Senior Agriculture & Food Policy Consultant - AHAI (EOI) at the African Development Bank Group (AfDB)

African Development Bank Group (AfDB) - Established in 1964, the African Development Bank is the premier pan-African development institution, promoting economic growth and social progress across the continent. There are 80 member states, including 54 in Africa (Regional Member Countries). The Bank’s development agenda is delivering the financial and technical support for transformative projects that will significantly reduce poverty through inclusive and sustainable economic growth.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Expressions of Interest - Senior Agriculture & Food Policy Consultant - AHAI

Location: Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire
Consultant type: Individual Consultant
Department Issuing the Request: Agriculture and Agro-Industry Department - AHAI
Duration of the Assignment: 12 months
Tentative Date of Commencement: 03 April 2023
Reporting Requirements: The Consultant will report to the Director of the Agriculture and Agro-Industries Department (AHAI).

Brief Description of the Assignment

• The African Development Bank (AfDB) is seeking the services of a Senior Policy Consultant on Agriculture & Food Systems to provide strategic technical support in policy design/development, implementation, analysis and evaluation to facilitate an enabling environment for the successful implementation of the Feed Africa strategy.

The broad objective of the assignment is for the individual consultant to Coordinate:

• Coordinate reporting on follow-up actions for Dakar 2 and write bi-weekly reports
• Support the coordination of the implementation of the Leadership for Agriculture Platform (L4AG)
• Support the implementation and provide oversight functions on the Feed Africa Scorecard project,
• Participate actively in preparation of new sector budget support operations and prepare monthly reports
• Participate actively in the policy compact of TAAT and write monthly reports

Background

• The African Development Bank, through its Agriculture and Agro-Industry Department (AHAI) and Agricultural Finance and Rural Development Department (AHFR), provides support for the delivery of the Feed Africa Strategy for Agricultural Transformation in Africa (2016-2025).
• This Strategy aims to end hunger and rural poverty in the next decade through self-sufficiency and export leadership in 18 priority commodity value chains specific to the continent’s agro-ecological zones.
• Realizing the objectives set forth in the strategy requires a public sector enabled and private sector driven approach to increase productivity; value additions; increase financing, investment in infrastructure as well as promote an enabling agribusiness environment and increased capital flows for inclusive and sustainable food and nutrition security.

The Bank wishes to recruit the services of an individual consultant to support its work in the following areas:
Coordinate reporting on follow-up actions for Dakar 2 and write bi-weekly reports:

• After seven years of implementation of Feed Africa, it is now evident that unlocking the agricultural potential of the continent by delivering climate smart agricultural technologies to millions of farmers and the creation of an enabling environment of rural infrastructure and policy incentives is possible in a short period of time through strong political will and investment by Development Partners and the private sector.
• A High-Level Summit of 34 African Heads of State, 75 Ministers and Heads of Development Partner organizations was therefore held in Dakar January 22-27 to mobilize political, financial and technical support for agricultural transformation on the continent at scale. Dakar 2, as the meeting was also tagged, organized 41 Country Food and Agriculture Delivery Compact boardrooms to discuss previously prepared documents that outlined production targets for key agricultural staples, a road map to reach those targets, and enabling policies, including support to smallholder farmers, rural infrastructure, value addition and financing frameworks for all actors in agricultural commodity value chains. To ensure accountability for results, a Presidential Delivery Council, to oversee implementation of the Country Food and Agriculture Delivery Compact, was proposed.
• The consultant is expected to coordinate reporting on follows up action post Dakar 2 and provide to management a bi-weekly report on the progress made.

Coordinate the Implementation of the New Leadership for Agriculture (L4AG):

• Since 2017, the African Development Bank’s Leadership for Agriculture Platform or L4AG, has brought high level and influential government and private sector leaders together for critical policy dialogue, advocacy and policy formulation to strengthen Africa’s agriculture sector.
• The L4AG Platform has been recently re-designed to be more effective, with additional focus on change champions and priority themes. The new L4AG will support African agriculture transformation through peer-to-peer learning. The idea is to help the Bank’s Regional Member Countries (RMCs) leapfrog to strong growth in agricultural transformation based on lessons learned from, and best practices by other countries.
• The consultant is expected to work with RMCs and the private sector to broaden their awareness on critical policy issues that affect business and farm production; support RMCs’ policy reform efforts to enable efficient technology transfer along the Agriculture Value Chains; strengthen the Bank’s capacity on policy development, implementation, and evaluation surrounding the promotion of Feed Africa’s 18 priority commodity value chains; and improve the Bank’s existing skillset in policy analysis and evaluation to ensure that it can advise RMCs, RECs and other bodies on key levers within the overall policy matrix critical to driving agricultural transformation in Africa.

