Agriculture and Resilience Advisor

About Us

International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. (IBTCI), a U.S. based international development consulting company established in 1987, has worked in over 100 countries and implemented over 300 projects. IBTCI serves government agencies, private sector companies, and several donor agencies. IBTCI specializes in monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL) and institutional support across many areas and sectors including, but not limited to, conflict and crisis, democracy and  governance, agriculture, economic growth, food security, education, environment, and global health.

Job Title: Agriculture and Resilience Advisor 

Department/Location: USAID/Niger

Reports To: ISPI Project Manager

Type: Consultancy, 100 days

Clearance Required:  Facilities Access

Overview:  

In August 2020, USAID swore in its first Niger Mission Director in 24 years, transitioning the USAID Limited Presence Country Office to a USAID Mission. The recently approved 2022-2027 Country Development Cooperation Strategy for Niger guides USAID’s annual budget of approximately $200 million, half of which is humanitarian assistance. USAID programs focus on youth and women with activities in good governance, rule of law, countering violent extremism, conflict prevention and mitigation, health, education, water and land management, community resilience to natural disasters and man-made shocks, food security, and agriculture and economic growth.

USAID/Niger’s Office of Agriculture and Resilience manages the Mission’s activities in agriculture, food security, water security, adaptation, and resilience, as well as nutrition in collaboration with health and Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) colleagues. Niger is a Resilience Focus Country, Feed the Future target country, and a newly designated nutrition priority country. Niger also receives water and adaptation funding. Current programming is guided by the regional, multi-sectoral Resilience in the Sahel Enhanced (RISE II) program, which aims to build resilience to recurrent crises. In the agriculture space, USAID is working on several fronts: increased access to finance; more economic opportunities; improved natural resources management; increased farm production; and better access to nutritious foods. In addition, USAID is working with farmer groups to improve the competitiveness and inclusiveness of three value chains: cowpeas (black-eyed peas), small ruminants (goats and sheep), and poultry. Resilience activities combine humanitarian and development assistance to implement a multi-sectoral, coordinated approach toward enhancing people’s ability to mitigate, adapt to, and recover from climate, conflict, and economic shocks and stresses. By focusing on priority geographies and enabling linkages and support to stakeholders across the country, the activities support improved products and services offered by financial institutions, prepare smallholder producers and other stakeholders to better receive and manage financing, and work across the value chain to identify and mobilize new sources of financing for farmers.

On behalf of USAID/Niger, IBTCI seeks to engage an Agriculture and Resilience Advisor on a consulting basis to fill a staffing gap in that office and provide management advice, staff mentoring, coaching, and technical guidance to the resilience and agriculture team and portfolio within the Niger Mission.

The STTA will report to the Mission Director or her designee, and will work in close collaboration with staff across all offices within the Mission.

Responsibilities

Essential Duties/Tasks and Responsibilities:  

The STTA will serve as part of the Agriculture and Resilience team of the Mission and will provide technical expertise and oversight, strategic leadership support, and personnel and activity management support/mentoring/guidance and recommendations to management regarding USAID’s resilience and agriculture programming.  The STTA will regularly interact with USAID Senior Management and Embassy leadership in Niamey and with high-level government representatives, donor community counterparts, key civil society members, and other stakeholders in Niger. 

Specific responsibilities include:

• Manage day-to-day work planning and coordination of staff and resilience and agriculture programs in coordination with other staff in the office.

• Contribute to weekly and monthly reporting to Mission leadership on the part of the resilience and agriculture team.

• Contribute to preparation of briefing materials for USAID or other USG stakeholders, as needed.

• Contribute to proposals to apply for additional USAID resources for USAID/Niger.

• Advise Program Office, Mission Director, and Embassy leadership as well as Washington stakeholders and host country officials on key issues, achievements, and opportunities for Mission Niger.

• Possible field visits inside Niamey with other USAID staff focused on oversight as well as collaborating, learning and adapting. These visits may include travel to remote communities with long travel times, harsh physical conditions, and very limited services under security protocols determined by the US Embassy Regional Security Officer.
• Take meetings with international and Nigerien organizations seeking to partner with USAID.
• Write-up success stories from AGR activities.
• Help identify local organizations that might receive direct USAID funding.
• Write descriptions of mechanisms and compile MEL statistics for the Operational Plan (OP) and the Performance Plan and Report (PPR).
• Other duties as assigned.

