Location: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (with in-country and periodic international travel including to AL II Nairobi office)
Period of Performance: October 1st, 2016 – September 30, 2018 (funding dependent)
Background:
The USAID Building Capacity for African Agricultural Transformation (Africa Lead II) Project is a five-year effort to support and advance the agricultural transformation in Africa as proposed by the African Union Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP), while simultaneously contributing to the Feed the Future goals of reduced hunger and poverty, by building the capacity of men and women African leaders, institutions and stakeholders to develop, lead, and manage the structures needed for the transformation process.
This project has three components:
- The establishment of institutional/organizational architecture to lead African agriculture transformation at the national and regional levels, operating at the highest level of effectiveness;
- The operationalization of capacity to manage policy change and alignment process;
- The effective participation and leading when necessary, of Non-State Actors (NSAs) in the CAADP process.
The Opportunity:
Africa Lead requires a Policy Coordination Manager (PCM) to support the design, plan, and implementation of inclusive policy development activities for the Tanzania program. Because of the broad nature and complexity of issues and institutions addressed by Africa Lead, the position requires outstanding conceptual and technical design skills. The PCM will have responsibility for ensuring that technical excellence is reflected all activities designed and implemented under the Tanzania country program. Specifically, the Tanzania PCM will:
Program Development and Management:
The PCM will need to ensure that Concept Notes, Activity Descriptions, budgets, logistics worksheets, logistics for events or trainings and all relevant implementation details for the activities in their portfolio represent strategic, technical and operational excellence. The PCM will be required to support a portfolio that contains multiple activities, involving multiple stakeholders and whose outcomes are highly visible at the national level. To these ends, PCM will need to:
- Lead agriculture policy facilitation processes, including through participation and support to the Policy Agriculture Group (PAG), maintaining close relationships with Government of Tanzania policy making entities and individuals, and through Non State Actors (NSAs) including the private sector;
- Support the design of new activity concepts and descriptions together with the Program Lead, Africa Lead activity teams and the TZ Program Management Specialist;
- Lead the management of activities to support ,Manage government driven policy, research, learning, dialogue and coordination
- Lead the design and execution of initiatives to foster multi-stakeholder coordination around specific policy issues in support effective and inclusive NSA policy dialogue
- Design and implement media driven public awareness of and participation in agriculture policy dialogues
- Actively use the tracking tools developed by the Program Lead and Technical Programs Director to manage the assigned portfolio of activities
- Actively track activity budgets, and proactively communicate concerns, with support from finance to the Program Lead;
- Work closely with procurement and logistics teams on all aspects of planning
- Play an active role in recruiting/sourcing short term team members – i.e. facilitators – as required by activities
- Play a representational role in key meetings
- Convene activity meetings and communicate with colleagues and stakeholders
- Travel to events/trainings and play on-site role overseeing logistics
- Support M&E and Knowledge Management functions as directed
Capacity Building:
- Develop systemic approaches and solutions to capacity building of agriculture policy related institutions and frameworks;
- Participate in (and in some cases support organization of) national, regional and international policy related events and workshops.
Internal Working Relationships and Reporting:
- Provide to Program Lead and Director of Technical Programs weekly short bulleted list of priorities for upcoming week and accomplishments from previous week;
- Provide to Program Lead and Director of Technical Programs Tanzania program input for quarterly and other required reports to USAID;
- Work with KLC team to identify KM/Learning products based on the Tanzania portfolio.
Qualifications, Background and Experience:
Successful candidates will have strong interpersonal, leadership and management skills as well as relevant experience implementing programs to increase local capacity to improve food security. Demonstrated past performance in managing complex projects is required.
Specific experience and specialization in the following areas is required: government capacity building, agricultural policy reform and implementation, food security, public education/awareness, and/or monitoring and evaluation of food security programs. Specific qualifications include:
- Minimum Master degree required in agricultural or development economics, management, economics, social sciences, or other related field of study;
- Applicants must have a minimum of 10 years of demonstrated senior level leadership experience in the field of international development;
- Knowledge and experience in working on Tanzania agriculture policy and institutional frameworks and ability to carry out critical analysis of policy issues;
- Knowledge on both continental and national frameworks such as CAADP, TAFSIP, ASDP, ASDS, MKUKUTA, KILIMO KWANZA etc.
- Proven experience in agricultural public and private sector capacity building activities and media related policy driven experience;
- Experience working with the private sector, civil society, media, and government sectors on communication strategies and monitoring and evaluation programs;
- Strong written, verbal and presentation skills;
- Demonstrated effective interpersonal skills, creative problem solving, conflict and ethical management skills;
- Computer literate in word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software (Microsoft);
- Fluent Swahili and English language skills required.
If you believe you qualify for this position, kindly submit a cover letter and your CV, to [email protected] by September 16, 2016.
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.