementation learnings, and make recommendations on areas for
    improvement or changes in delivery strategy to the PC
  • Contribute to the
    development and implementation of the Monitoring, Evaluation &
    Learning Plan (MLP) – and in particular support with developing data
    collection tools that will gather relevant business data from the
    cooperatives, SMEs and farmers’ groups engaged in the project
  • Contribute to quarterly
    internal progress reviews and annual project performance reviews and
    workshops
  • Collect information for
    stories, case studies and lessons learnt on market linkages and business
    development
Play a key role in delivering the wider objectives of both the Coffee
and CSOs project, and Farm Africa’s work in Uganda.
  • Participate in project
    team meetings as requested by the Project Coordinator.
  • Support the wider project
    delivery team to integrate market approaches within work plans and
    stakeholder engagements
  • Work in close
    collaboration with TWIN in ensuring that knowledge, learnings and tools
    are shared
  • Maintain regular and
    effective communications with the wider project team, Uganda Country
    Office and implementing partners
  • In consultation with the
    PC, act as an ambassador, promoting the project and the work of Farm Africa,
    including hosting visitors, speaking at workshops, conferences and meeting
    donors and other officials as and when required
  • Contribute to the
    development of relevant Farm Africa policies and strategies

Qualifications, Skills and Experience: 
  • The ideal candidate for
    the Farm Africa Business Development Officer – Coffee & CSOs job
    placement must hold a Degree or equivalent in in a relevant field, such as
    agricultural economics, rural development, business or economics
  • Broad knowledge and understanding
    of market-based approaches to development and particularly approaches
    which encourage greater participation of women and youth
  • At least two years’
    experience working for an INGO or agri-business
  • Experience of supporting
    the growth of businesses within the agriculture sectors
  • Experience of capacity
    building CSOs, cooperatives and/or small or micro enterprises
  • Experience of planning and
    delivering project activities and reporting on their impact
  • Experience of designing or
    delivering interventions that specifically encourage or maximise the
    participation of youth
  • Experience of supporting
    producer organisations to formalise the operations and access finance
  • Experience of supporting
    smallholder farmers to enter formal markets
  • Desirable
  • Experience conducting
    organisational capacity assessments
  • Experience of working in
    coffee value chain
  • Experience of conducting
    market assessments
  • Experience in designing
    and conducting business development trainings for micro-enterprises or
    SMEs
  • Experience of developing
    record keeping tools for micro/small enterprises
  • Experience of delivering
    activities focusing on the economic empowerment of rural women
  • Ability to build strong
    relationships with stakeholders and communities based on trust and
    collaboration
  • Ability to communicate and
    share knowledge with a broad range of stakeholders with differing
    backgrounds and abilities.
  • Problem identification,
    analysis and solving of complex issues
  • Fluent written and spoken
    English
  • Ability and willingness to
    travel widely and frequently both within and outside Kanungu district
  • Confident user of Word,
    Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint
  • Willingness to ride a
    motorcycle in the field, with a valid riding permit (Class A)
  • Fluency in Runyankore /
    Rukiga
Desirable
  • Further relevant academic
    qualification in the area of agricultural economics, rural development,
    business or economics
  • Knowledge and
    understanding of the coffee value chain in Uganda
  • Working knowledge of
    sustainable consumption & production (SCP) principles
  • Multi stakeholder
    facilitation skills
  • Ability to influence
    others in order to drive change
How to Apply:
All suitably qualified and interested candidates should send
an updated CV, salary history, and a two-page supporting statement detailing
how you meet the person specification to ugandarecruitment@farmafrica.org
including “Business Development Officer C&C” in the subject line.
NB: Please DO NOT send additional documents such as
certificates and references with your application. Shortlisted candidates ONLY
will be required to provide these documents during the interview process.
 Interviews are expected to take place w/c 23rd July 2018 at
Farm Africa’s country office in Kampala. Only shortlisted candidates will be
contacted.
Deadline: 11th July 2018 by 5.00pm EAT
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