Agribusiness Advisor – Horticulture/ crops (Program Officer)

Professional Alliance for Development (PADet) is an indigenous, not-for-profit; a nongovernmental humanitarian organization established in 1998. It has been serving disadvantaged and marginalized segments of the community especially youth, women children in the areas of Reproductive Health HIV/AIDs Prevention and Care, Child Protection, Women Development and Livelihood &Food Securities for the last 25 years.

Project Background

PADet, as a consortium partner in a program led by SNV and funded by Mastercard Foundation will be implementing an anticipated flagship program focused on enabling 112,000 Rural young women (RYW) to access dignified and fulfilling jobs in Eastern Amhara regions. The program will target high-potential agricultural value chains (e.g., horticulture, poultry, dairy), using a market systems development approach. So PADet needs to recruit qualified and competent candidates in the following job opportunities.

Job title: Agribusiness Advisor – Horticulture/ crops (Program Officer)

Grade level: IX

Location: Field office/Dessie

Report to: Cluster Coordinator

Number of staff required: 1

Job summary:

The position holder will be responsible for directly implementing horticulture and crop value chain interventions at the cluster level, with an emphasis on unlocking local agribusiness opportunities, facilitating practical market linkages, and supporting youth-led enterprise growth.

In this position, s/he will work closely with rural young women and men, youth-led micro and small enterprises (MSEs), community structures, private sector actors, cooperatives, unions, and local government offices to ensure the program achieves tangible results on the ground. Your role will be critical to driving market system improvements that create sustainable income and employment opportunities for young people—especially rural young women.

Responsibilities:

Direct Implementation of Horticulture/Crop Value Chain Activities

• Lead the operationalization of horticulture/crop value chain and market system activities at the cluster level, ensuring interventions are tailored to the local context and effectively address constraints identified through earlier market analyses.
• Contribute toward the realization of annual, quarter and monthly planning, as well as regular reporting related to livestock value chain and market system activities of the cluster.
• Lead local assessments and analyses of the horticulture/crop sector to identify agribusiness opportunities tailored to rural young women.
• Design and execute market-based intervention strategies that address identified constraints and leverage opportunities specific to the cluster context.
• Implement core value chain and market system activities—including market development, market intelligence, facilitation of local input/output market linkages, and business development services—ensuring this leads to increased production, income, and jobs.

Enterprise growth & Market Linkages

• Map existing youth-led MSEs in horticulture/crop and design tailored approaches to help them expand, diversify, and employ more young women.
• Facilitate direct business linkages for young women-led enterprises with input suppliers, buyers, processors, cooperatives, unions, and service providers.
• Introduce and promote appropriate new technologies, productivity-enhancing practices, and value addition opportunities to strengthen horticulture and crop enterprises.

Capacity Building & Field-level Support

• Provide coaching, mentoring, and hands-on technical support to rural young women, youth groups, and MSEs engaged in horticulture/crop enterprises.
• Organize and deliver practical demonstrations, productivity training sessions, post-harvest handling workshops, and exposure visits to build capacity and encourage adoption of improved practices.

Stakeholder Coordination & Multi-Stakeholder Platforms

• Organize and facilitate cluster-level multi-stakeholder meetings on selected value chains to identify systemic challenges and build collective solutions in input and output markets.
• Prepare, document, and share proceedings of these forums, ensuring local stakeholders are actively engaged and drive problem-solving.
• Build and maintain strong operational relationships with private sector actors, cooperatives, local government offices, farmer organizations, and other relevant stakeholders in the horticulture and crop sectors within the cluster.

Monitoring, Learning & Adaptive Management

• Regularly monitor and track implementation progress against work plans, ensuring activities meet quality standards and contribute to cluster-level income and employment targets.
• Document lessons learned, success stories, and innovations from field implementation, sharing these insights with the wider program team to inform adaptive learning.
• Support cluster-level contributions to annual reviews, midterm assessments, final evaluations, and routine progress reporting.
• Ensure all horticulture/crop interventions are designed and implemented in ways that intentionally address gender disparities and enhance climate resilience.

 

Qualifications & Experience:

• Master’s/BA degree in agriculture development, Horticulture, Agribusiness, Agricultural Marketing, Agricultural Economics, or a closely related field.
• At least 4 years of relevant experience in horticulture/crop value chain development and agribusiness, with demonstrated success in direct field-level implementation.
• Practical experience in youth employment, market system development, local input/output market dynamics, and marketing of agricultural commodities and supporting rural women in enterprise growth.
• Familiarity with local, national, and regional horticulture trade systems and the policy environment governing the sector.
• Experience organizing multi-stakeholder forums, strengthening cooperatives, and working closely with sectoral associations.
• Skill in project formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation
• Solid understanding of gender integration, climate-smart agriculture programming in value chain initiatives.
• Willingness to travel frequently within the cluster to engage directly with communities, enterprises, and stakeholders.
• Proven report writing and communication skills
• Good interpersonal and make logical and timely decision skills
• Fluency in English language.

Personal Competency:

• Willingness to work extra working hours and weekends with staff.
• Highly motivated, self-managed and Strategic oriented.
• High level commitment to achieve project goal and Objectives.
• Able to work with minimum supervision.
• