Program Manager at Land O’Lakes Venture37: (Deadline 26 September 2024)

POSITION DESCRIPTION

Program Manager, Rwanda

Cooperative Resilience and Equity Activity (CORE)

Kigali, Rwanda

Background:

Land O’Lakes Venture37 (Venture37) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit helping communities around the world build economies by strengthening agriculture from farm-to-fork, helping businesses grow, and linking farmers to markets. Since our start in 1981, we have been leveraging nearly 100 years of expertise in crop inputs, agricultural insights, dairy and animal nutrition from our close affiliate, Land O’Lakes, Inc., a farmer-owned agribusiness committed to fulfilling its purpose of feeding human progress.

Project Description:

Venture37 is implementing the USAID–funded 5-year, $11.6M Cooperative Resilience and Equity activity “CORE” in Rwanda and Zambia. Running from October 2023 through September 2028, CORE aims to foster vibrant, sustainable cooperative ecosystems in Rwanda and Zambia, in which self-managed cooperatives and all their members flourish economically and socially. Through CORE, Venture37 will take a localized and market-responsive approach, engaging market actors, including women and youth in activity design, implementation, and measurement to tailor activities to their unique needs while strengthening their capacity to create sustainable solutions.

Across Rwanda and Zambia, CORE will reach over 160 dairy, grains, horticulture, and oilseed cooperatives and 12,000 members in partnership with local market actors; the activity’s objectives will be met through three major components, namely:

• Inclusively strengthen the capacity of cooperatives by dynamically responding to their unique challenges and market opportunities through but not limited to provision of tailored capacity strengthening, professional management, enhanced strategic market and finance linkages.
• Improve the cooperative enabling environment by working with private and public service providers to deliver market-responsive and well-coordinated services to cooperatives.
• Spur innovation, learning and continuous improvement in the local and global development community through embedded applied research.

Position Summary

The Program Manager will serve as Land O’Lakes Venture37’s technical and cooperative development expert based in Kigali, Rwanda. The primary role is to provide technical leadership and program management for the Rwanda-based activities of the USAID-funded Cooperative Resilience and Equity Activity (CORE).

The job holder will have a role in contributing to the activity objectives by working directly with apex organizations, building relationships with national-level stakeholders, and overseeing the technical implementation of the activity. He/she will liaise with other individuals on the activity team, specifically the Chief of Party. The job holder also provides expertise on areas of cooperative financial management, business management, business plan development, producer group accounting and operations, governance, financial models and linkages/access to financial institutions and services. The role will also require program management duties including report writing, event planning, procurement of supplies and services, and management of consultants.

Primary Responsibilities include:

• Ensure technical project activities achieve performance targets.
• Manage the CORE workplan to ensure timely, quality, and on-budget implementation of activities in Rwanda.
• Lead implementation and achievement of CORE’s cooperative enabling environment improvement objective.
• Liaise and visit regularly with activity partners, including cooperatives, government ministries and agencies and private businesses.
• Advise and manage activity staff on high-level activity implementation including the enabling environment initiatives, cooperative technical assistance, marketing, and periodic assessments.
• Implement project adaptations to ensure innovative, effective approaches to reaching activity targets.
• Oversee the project’s gender inclusion work, including direct management of the project Gender Inclusion Specialist.
• Ensure the project is compliant with applicable rules and regulations of USAID, Land O’Lakes Venture37, and the Government of Rwanda.
• Oversee large sub-awards and consulting agreements to ensure quality implementation.
• Disseminate learning to create and sustain an organization-wide understanding of latest learnings and global best practices in cooperative and producer organization development.
• Leverage Cooperative Development Program (CDP) activities and learning to inform Practice Management Area strategies around market access and cooperative development.
• Keep project implementation information and documents up to date on the project SharePoint site.
• Other duties as to be assigned by the supervisor to support the projects and/or the work of Land O’Lakes Venture37.

Reporting & Supervision:

• This position is supervised by the CORE Chief of Party.
• This position will manage at least three Rwanda-based positions, including the Cooperative Business Advisor, Access to Finance Specialist, Gender and Youth Inclusion Specialist, as well as CORE sub-awardees.

Required qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in business, economics, agriculture, or a related field.
• At least five (5) years of progressively responsible project management or technical experience.
• Experience working with international development projects; USAID experience preferred.
• Experience with agricultural value chains, market systems, and/or agricultural enterprise development.
• Experience working with and strengthening capacity of agricultural farmer-owned enterprises (Cooperatives, Associations, Small and Medium Enterprises)
• Experience managing relationships with local, regional, and government agencies.
• Strong track record of being flexible and adaptable to program changes and needs.
• Experience and ability to manage multiple staff
• Proven track record managing a development project or program in Rwanda.
• Fluent in English and Kinyarwanda.

To apply, please visit Program Manager – USAID Cooperative Resilience and Equity Activity (CORE) – Careers (avature.net) No later than 26 september 2024 

Land O’Lakes Venture37 will never ask you for personable identifiable information, and we will never request money or payment during the recruitment or employment process.

Land O’Lakes Venture37 is an equal opportunity employer and an organization striving to help global communities thrive through agriculture. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, religion, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or veteran status, among other factors. Our culture values a diversity of voices. So, bring us your unique experiences, your workstyle, and your dreams — they’ll only make us stronger.