The Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) is a strategy and delivery oriented government agency created to help accelerate the growth and transformation of the country’s agriculture sector. The ATA envisions that, by 2025, smallholder farmers are commercialized with greater incomes, inclusiveness, resilience and sustainability, contributing to Ethiopia’s achievement of middle-income country status.

The agency focuses on two primary national approaches to catalyze agricultural transformation. First, we support the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Resources (MoALR), its affiliate institutions, and other partners to identify and address systemic bottlenecks within an Agricultural Transformation Agenda. Second, we support Regional Governments to accelerate development of high-priority commodity value chains in clearly defined geographic clusters, through the Agricultural Commercialization Clusters (ACC) Initiative.

Our major activities include conducting strategic and analytical studies, providing technical implementation support, coordinating platforms to better integrate partners and projects, and designing and directly leading a number of implementation projects. Our headquarters are in Addis Ababa, and we have regional offices in Amhara, Oromia, SNNP, and Tigray regional offices, allowing us to work closely with a wide range of public, private and development sector partners across the country.

Our Culture

We have an exceptional team of highly competent employees with a proven track record of success in managing complex activities and achieving transformational results.  Our culture is one where talented, dedicated and adaptable individuals are committed to doing their best and exhibit great team work to achieve excellent results.

At ATA, we provide an exceptional platform for people who want to achieve their highest potential and make a meaningful contribution in changing the country’s agricultural sector.  We offer rewarding work in a young, fast-paced growing organization with passionate, committed, motivated colleagues and excellent career development and training.  We recognize our most valuable assets are our staff and are committed to providing our employees with the tools, training and mentorships necessary to achieve their career goals.

POSITION SUMMARY:

The Project Officer will be a core member of the Agribusiness Accelerator Project Team and will be primarily responsible for providing analytical, technical, and problem solving support on a range of areas that include, but not limited to: value chain analysis, market and investment research, training module development, business opportunity identification, and operational capacity building. Stakeholder engagement and management will also be an important area of responsibility of the Project Officer.

The Project Officer will work closely with Program Teams within ATA’s Agribusiness and Markets as well as across other ATA Program Teams, and with external stakeholders such as supported enterprises, the Ministry of Trade, Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries, Federal and Regional level government bodies, relevant associations, and other private sector market actors to improve and expand market infrastructure and services for agricultural commodities in Ethiopia.

This position will officially report to the Managing Director of the Ethiopian Agribusiness Accelerator Project.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES:

• Provide analytical, technical, and problem solving support to the Agribusiness Accelerator Project Team

• Contribute to the identification and disaggregation of problems for detailed analysis and development of appropriate analytical frameworks for problem solving

• Support programmatic and operational planning and facilitation of stakeholder engagements

• Prioritize assigned tasks and support work streams from start to finish, including timelines, content development, and information validation

• Manage operational planning, including logistics, timely communication and documentation to ensure effective execution of planned activities

• Prepare and compile regular reports including but not limited to monthly project reports, quarterly and annual reports on transformation agenda deliverables, and bi-annual reports to the Transformation Council

• Proactively present ideas and respond to queries clearly and concisely in meetings and interactions with external stakeholders

• Support delivery of high-quality written documents and presentations

• Support the Agribusiness Accelerator Managing Director in building the capacity, as necessary, of key public and private sector actors in Ethiopia’s honey value chain development efforts

• Engage stakeholders across the agricultural system (government, business, cooperatives, commercial farmers etc.) to expand and improve the honey marketing system

• Through field visits and consultations, work with government bodies, selected cooperatives and private sector actors to improve their ability to access improved market linkages,  infrastructure and services

• Identify synergies between the public and private sector and promote collaboration in the area of honey value chain development

• Set key performance indicators, milestones and targets; engage stakeholders to creatively solve problems and overcome obstacles to achieve desired results

• Integrate the Agribusiness Accelerator project with other ATA programs and projects to achieve synergies and outcomes that impact the broader agricultural system

• Regularly report to the Project Lead of the Agribusiness Accelerator Project on progress, challenges and constraints of the word

• Minimum Bachelor’s degree  or Master’s Degree in economics, management, business administration, international development, agriculture development,  social sciences, or other area relevant to agricultural development

• 5 years’ experience for BA holders & 3 years’ experience for MA holders  in either one or more of the following: strategically or analytically focused roles, consulting, program/project coordination/support type roles, investment facilitation or agribusiness, business management/administration, research in public or private sector, corporate finance, or stakeholder management

• Interest in and familiarity with Ethiopia’s rapidly changing smallholder and commercial agriculture sub-sectors

• Natural intellectual curiosity and desire to innovate

• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and data management skills

• Robust oral and written communication skills

• Strong willingness to learn from and contribute to dynamic team environments

• Ability to thrive in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial environment, that emphasizes high performance, results and accountability

• Strong personal values of integrity, professionalism and desire to be of service

• Fluency in both English and Amharic is required; command of an additional Ethiopian language is a plus.