JOB AT ICCO Cooperation : Junior Program Officer (JPO) : ( Deadline : 26 May 2019 )

 

JOB AT ICCO Cooperation : Junior Program Officer (JPO) : ( Deadline : 26 May 2019 )

 

 

ICCO Cooperation

Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO Cooperation) isan international non-governmental organisation founded in 1964 and implementing programs with partners in Central, Eastern and Southern Africa since the 1980s.

 

Our vision is a just world without poverty. A world where people claim and assume their rights in a sustainable civil society.

 

ICCO Cooperation is implementing the “Strengthening African Rural Smallholders (STARS)” program in collaboration with ICCO Terrafina and in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation. STARS is a 5-year program running from 2016 to 2020, aiming to increase food security and income of smallholder farmers in Rwanda, Ethiopia, Senegal and Burkina Faso by facilitating access to financial markets and agricultural services. Key to the program is that it strives for market-based systemic change by developing and piloting business models in value chains and value chain finance that can be replicated by independent market actors.

 

 

Website:  http://www.icco-cooperation.org

 

Job Description / Terms of Reference

 

Junior Program Officer (JPO) – Access to finance and value chain development

 

CLOSING DATE: 26th May 2019

 

The STARS Program of ICCO

 

The “Strengthening African Smallholders (STARS)” is implemented by ICCO to improve the livelihood of Smallholder Farmers (SHF), see also https://www.icco-cooperation.org/en/projects/stars

 

 

 

 

The three activity areas of STARS are as follows:

 

To develop and implement innovative, sector-specific agriculture financial products with MFIs for smallholder farmers;

To strengthen value chains and link smallholder farmers into these chains as well as linking them to financial and extension services
To broaden the evidence base in rural agricultural finance, value chain development and share lessons learned.
Specification of the job

 

We are recruiting a Junior Program Officer to provide technical assistance to MFI and VCD advisors based in Kigali, Rwanda. The Junior Program Officer reports to the VCD advisor and to the country lead/ Microfinance Advisor in Rwanda.

 

Location : Kigali – Rwanda with regular multi-day travel in a country

 

 

Reporting Relationships

 

The Junior Program Officer reports to the VCD advisor and to the country lead/ Microfinance Advisor in Rwanda.

 

Duties and responsibilities:

 

● Contribute to the development of access to finance

● Contribute to the technical support of Producer Organizations (PO) and monitor the progress of PO

● Contribute to gender aspects in the STARS program.

● Contribute to develop and manage activities of partners / with partners in general

● Contribute and participate in planning, implementing and monitoring the activities using a Market Systems Development approach (M4P)

● Support VCD advisor and Microfinance advisor in managing program partners

● Support in providing quarterly information on partner progress for reporting purpose,

● execute other program activities when needed

Key result areas

● Program implementation (support)

● Learning

 

 

Deliverables

 

● Reports on a field visit, workshops, other

● Microfinance progress performance update

● Handle the collection of reports and some level of analysis

● POs progress/performance update

● Success stories and case studies

● Other documents as needed

 

 

 

Qualification / experience

 

Competences

 

● University degree in rural development, agribusiness, agriculture economics, business administration or another related subject with good academic results

● Have got a first class honors degree

● Experience with rural areas and understanding of the ability and constraints of rural smallholder farmers, Producer Organizations (POs), Banking and finance or international NGOs.

● Good understanding of agribusiness in Rwanda,

● Committed to work in the agriculture sector in Rwanda especially rice and maize value chains and agriculture financing is added advantage

● ICT: knowledge of google drive and G-suite i.e. docs, sheets and slides or MS Office, knowledge on E-mail

● Fluent in English and working knowledge of French.

● Willingness to learn

● Strong analytical and problem-solving skills

● Self-motivated, proactive and result driven;

● Reliable and dependable personality

● High standard of integrity and morale

Personal development aspects for JPO

 

 

The nature of a Junior Officer position is

 

a) To contribute and to learn and to acquire professional skills.

b) To achieve, a specific personal development and training plan will be agreed in collaboration with regional HR and the country team. It will be updated every year and includes challenging tasks to be achieved and ample support and coaching.

The development plan consists of both technical skills and personality / behavioral skills.

After a period of three years, the junior should become a medior (Program Officer).

 

Terms of employment

 

● Full time (40 hours per week),

● 3 month probation period,

● Contract till end 2020

● Local contract

● Terms of employment are stipulated in the contract, the regional office HR manual applies.

 

 

How to apply

 

Interested candidates should send a CV (not more than 3 pages) and an expression of interest to stars-hr@icco.nl

 

Only email applications with less than 2MB will be considered. Please indicate “Rwanda – Junior Program Officer Position” in the subject of your application email.

 

 

Please note that only those selected for interviews will be contacted. If you are not contacted within 4 weeks consider it as unsuccessful.

 

We apologize that we cannot provide a response to all applicants. Any form of lobbying will lead to automatic disqualification.