Objective:

J.E. Austin Associates and its consortium is seeking a dynamic and strategic leader for an anticipated USAID activity focused on tourism development in Moldova. The overall goal of this five-year program is to further stimulate the transformation of the Moldovan tourism sector into an engine of economic growth, leading to higher living standards for rural Moldovans in the long term, while concurrently cultivating greater national pride in the Moldovan identity and strengthening social cohesion.

The implementation of the program is expected to yield the following outcomes: (a) an increase in number of annual international visitors to Moldova; (b) increased average spending by international visitors translating into higher foreign exchange earnings; (c) an increase in number of days per visitor with an emphasis on attracting tourists to destinations located outside of the capital; and (d) an increased number of direct and indirect tourism-related jobs; (e) enhanced social cohesion among various ethnic groups in Moldova.

Responsibilities and Tasks:

Based in Chisinau, Moldova, the COP will be responsible for:

• Providing overall vision, direction, leadership, and management of the project, including regular reporting to USAID/Moldova.
• Supervising senior long and short-term advisors
• Overseeing knowledge capture, organization, synthesis, and executing effective strategies for implementing effective work under the program in all rural areas.
• Managing project partners and resources
• Overseeing reporting to USAID technical and contract personnel
• Liaising with USAID Missions (the client) to maintain frequent and open communication

 

Qualifications:

• Advanced degree in relevant field required; Tourism related degree or training is highly preferred
• 10 -15 years of international development experience; COP experience is desired
• Minimum eight (8) years of senior-level experience in leading, designing, implementing tourism related projects
• Deep knowledge of cultural, sustainable and destination tourism development concepts
• Experience managing contracts and agreements with USAID and other donors.
• Experience interacting with host country stakeholders, including governmental, public and private sector actors, and others
• Demonstrated leadership, strong interpersonal, writing and oral presentation skills
• Excellent Communication and English writing skills; Knowledge of Russian and/or Romanian will be plus.

 

Objective:

J.E. Austin Associates and its consortium is seeking a dynamic and strategic leader for an anticipated USAID activity focused on catalyzing systemic change in agricultural market systems.

The Market Systems and Partnerships (MSP) Activity will be one of the flagship projects focused on advancing learning and good practice on market systems development and private sector engagement within USAID (Washington and Missions), USAID partners, and beyond by providing and improving upon the evidence, capacity, tools, technical assistance, and/or services required to design, implement, monitor, and/or evaluate activities that lead to inclusive and resilient agriculture-led economic growth, improved food security and nutrition, and increased incomes for the poor.

The Activity will engage leading private sector players in the industry to support market systems development approaches by developing long-term partnerships with the private sector; conducting research, evaluation, and analytics around market systems; and delivering training to USAID and its partners in new concepts and methods developed. Activities should lead to inclusive and resilient agricultural-led economic growth, improved food security and nutrition, and/or increased incomes for the poor. This program seeks to improve the effectiveness of Feed the Future, USAID, and other USG programs, leading to sustained development outcomes at scale.

 

Responsibilities and Tasks:

Based in Washington, the COP will be responsible for:

• Providing overall vision, direction, leadership, and management of the project, including regular reporting and buy-in management under MSP Activity
• Supervising senior long and short-term advisors
• Overseeing knowledge capture, organization, synthesis, use and adaptation; and executing effective strategies for implementing effective work under core and buy-in activities
• Managing project partners and resources
• Working collaboratively with partners, USAID, and field project managers to oversee/manage buy-ins for the Activity
• Overseeing reporting to USAID technical and contract personnel
• Liaising with Bureau for Food Security (BFS) and Missions (the client) to maintain frequent and open communication
• Overseeing Global Leadership Functions to generate knowledge and collate evidence on cutting-edge market systems development and private sector engagement learning questions as well as developing tactical approaches to the day-to-day front-line work involved in implementing approaches
• Oversee action research in partnership with donor and implementing partner staff; ensuring academic rigor.

 

Qualifications:

• Advanced degree in relevant field required; PhD in a relevant agricultural field preferred
• 10-15 years of international development experience, COP experience is preferred
• Minimum eight (8) years of senior-level experience in leading, designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating, and managing large-scale Feed the Future and/or other agriculture and food security projects, initiatives or Centers
• Deep knowledge of Market Systems approach
• Experience managing contracts and agreements with USAID and other donors.
• Experience interacting with host country stakeholders, including governmental, public and private sector actors, and others
• Demonstrated leadership, strong interpersonal, writing and oral presentation skills
• Excellent Communication and English writing skills

Feed the Future Nigeria Agribusiness Investment Activity

Call for Agribusiness Policy Consultants

Location:    Abuja

Project:       USAID Feed the Future Nigeria Agribusiness Investment Activity

Country:      Nigeria

Job Type:    Short-term (contract)

Period of Performance: TBD

Program Description

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under its strategic partnership with the Federal Republic of Nigeria has awarded a five-year contract to CNFA to implement the Nigeria Agribusiness Activity, from 17^th December, 2018 to 17^th December, 2023. The Nigeria Agribusiness Investment Activity aims to strengthen the enabling environment for agribusiness finance and investment. To achieve this goal, the Activity focuses on four interrelated components: (i) improving the enabling environment for agricultural sector growth; (ii) broadening access to finance by mitigating the credit risks of agribusinesses; (iii) promoting and facilitating investment opportunities for agribusinesses to expand and scale up operations; and (iv) sustainably enhancing the performance of agribusiness micro, small and medium size enterprises (MSMEs). In line with the U.S. and Nigerian governments’ commitment to growing the non-oil-based economy, these efforts will increase the quality, quantity, market access, and diversification of Nigeria’s agribusiness sector. The Activity focuses on five value chains (Maize, Soya, Rice, Cowpea, and Aquaculture) in seven states (Benue, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Kebbi and Niger).