Deliverables include:

• Briefing materials, proposals and other programmatic documents, as assigned.
• Weekly and monthly reporting to Mission leadership and REFS Country Support Team in DC.

Qualifications

Minimum Requirements:

• Minimum of five years of progressively responsible professional or program experience in agricultural development, food security, and/or rural development programs with international donors, non-government organizations (NGOs), and/or government.
• Excellent English writing and speaking ability is required. French writing and speaking ability is required. The candidate should have a demonstrated capacity to communicate complex policy, strategy, and program issues orally and in writing in a clear, concise, and well-organized manner.
• Significant technical knowledge related to agriculture-led development, including resilient agricultural value chains development and water security, is required.
• Expert knowledge of best practices in agriculture development program design, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and learning, including collaboration, learning and adapting strategy is necessary.
• Strong analytical, management and organizational skills are required. The position requires demonstrated ability in strategic planning, technical and socio-economic analysis, and budget preparation and reporting skills.
• Considerable confidentiality, sensitivity, poise and maturity are mandatory as the applicant will have frequent interaction in meetings with mid- to senior-level Nigerien government officials and with private sector and donor partners.
• Strong interpersonal and cross-cultural skills, the ability to work within a team setting and with minimal supervision, and coordinate across sectoral teams.
• Strong leadership and negotiating skills.
• Demonstrated knowledge and proficiency in Microsoft Windows, Word, and Excel are required.

Education:  

• The applicant should have a Master's Degree in economics, agricultural economics, agronomy, business administration, or a related field. Equivalent experience may be substituted for educational requirements.       

Preferred Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Prior experience with international development agencies procedures and operations (e.g., development approaches, procedures for programming funds, defining objectives, and monitoring results, and procedures for awarding grants and contracts) is highly desired.
• Prior experience working for USAID and/or a USAID partner is strongly desired.
• Prior experience working in Sahel countries is highly preferred
• Experience in climate change adaptation and mitigation preferred.
• Knowledge of strategies, programs, and working methodologies of other donor agencies in the livelihoods sector is desired.
• Knowledge of the structure and workings of the USG broadly and USAID specifically is strongly desired.
• Familiarity with Microsoft PowerPoint and Google Applications

Working Environment: Work is typically performed in an office environment.  

Physical Requirements:  This is largely a sedentary position that requires the ability to speak, hear, see, and lift small objects up to 20 lbs.

Supervisory Responsibility:  This position does not have supervisory responsibilities.

Travel:  International travel may be required and may include travel to fragile and/or conflict-prone zones.

Work Authorization: This position is only open to locally-based Nigeriens.

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

About the Organization:

IBTCI has been in business since 1987. We specialize in Monitoring, Evaluation, Research & Learning (MERL), Institutional Support (IS), Financial & Risk Management (FRM), Supply Chain Management & Procurement (SCMP); Social & Behavior Change (SBC) and Capacity Building.   We provide these services across many sectors including, but not limited to, agriculture, resilience & food security, conflict & crisis, democracy & governance, economic growth & trade, education & human capacity development, energy & infrastructure, environment & climate change, global health & WASH and humanitarian and disaster assistance. At IBTCI, our colleagues are encouraged to collaborate and be part of the solution while getting the tools and guidance needed to grow and support our clients' missions.

 IBTCI is committed to a policy of equal employment opportunity for all persons without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identification, age, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, disabled veteran or Vietnam-era veteran, or any other classification protected by applicable anti-discrimination laws.  We prohibit and do not tolerate any form of discrimination or harassment.  VEVRAA Federal Contractor.

 If you are an applicant with a disability that requires a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process or are limited in the ability, or unable to use the online application system and need an alternative method for applying, you may contact the Talent Acquisition team at TalentAcquisition@ibtci.com (Do not send your resume to this account, for consideration please apply in our career page, https://careers.ibtci.com/jobs).