Summary
Date Posted: Wednesday, January 03 2024, Base Salary: Not Disclosed

JOB DETAILS:
Reports To: ACRA Regional Coordinator
Job Type: Independent contractor
Region: Africa
Location: Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda
Start Date: February-March 2024
Contact: Please apply by sending a cover your Resume and Cover Letter to afradvisoryrecruitment@rootcapital.org

Organizational Background
Root Capital invests in the growth of agricultural businesses so they can transform rural communities. These companies buy crops such as coffee, cocoa or beans from small farmers. With growth, they become impact drivers that can increase incomes, create jobs, empower women and youth, maintain peace and preserve vulnerable ecosystems.

We provide these companies with vital resources: access to capital, business and technical partners, financial training and conservation practices. We work in geographies that are difficult to serve where others do not. To date, we have distributed $1.5 billion to improve the lives of more than ten million people in farming communities.

With twenty years of experience providing financing to small agricultural businesses, Root Capital has learned that sometimes credit alone does not help them grow and strengthen. Therefore, in addition to access to capital, it offers financial, agronomic, business intelligence, climate resilience, and gender and youth training and advice in difficult-to-serve geographies. Companies that receive our advisory services learn how to implement best business and financial practices for smart growth and continued success. We use a practical and participatory learning methodology, since our objective is for the company's staff to acquire new knowledge and skills and be able to implement them in the short term.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, Root Capital currently has partner offices in Costa Rica, Kenya and Mexico with partner offices in Nicaragua and Peru. Root Capital's clients are located in more than 10 countries: Mexico and Central America, South America, East and West Africa, as well as Southeast Asia.

Main Goal
Train and advise agricultural companies and cooperatives on agronomic and climate resilience topics to increase overall resilience and productivity of the business and their base of farmers and suppliers.

Main Consultancy Deliverables
• Conduct climate diagnostics and vulnerability assessments for agribusiness clients. Evaluate climate risks and vulnerability; documenting and validating climate adaptation strategies for a cohort of clients.
• Prepare reports and write recommendations based on diagnostic results, and develop/co-create a personalized work and training plan, based on identified gaps and priorities, for Agronomic & Climate Resilient Advisory with clients.
• Develop a training work plan for a portfolio of clients in collaboration with the Regional Advisory and Client Service teams and schedule training sessions in liaison with the clients.
• Prepare for and facilitate training delivery (content and implementation plans), both at centralized events (workshops on a common theme for multiple clients) as well as on-site engagements (personalized advisory, 1:1 with a single client)
• Provide advisory and training services to clients [in line with Root Capital methodology] on topics including, but not limited to: productivity improvement, coffee & macadamia production in particular, climate smart, climate-resilient, climate-regenerative agricultural practices, nursery management, establishment of crop calendars, etc
• Perform routine monitoring of client climate adaptation plans and training curriculums; alignment and monitoring as it relates to shared efforts across teams like the Climate Vulnerability Dashboard (a collaborative effort with our Digital Business Intelligence team).
• Proactively communicate and integrate client plans and activities across Advisory Services to offer an integrated approach, including for example, aligned efforts on certification compliance (components of gender, environment, etc).
• Evaluate the outcomes of the training sessions and maintain records of trainees’ progress and achievement.
• Record activities carried out with clients (using digital data collection tools as needed and Excel) and submit, in a timely fashion, monthly activity and monitoring reports along with all other deliverables.
• Report key impact information, including results, challenges, lessons learned and photographs.
• Promote innovation through contributions to the development and piloting of new instruments, methodologies and training tools.
• Understand and effectively integrate gender-inclusive approaches and gender mainstreaming best practices to ensure that women equitably participate in and benefit from Advisory Services and, more broadly, promote gender equity within our clients.
• Continue to build a working culture that supports an entrepreneurial approach in the management of the supply chains and implementation of partner projects
• Help cultivate, manage relevant partnerships with academic and research or implementing organizations working on climate-smart/regenerative agriculture, as requested.
Note: You must be willing to conduct consulting services (individually with a single client or multi-client workshops) online/remotely and in person .

Required Qualifications
• 3-4+ years of experience training and/or working with business development in rural agricultural areas and/or with agribusiness and/or cooperatives.
• Bachelor's degree in agronomy, crop science, horticulture, or related agricultural based degree
• Experience in climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies in agricultural value chains-preferably (needs vary based on the countries where we operate, see below)
• Three years and above working in agricultural extension work in the relevant value chains
• A minimum of 3 years of experience providing training to agribusiness enterprises or smallholder farmers
• Knowledge and application of participatory training, adult learning and facilitation methodologies
• Knowledge and experience in implementing sustainability standards e.g. Rainforest Alliance, Organic or Fairtrade.
• Excellent relationship management skills amongst diverse audiences
• Ability to assess training needs, plan, lead and execute agronomic training to farmers and field extension officers
• Knowledge of MS Office such as Word, Excel, and Google Apps
• High organizational planning and management skills, ability to meet deadlines.
• Strong writing skills and ability to prepare reports or other documents as needed
• Extroverted and performance-oriented individual
• Interest and commitment to gender equality
• Ability to travel and work in different parts of the country.
• Ability to manage your work independently with a high degree of responsibility.

Desired Value Chain Expertise by Geography
• Democratic Republic of Congo: Coffee (arabica and robusta), cocoa
• Ghana: Local value chains (ie. maize, soya, sorghum)
• Kenya: Macadamia, coffee (arabica and robusta); local value chains (a plus)
• Rwanda: Coffee (arabica and robusta)
• Uganda: Coffee (arabica and robusta), cocoa

Preferred Qualifications
• Knowledge of digital data collection tools such as iFormbuilder and SurveyCTO or data visualization tools such as Tableau and Power BI is a plus.
• Knowledge and experience in building BI models, indicator modeling is valued.

Duration
The independent consulting contract will be for a duration of anywhere between 3 and 12 month periods, dependent upon the needs of Root Capital and the unique professional skills of the applicant,. Each month it takes an average of 10-15 days to complete assignments and deliverables work, with 15 being the maximum number of consulting days per month.



Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months: 36

Level of Education: Bachelor Degree

Job application procedure
• If interested in the role, please submit a curriculum vitae/resume and compelling cover letter to afradvisoryrecruitment@rootcapital.org.
• The subject of your email should follow this convention: “DBI Advisor- Country Name – Applicant First Name & Last Name”.
• Inquiries that do not follow this convention will not be reviewed.
• The cover letter should explain why you are a fit for Root Capital, your experience working with agri-SMEs and your expertise in digital business solutions. Specific examples of your impact and achievements should be included.


All Jobs

QUICK ALERT SUBSCRIPTION