West African Rice Agribusiness and Value Chain Advisor at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is a regional group of fifteen West African countries. Founded on 28 May 1975, with the signing of the Treaty of Lagos, its mission is to promote economic integration across the region.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: West African Rice Agribusiness and Value Chain Advisor

Location: Abuja, Nigeria

Job Details

• The AG/VC Advisor will bring in-depth knowledge of global, sub-regional and national rice value chains to help guide discussions and thought leadership on private sector engagement, promotion, trade, and investment.
• S/He will be responsible for supporting the ERO Executive Secretary (ES), Board, technical committees, and national platforms in addition to serving as the primary liaison to private sector partners.
• This AG/VA position will report directly to the ERO Executive Secretary. The advisor will play a key role in supporting and coordinating activities of the ERO by generating, aggregating, packaging, and presenting information gathered through technical committees and disseminating it to stakeholders for the purposes of convening actors for partnership, scaling models, and mobilizing resources.
• The role will initially be for two years with the possibility for an extension.

Key Duties and Responsibilities
Strategy development:

• Assist in developing and recommending West African rice sector growth and import substitution strategies to the ERO Secretariat and Board based on the input from private sector partners.
• Provide guidance and coordination on private sector investments with donor and government programs across the region to ensure a high degree of synergy and impact according to metrics approved by the Board.
• Propose and track key performance indicators and approaches to monitoring, evaluation, and learning on private sector investment and trade.
• Assist in developing strategic value chain development intervention plans.
• Support the policy processes and mechanisms to increase market shares for rice commodity in West Africa

Board, Technical Committee, and General Assembly Management:

• Participate, as needed, in quarterly ERO Board meetings.
• Identify and volunteer private sector technical experts for each of the four ERO technical committees (1. Markets, Trade and Standards; 2. Finance, Mechanization, Donor Alignment; 3. R&D - Seed, Soil and Water management; 4. Equity, Resilience and MLE) to define priorities and develop action plans, including timelines and deliverables.
• Assist Executive Secretary in organizing technical committee virtual meetings, drafting agendas, moderating calls, taking meeting minutes, and outlining clear action items and recommendations for follow up.
• Work with technical committees to prioritize key private sector and trade research studies for approval by the Board, based on available budget, on a rolling basis.
• Manage the contracting of these research studies and report on the findings.
• Provide guidance on agribusiness engagement to the national platforms.
• Assist in organizing semi-annual general assembly meetings and trade shows.

Knowledge and Stakeholder Management:

• Provide input to an ERO website and knowledge management system (with contractor support) of rice-related agronomic and market information, as well as best practices in rice sector development.
• Contribute to building and maintaining relationships with rice importers, millers, input suppliers and other private sector partners contributing to the rice value chains development to exchange learnings and track best practices.
• Develop policy briefs and technical notes to inform decision making
• Support and provide documentation on rice market information system

Administrative Management:

• Support operational and administrative activities of the ERO Secretariat.
• Develop a work plan for AG/VC advisor position and manage activities, once approved by ES.
• Track and report ERO Secretariat’s budget and expenditures related to AG/VC workplan.
• Report on procurement, contracting, administration, validation & review systems of sub- contractors as well as make follow-ups to confirm service delivery.
• Assist ES in verifying that service providers are meeting agreed-upon deliverables and timeframes.

Key Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor’s Degree in Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness Management, Marketing, or any business-related area.
• Minimum of 6 years working in agriculture value chain/ manufacturing and with the private sector in West Africa.
• Experience in setting up and running public-private stakeholder events and, preferably, trade shows.
• Experience working with a large multinational development agency in a management and coordination role is desired.
• Experience working in teams and managing processes dependent on cooperation with multiple actors.
• Experience with financial and budget management.
• Practical experience in negotiation and influencing.
• Excellent report/proposal writing skills and track record in meeting all deadlines and deliverables.
• Experience developing ‘donor or board ready’ technical reports
• Experience in agricultural related programs, specifically rice, is desirable.
• Proven track record in networking and dialogue facilitation with private and public sector actors
• Experience with West African government engagement and with the ECOWAS Commission preferred
• Ability and willingness to travel within the ECOWAS countries required.
• Fluency in English and French is required.

Key Personal Characteristics:

• Passion for the vision and mission of the ERO for developing the competitiveness of the West African the rice sector
• Self-starter who is a highly motivated natural leader.
• Champion of private sector-led development efforts.
• Ability to strategically inspire and energize multi- partner project teams
• Excellent communication skills, which are necessary to build relationships and credibility with both the private and public sector and to build bridges between the two.

Remuneration

• A compensation package commensurate with this position’s responsibility will be negotiated with the successful candidate.

Application Closing Date
15th March, 2023.

Method of Application
Interested and qualified candidates should submit their Applications with a detailed CV (including your e-mail and telephone contacts) and motivation note to: EROexecutivesec@ecowas.int using the job title as the subject line of the application e-mail.

Note

• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
• ERO is an Equal Opportunity Employer