The Component 1 of the Activity is saddled with the responsibility of addressing regulatory burdens faced by agribusinesses – whether producers, aggregators, processors, or other actors in the value chains is constraining their productivity, profitability, and growth. The Activity seeks to implement reforms to improve Nigeria’s agricultural and agribusiness enabling environment at the state and federal levels. The goals include but not limited to making relevant regulations less cumbersome, lowering the cost of compliance; reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers to promote more exports and import substitution; addressing infrastructure; improving the process and security of land ownership; minimizing the time it takes to perform statutory business functions; and limiting the scope for bureaucratic discretion. The Activity also works to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the policy reform process, including building capacity in monitoring policy impact, conducting policy analyses, and institutionalizing public-private sector dialogue (PPD) forums. One such intervention is helping states and other federal ministries and agencies to review their agricultural policies (gender and youth as the case may be) to be more effective in realizing the huge potential agribusiness has in contributing to state level job creation, trade, taxes, inclusion, health, nutrition, competitiveness, and import substitution

Position Description

Agribusiness Investment Activity is calling on experts and specialists in the field of policy development, reform, and advocacy to submit their CVs (along with a cover letter) for inclusion in its data base. Consulting with stakeholders and organizing formal, mixed public-private review bodies has helped to identify the barriers and inefficiencies in the business environment process and any remaining regulatory bottlenecks. From the PPDs conducted in Cross River, Ebonyi and Kebbi States, there were some ‘’low hanging fruits’’ in the areas of policies and policy advocacy that needed to be quickly addressed and included the following:

• Absence of a well-documented Agricultural Policy;
• The high cost of inputs (specifically on fish feeds);
• Multiple taxation;
• Land availability and accessibility;
• Contract Enforcement;
• Gender and Youth development.

Some of the bottlenecks identified are as a result of implementation problems which included corruption, lack of continuity in government policies, inadequate human and material resources, all of which often led to implementation gaps. Most services are regulated, in some way, by official or unofficial policies. Sometimes, it is necessary to change those policies with the support of critical stakeholders to make sure that programs and services are accomplishing what they are supposed to. Thus the Activity is looking for qualified, committed and passionate candidates to support its policy reform and advocacy efforts, engage with private sector stakeholders, and make concrete recommendations to improve the enabling environment for agribusinesses in our targeted states and value chains. The Activity expects to award several short-term contracts to such experts in the field of agribusiness policy, legal, and regulatory development, assessments, advocacy, and ultimately reform over the next four years. The experts shall have demonstrated experience in policy review and development, policy advocacy and regulatory reform. Selected candidates will be short listed and contacted as opportunities arise. The overall objective is to place qualified individual consultants in a roster, in order to expedite the contracting process for various consultancy assignments under the Activity’s Policy Component. At the end of each assignment, the consultant will submit a well-structured and persuasive report on the recommended policy changes.

Duties and Responsibilities

Illustrative duties and responsibilities required from the selected Agribusiness Policy Consultants include:

• Identify constraints in the policy (including legal and regulatory) framework and actions to address constraints that are realistic and actionable, including quick wins, by meeting with private and public sector stakeholders, and prioritizing policy reforms at both the national and sub-national levels that are both aligned with our Activity and are realistically addressable given the Activity’s time and financial resource constraints;
• Analyze existing policies (national and sub-national), in collaboration with public and private sector stakeholders, and draft concrete and implementable reform recommendations, and possible solutions on how these constraints can be resolved or at least lessened;
• Interview public and private sector stakeholders regarding the impact of agribusiness policies and their subsequent implementation
• Support the activities of voluntary change champions and members of policy reform coalitions on consultative processes amongst themselves and with government (PPDs) to foster needed policy reviews and reforms;
• Participate in other policy reform related plans or interventions as may be directed by the COP or his designee.
• Illustrative deliverables include: implementation plans on how to approach, attract, organize, and motivate relevant stakeholders to engage in advocacy efforts related to improving the agribusiness enabling environment; concept notes for new policies for consideration by the relevant government agency; implementation plans regarding current policies that identify prioritized actions regarding policy reform

Qualifications

• University graduate in social sciences, agricultural economics, economics, law or a related field (Masters preferred)
• 7+ years of relevant policy reform and/or agribusiness work experience in Nigeria
• Work experience with USAID and/or other donor-funded projects is strongly preferred
• Experience working collaboratively with institutional and private‐sector partners and stakeholders in Nigeria, preferably on government policy matters
• Demonstrated knowledge of agricultural value chains and an understanding of the agribusiness enabling environment
• Excellent analytical, written and oral communications skills in English is a top priority
• Ability to work well in diverse teams but also able to work productively as an individual with minimum supervision
• Well organized, strong analytical skills, creative thinker, innovative, demonstrated personal initiative, with unquestionable integrity and ethics
• Ability to communicate in other Nigerian languages is a plus
• Proven ability to work under pressure with tight deadlines
• A relevant network of policy related influencers and decision makers in Nigeria is a plus
• Evidence of past performance in all of the above will also be an added advantage

Interested applicants should submit their resumes and a cover letter to info@jeaustin.com.