Associate Program Officer - Seed Sector, Ghana

About the role

AGRA, an African-led organization that seeks to transform agriculture in Africa, is recruiting an Associate Program Officer to be based in Accra, Ghana. Reporting to the Country Manager, the post contributes to the AGRA Ghana Country Strategy by strengthening partnerships, supervising implementing partners and managing the grant portfolio at the downstream level, working with the Ghana team to coordinate activities that advance agricultural transformation.

Key responsibilities

• Provide technical capacity to private sector companies in seed development on business concepts such as costs, quality control, gross margin, ROI, credit and budgeting, and risk.
• Work with private sector partners to upgrade agricultural value chains and expand market opportunities for smallholder farmers.
• Coordinate with other players to create synergies between AGRA-funded programs and other agricultural initiatives, and identify collaboration opportunities with agribusinesses.
• Assist the Program Officer in mapping resources and constraints, identifying investment opportunities via competitive grants, and coordinating capacity building of grantees in data capture, management and reporting.
• Monitor, evaluate and supervise grantee activities, and provide periodic reports.
• Support implementing partners in establishing links with private sector service providers and buyers, and in negotiating market contracts and MOUs.
• Contribute to an M&E system measuring profitability and business indicators of seed companies, and to a marketing database on commodity prices.
• Support the Ghana Business Plan, strengthen agro-dealer networks, and develop business models for selected commodity value chains.
• Strengthen entrepreneurships, including SMEs and producer cooperatives, and build capacity of regulatory agencies to monitor input-output quality.
• Carry out awareness campaigns, organize technical workshops and seminars, and maintain networks with government ministries, research institutions and civil society.

Required profile

• Master's degree in agricultural economics, agribusiness, marketing, business administration or a related field.
• 5-7 years' experience in agro-business development, preferably in seed farm planning and economic analysis.
• Demonstrated capacity to work with private sector players and experience with community-based programming.
• Experience in small-to-medium agro-enterprise and seeds sector management; experience with externally funded programmes is desirable.
• Knowledge of USAID rules and regulations is an advantage.

Required skills

• Familiarity with market analysis tools such as sub-sector analysis, gross margin analysis and business planning.
• Advisory capacity in agriculture extension, advisory services and innovation systems.
• Ability to work with multi-disciplinary teams and engage in policy dialogue.

The closing date was 17 February 2020; applications were made by sending a detailed CV quoting the job reference number to the recruiter by e-mail. Remuneration is negotiable.