Youth Engagement And Livestock Agribusiness Advisor at SNV

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Youth Engagement And Livestock Agribusiness Advisor

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Employer: SNV

Employment: Full-Time | Contract

Place of Work: Debrebirhan/Dessie - Ethiopia

Posted date: 1 day ago

Deadline: August, 04/2025 (9 days left)

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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 unlocking agribusiness opportunities for young people—especially rural young women—and addressing systemic barriers that limit their engagement in profitable livestock and agricultural value chains.

The Youth Engagement and Livestock Agribusiness Advisor will lead the implementation of livestock sector and agribusiness development activities at the cluster level, with a strong focus on practical facilitation, market linkages, and enterprise growth. The role involves supporting market system interventions in poultry, dairy, shoat, and related value chains, mapping and coaching RYW led MSEs, and strengthening partnerships with local private sector actors, cooperatives, and unions. The advisor will ensure that activities are executed as planned to create meaningful income and employment for young women and men, drive market system improvements, and generate lessons for adaptive learning.

This is an exciting opportunity for someone passionate about unlocking agribusiness opportunities for young people—especially rural young women—and addressing systemic barriers that limit their engagement in profitable livestock and other agricultural value chains. The Advisor will lead cluster-level implementation of livestock agribusiness activities, focusing on practical facilitation, market linkages, and enterprise growth in sectors like poultry, dairy, shoat and others. The role includes mapping and coaching rural young women-led MSEs and strengthening partnerships with private sector actors, cooperatives, and unions to generate income and employment.

Job Description

Facilitate market and value chain interventions

• Lead the operationalization of livestock value chain and market system activities at the cluster level, ensuring interventions are tailored to the local context and effectively address constraints identified through earlier market analyses.
• Lead local assessments and analyses of the livestock sector to identify agribusiness opportunities tailored to rural young women. Design and execute market-based intervention strategies that address identified constraints and leverage opportunities in the livestock value chain, specific to the cluster context.
• Implement core value chain and market system activities—including market development, market intelligence, facilitation of local input/output market linkages (such as feed/inputs, veterinary services, aggregation, and value addition), and business development services—ensuring this leads to increased livestock productivity, income, and employment.
• Coordinate practical market linkage activities that connect rural young women-led and youth-led MSEs to input suppliers, buyers, processors, and service providers. Facilitate the introduction of new livestock technologies and practices (e.g., feed improvement, husbandry) and link these to business opportunities for youth.

Support youth enterprise growth interventions

• Map existing youth-led MSEs in livestock and agribusiness and design strategies to enable them to grow, diversify, and employ more young women.
• Support capacity building of youth groups and enterprises on business skills, value addition, and market requirements to enhance their competitiveness.

Strengthen partnerships and systemic change

• Work closely with local private sector players (aggregators, processors, traders), cooperatives, and unions to identify and develop mutually beneficial business relationships with youth entrepreneurs.
• Facilitate cluster-level multi-stakeholder livestock forums to discuss and address systemic bottlenecks in input and output markets.

Capacity building & technical support

• Provide tailored coaching, mentoring, and hands-on support to cluster technical teams and local stakeholders on livestock market systems, youth enterprise growth, and business development.
• Organize practical demonstrations and exposure visits to stimulate adoption of good practices.

Outreach, mobilization and enrolment

• Implement inclusive community outreach and mobilization strategies that ensure effective targeting, registration, and enrolment of RYW, Persons with Disabilities, returnees, and other marginalized youth into the program, and support their progression into enterprise formation and skill training.
• Support woreda facilitators to Identify, recruit, and provide orientation to YSLA facilitators based on clear selection criteria, ensuring their active engagement and readiness to support group formation and facilitation activities.
• Implement targeted inclusion interventions, including but not limited to facilitating access to assistive devices, reasonable accommodations, adapting training venues for accessibility, and coordinating tailored support services, to ensure full and meaningful participation of Persons with Disabilities in all program activities.
• Provide support to skill training providers, BDS providers and other public and private actors to integrate inclusive mechanisms (e.g., reasonable accommodation and facilities, mobility aids) into their services.

Monitoring, documentation & learning

• Regularly track implementation progress of livestock and agribusiness activities in the cluster, ensuring they align with approved work plans and contribute to employment and income targets.
• 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.
• 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.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Livestock Development, Agribusiness, Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Marketing, youth development or related fields. Preferably master’s degree in the field mentioned.
• Minimum of 5 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: Debrebirhan/Dessie

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

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How to apply

If you believe that your credentials meet the outlined profile, we invite you to apply by uploading your CV and a letter of motivation before/on August 4, 2025.

Please submit your application only via Smart Recruiters. All information will be kept in the strictest confidentiality.

If your experience and skills match the position's requirements, we will contact you to advise on the next steps in the recruitment process.

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