Job Title: Lead Primary Production & Processing EYE-C-Program
Organisation: aBi Development
Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda
About Organisation:
aBi Development Ltd focuses on increasing agricultural production & value addition by extending matching grants & Business Development Services (BDS) to agribusinesses, farmer organisations & intermediaries to enhance planning & management, production & business infrastructure, as well as upstream & downstream market linkages of producers & agribusinesses.
Job Summary: The Lead Primary Production & Processing will provide strategic and technical leadership for youth-based initiatives under the Empowering Young Women Entrepreneurs in Agriculture Stimulated by Coffee (EYE-C) program. The role focuses on enhancing productivity, efficiency, and sustainability in Uganda’s coffee and complementary value chains by promoting adoption of climate-smart practices, modern agronomic practises and technologies, efficient post-harvest handling, and inclusive value chain participation. The Lead will champion business model development at farm and primary processing levels to unlock economic value and scale youth-led agri-enterprises. The ideal candidate is an expert in coffee agronomy, processing, and business-oriented value chain transformation.
Program Technical Head
Regional Officers -Production and processing
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
- Lead the Development of Inclusive, Investable Strategies for Production and Processing
- Design and align high-impact, scalable strategies that create dignified work for young
- Contribute to the development and implementation of EYE-C’s strategic and operational plans.
- Participate in generating a systematic stakeholder analysis for improving the production and processing stages of the coffee sector and complementary value chains.
- Undertake assessments for in-depth understanding of the production and processing ecosystems the program is targeting.
- A portfolio of viable production and processing interventions established.
- Stakeholder co-creation meetings conducted with documented impact on program design. Partnership engagement frameworks implemented.
- women across Uganda’s coffee and complementary value chains.
- Participate in and liaise with technical teams to guide project selection for maximum impact.
- Seek strategic partnerships; build and coordinate relationships with actors in production and processing.
- Audit findings indicate compliance with risk mitigating policies/procedures / actions around project management.
- Enhance Productivity Through Climate-Smart Agriculture and Good Agronomic Practices
- Promote sustainable agricultural practices that increase yields, build resilience to climate shocks, and reduce environmental degradation.
- Lead the design, implementation, and improvement of sustainable and inclusive production and agro-processing models.
- Support development of interventions that increase yield of coffee and complementary value enterprises.
- Participate in program design to promote climate-smart agronomic practices and high-quality processing.
- Provide technical backstopping during project implementation to foster continuous improvement and realization of program objectives.
- Farms reporting increased yields above baseline within the implementation period. Adoption of Climate Smart Agriculture practises and general good agronomic technologies.
- Increase in quality produce as per market acceptance level.
- Expand Access to Efficient and Youth-Owned Primary Processing Infrastructure
- Facilitate the establishment of post-harvest systems that preserve quality, reduce losses, and create employment in rural communities.
- Oversee setup and technical support to low-cost agro-processing technologies including; drying, pulping, grading, and storage facilities.
- Build skills among young women for quality control, food safety, and certification compliance.
- Develop models for shared infrastructure or community-owned processing facilities.
- Increase in Grade A/B coffee processed by young women-led groups.
- Number of community processing units fully operational and financially viable.
- Reduction in physical and quality loss
- Support the implementation of inclusive skills development initiatives and safeguard mechanisms that promote equity, agency, and protection for women, youth, and other vulnerable groups across the production and processing nodes of the target value chains.
- Participate in the design and implementation of skills development trainings ensuring that they are well aligned with young women initiatives transitioning into decent and meaningful work
- Ensure that Gender safeguarding protocols are implemented and monitored during the Skilling process.
- Leverage partnerships with implementing partners and other actors and align training with real job opportunities, internships, or apprenticeships for female youth aged 18 -35 years
- Linkages made for Internships and or placements for participants to have hands-on training and or employment.
- Proven demand for the skills imparted in programme participants.
