Cluster Coordinator: Project Officer Ii

Job Summary

The Cluster Development project within ATI has been established to improve income of smallholder farmers (SHFs) by helping them to increase agricultural yield and achieve greater commercialization. The project is expected to develop farmer production clusters (FPCs) which is an approach of grouping farmers with adjacent farm plots to consolidate their farm activity, develop them like a business entity and access targeted support across the value chain.

The Cluster coordinator will work across the three ACC crop segments (Input, production & market linkage) but reports to the Regional Director. The Cluster Coordinator will drive day-to-day coordination of implementation activities in the ACC by public, private, and development sector stakeholders, as agreed in the ACC target-setting and operational-planning process.

ACCOUNTABILITY:

• The cluster coordinator is accountable to support clusters with ACC prioritized interventions or projects across the value chain and ensure the interventions or projects contributes to increasing level of farmers’ aggregation and adoption of improved production practices through effective delivery of the following KPIs:
• Farmers know about and get registered in FPCs,
• Land covered under FPCs/ACC with full package recommendations increased,
• Volume of production and priority commodity productivity under FPC/ACC increased
• Volume of marketable surplus under FPC & ACC woreda increased
• Involvement of farmers in the bottom up FPC plan preparation ensured,
• ACC planning and M&E system integrated into respective zonal system and processes,
• VCA forums are facilitated and conducted regularly,

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Specific responsibilities for the cluster coordinator in the ACC Project include, but not limited to:
• Mainstream use of planning, program management and reporting processes and tools developed by the National and Regional cluster development teams and by other local stakeholders, to ensure effective decision-making,
• Coordinate planning (including preparation and circulation of meeting agendas, presentation decks, and cluster reports) and facilitating of cluster commodity value chain alliance meetings and other activities within the cluster and its follow ups,
• Ensure strong program management within the FPC/ACC through driving day to day coordination of interventions and reporting, verifying status and progress of interventions, proactively identifying issues and solution options, working with stakeholders to ensure effectively joint problem-solving,
• Escalate issues and needs which cannot be addressed at the ACC level to regional director where appropriate, including support around coordination, resources, capacity-building, policy, and other systemic interventions,
• Oversight and tracking of relevant ATI-owned interventions implemented by another ATI team,
• Follow up woreda focal persons and VC members and report regularly on progress,
• Coordinate DAs for periodic and yearly FPC assessment,
• Ensure upward reporting meets needs for Regional and National stakeholders,
• Record and document cluster level basic databases including cropping system and all agricultural data and information’s, any ATI intervention projects and ACC Woreda agricultural basic data
• Engage on delivery of full package training for Zonal and woreda experts and DA’s in collaboration with Zonal and Woreda office of agriculture
• rovide FPC technical support/backstopping, implementation monitoring and supervision in collaboration with Zonal and Woreda Agricultural office
• Actively participate on clusters level monitoring
• Organize learning field days for ACC/FPC participant farmers in collaboration with the Zonal Office of Agriculture
• Document best practices in collaboration with the Zonal Office of Agriculture and share to other areas
• Facilitate market linkage platforms for FPCs with potential buyers to enhance contract farming/marketing

Other

• The cluster coordinator is responsible for additional tasks assigned by the Regional ACC Director to meet the team’s functions.Required qualifications, competencies, skills, training, and experience:
• Master’s degree in Agronomy, Crop Science, Plant Science, Agriculture, Crop Protection, Plant Breeding, Irrigation Agronomy, Dryland Agriculture, Rural development, Agribusiness, Agricultural Economics and other relevant field with 4 Years of relevant experience.
• The cluster coordinator is expected to have in-depth knowledge of agriculture and rural development particularly on Agricultural policy and regulatory framework in Ethiopia including specifically:
• In-depth experience and knowhow of agricultural commercialization, agri-business / agro-industry, or industrial cluster or corridor initiatives in Ethiopia.
• possess excellent stakeholder management skills including knowledge and understanding of various public and private stakeholder relationships in the ACC, extensive experience in facilitating dialogue with them.
• strong knowledge and skill on identifying and problem-solving challenges to agricultural value chain development, as well as best practice program and project management approaches and monitoring and evaluation activities.
• understanding of private sector, commercial farming, market-based programming experience with a particular focus with smallholder farmers.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, with highly collaborative working style.
• Fluency in English and Afan Oromo, written and spoken, is essential; knowledge of other local Ethiopian languages preferred
• Experience in working within multi-cultural teams.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.

Skills Required:

• Agricultural / Studies
• Applied / Natural / Science
• Economics / Statistics
• Environmental / Natural / Resource