Immediate Vacancy: Agra Consultant

REF: C/AGRA/21/2025

AGRA seeks to recruit a consultant who can provide supports to AGRA Ethiopia based on the below terms of references of the assignment/project: English Language Editor for National Sorghum Flagship Program (NSFP) Document.

AGRA founded in 2006, is an African-led African-based organization that seeks to catalyze Agriculture Transformation in Africa. AGRA is focused on putting smallholder farmers at the center of the continent’s growing economy by transforming agriculture from a solitary struggle to survive into farming as a business that thrives. As the sector that employs the majority of Africa’s people, nearly all of them small-scale farmers, AGRA recognizes that developing smallholder agriculture into a productive, efficient, and sustainable system is essential to ensuring food security, lifting millions out of poverty, and driving equitable growth across the continent.

AGRA is rolling out a new 5-year strategy to catalyze and sustain an Inclusive Agricultural Transformation in Africa to increase incomes and improve food security for 30 million farmers. Under this strategy, AGRA will deliver through an approach that simultaneously catalyzes change at farmer level, strengthens input and output market systems and puts government at the center to enable and champion private-sector-led agricultural growth at national level.

1. GENERAL BACKGROUND

Sorghum is Ethiopia’s fourth most important crop, following teff, wheat, and maize. Recognizing its significant socio-cultural, economic, and food security contributions to the Ethiopian population, the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) has designated sorghum as a flagship program. To this end, the MoA had requested AGRA to provide a range of organisational and technical assistance to design the flagship document. Accordingly, AGRA availed the services of an Agricultural Economist, an Agronomist, and a Social Anthropologist to help develop the National Sorghum flagship Programme (NSFP). These professionals were to work closely with a national task force composed of experts in the sorghum value chain drawn from various government institutions. The process was also understood to be guided by close technical support from a dedicated technical team and oversight from a national steering committee. After several months of stakeholder consultations and dedicated technical work, a draft NSFP document has been prepared to guide strategic investments and interventions across the sorghum value chain.

The MoA seeks to ensure the document meets high standards of clarity, coherence, and professionalism and requested AGRA to support in engaging a qualified expert to provide English language editorial services who would help improve the content and presentational aspects of the NSFP document.

2. OBJECTIVE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The objective of this assignment is to refine and enhance the language quality of the National Sorghum Flagship Document, ensuring it is well-structured, grammatically sound, and aligned with professional standards for publication.

3. SCOPE OF WORK

The English Language Editor will be responsible for:

• Conducting a comprehensive editorial review of the National Sorghum Flagship Document.
• Ensuring grammatical accuracy, proper syntax, and consistency in terminology, particularly related to agriculture and crop value chains.
• Enhancing clarity, flow, and readability for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Aligning the document’s tone and style with MoA’s communication standards and donor expectations, drawing insights from existing national flagship programme documents.
• Providing tracked changes and editorial comments for review and validation by a team composed of MoA and AGRA Ethiopia.
• Participating in one virtual feedback session with the team formed to oversee this task and incorporate the comments to finalise the editorial work.

4.DURATION OF ASSIGNMENT, DUTY STATION

• Duration: The assignment is expected to take place over a period of 20 working days from the date of contract signing. The expert must be available for feedback and revisions during this period.
• Duty Station: Addis Ababa

5. FINAL PRODUCTS

• Edited National Sorghum Flagship document – in two versions: a clean version and with track changes on.
• Final clean version of the document (in hard and soft copies) incorporating agreed revisions.

6. PROVISION OF MONITORING AND PROGRESS CONTROLS

I. Timeframe: 15 days

• Deliverables: Edited version of the National Sorghum Flagship Document with tracked changes and comments.
• Activities: Undertake a thorough review of the NSFP document as well as associated annexes for diction, grammatical correctness, readability, and conciseness.
• Payment 70%

II. Timeframe: 5 days

• Deliverables: Final clean version of the document incorporating agreed revisions.
• Activities: Engage with a team composed of MoA and AGRA Ethiopia for the review of the draft, address all concerns of the team, finalise the document, submit one hard copy and a soft copy of the clean version.
• Payment: 30%

7. REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS AND DOCUMENTS

Education

• Advanced degree in English, Communications, or related field.
• Proven experience in language editing of technical documents, preferably in agriculture, food systems, or rural development.
• Demonstrated understanding of crop value chains, particularly cereals such as sorghum, teff, maize, or wheat.
• Excellent command of written English and familiarity with editorial standards of international development organizations.
• Ability to work independently and deliver high-quality outputs within tight deadlines

Experience:

• 10 years’ experience in providing editorial services to development partners on agricultural/science-informed programme documents.
• Excellent command of written English

The consultant is required to hold a valid business license and able to issue VAT/TOT receipts when processing consultancy fees.

Terms of appointment: The duration of the assignment is up to a maximum of 20 working days.

Skills Required:

• Agricultural / Studies
• Communication / Pr / Journalism
• Social / Science / Project / Management / Development