- Findings indicate compliance with gender and safeguarding protocols/procedures / actions during the project management.
- Access to Finance &; Resource Mobilization
- Lead initiatives that expand access to appropriate financial services and mobilize resources to scale primary production and processing interventions.
- Liaise with Financial Inclusion partner/s (i.e. Fund managers, Financial Institutions, to ensure programme participants access credit/finance in a timely manner.
- Work with the financial inclusion partner to review/refine blended finance products that include grant, equity and debt for scaling up female youth owned/led enterprises
- Female youths access financing.
- Digital tools enhance performance of female youth led agri businesses.
- Coordinate and ensure that digital and financial literacy are integrated in the trainings for the program participants.
- Farmer Services & Women Cooperatives
- Lead the design and delivery of integrated farmer services and the strengthening of young
- Support mobilisation and increase in cooperative membership and retention with special focus on young women.
- Ensure that farmer-centric services are delivered to especially women cooperatives with focus on young female women.
- Farmer services are delivered on time and to standard; or else corrective action is taken Project reviews ensure that projects are on track, meet objectives, and continuously improve.
- women-led MSMEs and female member-based cooperatives to enhance productivity, inclusivity, and resilience across the target value chains.
- Liaise with the Business Advisory Service Manager and Capacity building service providers to identify gaps and design strategies to strengthen capacity of young women MSMEs and Cooperatives to improve operational efficiency and realize full potential.
- Demonstrated improved capacity, governance and operational efficiency of women cooperatives and enterprises.
- Promote Digital Tools, Traceability, and Learning for Continuous Improvement
- Scale the use of digital platforms and traceability systems to increase market access, improve decision-making, and ensure global compliance.
- Promote use of traceability systems and real-time digital platforms to support transparency and certification.
- Collaborate with platform providers to integrate monitoring and compliance systems.
- Support capacity building for cooperatives and MSMEs in using digital tools for e-extension, payments, and record-keeping.
- Participate in MEL efforts to document best practices, innovations, and learning insights.
- At least 80% of supported producers onboarded to traceability platforms.
- Digital tools actively used for production tracking, payment, and decision-making. Number of learning documents or case studies published annually to inform scale- up.
- Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning and Knowledge management.
- Participate in monitoring, evaluation, and learning activities, ensuring that
- attainment of project targets is
- Contribute to the development of M & E tools to track youth engagement and project outcomes.
- Carry out periodic monitoring and evaluation of female youth owned/led enterprises and bring to the attention of management any issues that may hinder project success for remedial timely intervention.
- Track progress through pre- and post-assessments, follow-ups, and feedback.
- Timely M&E reports on female youth participation and innovative production and primary processing models Annual sharing of lessons learnt Learning sessions conducted with partners to share knowledge and experience
- on track and learning is fully utilised to maximise impact.
- The lead will play a key role in designing, implementing, and refining systems that track progress, measure impact, and inform strategic decisions.
- Document best practices and success stories and prepare learning and periodic reporting to external and internal stakeholders. Adjust programs based on evidence of what works.
- Documentation of best practices, success stories and lessons learnt to guide program improvement.
- And any other duties as requested by the Program Technical Head
Qualifications, Skills and Experience:
- Master’s Degree preferably in Agriculture or a discipline directly or closely related to the following fields of Agronomy, Agricultural Economics, Agriculture,, Gender.
- Experience
- 7+ years of relevant thematic experience.
- Strong understanding of rural development, youth engagement, and private sector dynamics.
- Ability to think strategically and systemically; familiarity with market development approaches
How to Apply:
Please send your applications to [email protected] indicating the Position Title in the email subject line. All documents should be combined into a single PDF file, with the total size not exceeding 5MBs.
Deadline: 19th September 2025
NB: Please note that only successful candidates will be contacted. Canvassing will lead to disqualification.
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Level of Education: Postgraduate Degree
Work Hours: 8
Experience in Months: 84