Livestock: Agribusiness Advisor

Company Description

SNV is a global development partner, deeply rooted in the countries where we operate. Driven by a vision of a better world where all people live with dignity and have equitable opportunities to thrive Sustainably, SNV strengthens capacities and catalyzes partnerships that transform agri-food, energy, and water systems. We help strengthen institutions and effective governance, reduce gender inequalities and barriers to social inclusion, and enable adaptation and mitigation to the climate and biodiversity crises.

With 60 years of experience and a team of approximately 1,600 people, we support our partners in more than 20 countries in Africa and Asia, tailoring our approaches to different contexts to achieve large-scale impact and create more equitable lives for all.

Our core values of people-centeredness and respect, equity and equality, and diversity and inclusion are fundamental to who we are and what we do. This is reflected in our vision, mission, and strategy, which set out our aspirations and commitments as our compass towards 2030.

For more information on SNV, please refer to our website: www.snv.org.

Project background

SNV Ethiopia will be implementing an anticipated flagship programme focused on enabling 800,000 rural young women (RYW) to access dignified and fulfilling jobs. The programme will target high-potential agricultural value chains (e.g., horticulture, poultry, dairy), using a market systems development approach in seven regional clusters.It emphasizes transformative gender and social inclusion (GESI) and aims to address structural and socio-cultural barriers that limit young women’s participation in economic life. Implementation will be decentralized, with strong collaboration across local TVETs, youth centers, community organizations, and public service institutions.

Summary of the position

This is an exciting opportunity for someone passionate about creating entrepreneurial opportunities for young people—especially rural young women—and tackling systemic barriers that limit their engagement in profitable agricultural and livestock value chains.The Agribusiness Advisor will lead the implementation of livestock sector interventions at the cluster level, with a strong focus on practical market facilitation, youth-led enterprise growth, market linkages, and systemic improvements.

In this role, you will work closely with rural young women and men, youth-led micro and small enterprises (MSEs), community structures, private sector actors, cooperatives, unions, and local government offices to ensure that program interventions translate into tangible outcomes in income and employment. The role also involves driving market system innovations, enhancing gender equity, fostering climate-smart practices, and capturing lessons for adaptive learning.

Job Description

Value Chain and Market Systems Implementation

• Lead the operationalization of livestock (poultry, dairy, shoat) value chain activities at the cluster level, ensuring interventions respond to local market constraints and opportunities identified through analyses.
• Design and execute market-based strategies that leverage opportunities and address systemic bottlenecks in both livestock sectors.
• Implement a range of core value chain activities—including local market development, input/output market facilitation, market intelligence, aggregation, and business development services—to increase productivity, income, and employment for rural young people, especially young women.
• Facilitate the introduction and adoption of new technologies and climate-resilient practices in livestock to strengthen productivity and enterprise competitiveness.

Youth Enterprise Growth & Market Linkages

• Map existing youth- and rural young women-led MSEs in livestock and design tailored approaches to help them grow, diversify, and create more employment for young women.
• Facilitate direct business linkages for these enterprises with input suppliers, buyers, processors, cooperatives, unions, and service providers.
• Provide targeted coaching and mentoring to strengthen business skills, value addition, and market readiness of youth and women entrepreneurs.

Capacity Building & Field-level Technical Support

• Organize and deliver hands-on technical support, including practical demonstrations, productivity trainings, post-harvest and handling workshops, and exposure visits for young women, youth groups, and MSEs.
• Build capacity of cluster technical staff, partner experts, and local stakeholders on market systems, gender integration, youth employment strategies, and business development.

Stakeholder Coordination & Multi-Stakeholder Platforms

• Organize and facilitate cluster-level multi-stakeholder forums on livestock value chains to identify systemic challenges and develop collective solutions.
• Document proceedings, ensuring local stakeholders are actively engaged and that follow-up actions are clear and tracked.
• Build strong operational partnerships with local private sector actors, cooperatives, unions, local government offices, farmer groups, and sectoral associations.

Monitoring, Learning & Adaptive Management

• Regularly monitor progress of livestock interventions against work plans and targets, ensuring activities meet quality standards and drive toward income and employment outcomes.
• Support documentation of lessons learned, case stories, and innovations from the cluster and share with the national technical team and MEAL staff for broader learning.
• Document lessons learned, success stories, and innovations from the cluster to inform adaptive management, and contribute to broader program learning through annual reviews, mid-term assessments, and final evaluations.
• Represent the program in local livestock and agribusiness platforms and forums, building strong networks with other projects, government offices, private sector associations, and community stakeholders.
• Ensure that gender and climate considerations are mainstreamed into livestock value chain interventions at the cluster level.
• Undertake other tasks as assigned to support programme implementation and results.
• Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Livestock Development, Horticulture, Agribusiness, Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Marketing, youth development or related fields. Preferably master’s degree in the field mentioned.
• 8 years of experience in livestock/agricultural value chain development or agribusiness, with practical experience working with youth and women in rural contexts.
• Experience in youth employment programming and Market system development
• Demonstrated capacity to work with local stakeholders, TVETs, OSSCs, Disability organizations and government institutions.
• Strong experience in community outreach and mobilization.
• Solid understanding of market systems, livestock input/output marketing, and local trade systems.
• Experience in facilitating business linkages, multi-stakeholder platforms, and building partnerships with private sector actors and cooperatives.
• Knowledge of livestock policies and local government structures, and experience aligning interventions to national and regional strategies.
• Willingness to travel frequently within the cluster to support field-level activities.
• Proficiency in English

Competencies

• Problem analysis
• Coaching
• Focus on quality
• Result orientation
• Persuasiveness

Additional Information

Contract Type: National, Full-time

This position will be based on donor funding and approval confirmation.

Expected start date: As soon as possible

Duty Station: Bahirdar

Contract Duration: One year with the possibility of extension based on performance and budget availability.

Skills Required:

• Agricultural / Studies
• Economics / Statistics
• Sales / Marketing / Business / Management