Participate actively in preparation of new sector budget support operations and prepare monthly reports:

• The consultant is expected to participate in the preparation of new sector budget support operations in support of national agricultural development plans. The consultant will economic sector work and agricultural policy analysis as a basis for the sector budget support.
• The consultant will be required to demonstrate through his or her analysisan understanding of the successes and failures of the national and regional agricultural development strategy implementation, policy reforms and what needed to be done differently to achieve the broad vision of the agricultural development or transformation in RMCs.
• The Consultant is expected to participate actively in the preparation of new Sector budget support operations and in the policy compact of TAAT.

Objective of the Assignment
The specific objectives / Terms of Reference (ToR) of the Consultant are:

• Support the Coordination of the New Leadership for Agriculture Platform:
  • Review Activities of the New L4AG in 2022 and make recommendations on pending activities of the platform to the Management; and
  • Organize an in-house training for senior Government officials in selected RMCs on policies for Agricultural Transformation
• Coordinate the implementation of the follow up actions post Dakar II conference on Feed Africa:
  • Develop a framework for reporting on follow up actions from the Dakar II conference.
  • Submit bi-weekly reports to Management on the implementation of follow up actions post Dakar II;
  • Carry any other assignments as may be directed by the President, Vice-President AHVP, and Directors of AHAI and AHFR on the Follow up post Dakar II conference.
  • Participate in the consultation / planning meetings.
• Preparation of new sector budget support operations and prepare monthly reports and participate actively in the policy compact of TAAT and write monthly reports:
  • Identify the essential factors and opportunities for success of the design and implementation of Sector budget support in RMCs.
  • Liaise with other bank staffs to understand the landscape and identify the drivers of regional commodity value chains transformation in project areas.
  • Identify and make preliminary engagements with all relevant stakeholders, including the Governments, development partners, private sector investors and agribusinesses and all participants along the value chain towards understanding relevant issues and gauging expectations and readiness for obligations.
  • Identify enabling environment for agricultural value chain development including TAAT.
  • Produce Monthly report on the progress made related to TAAT Policy Compact.
• Carry out any other activities directly related to these assignments.

Qualifications and Experience

• The consultant should have at least a Master’s Degree in Agricultural Development Policy, Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Economics, and Regional Economics with a considerable knowledge in the areas of Agriculture & Food System Policy analysis and development.
• The candidate must have at least 20 years experience working in his/her area of specialty
• The candidate should have the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately with different levels of government officials, private sector agencies and relevant stakeholders
• The consultant should have had previous experience working with multi-lateral development institutions in implementing donor funded projects with a sound understanding of development projects
• Proven capability, capacity and experience in crafting high level policy review documents, reports and book projects written within a development and research and economic policy institutions and organization or university
• Working experience within multicultural teams and international organizations or companies and highly knowledgeable of Africa’s social, agricultural and rural development and economic development issues, questions and challenges
• Ability to synthesize, weave and link complex propositions, theories and model outputs into a coherent message and document that can be published as a sourcebook to guide policy dialogue, negotiation and advocacy missions to RMC
• The consultant must have extensive knowledge and practical experience in working in African development space
• The consultant must be conversant with the Bank’s project cycle activities
• The candidate must be computer literate
• The incumbent candidate should have excellent communication skills and be proficient in both written and spoken English.
• The consultant must be sound and proficient in the use of statistical, econometrics and mathematical programming models in agricultural and food policy analysis, evaluation and assessment.

Schedule of Payment

• The recruited Consultant shall be remunerated based on AfDB’s remuneration guideline for consultants that depends on number of years of experience and availability of resources.

Application Closing Date
3rd March, 2023. at 05:00 PM (Abidjan Time)

Method of Application
Interested and qualified candidates should submit their Applications to: Mr. Martin Fregene: [email protected] & Ms. Dorra Ben Nirane: [email protected]

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Click here for the Job Description (PDF)

Selection Method

• The individual Consultant shall be selected through a competitive process.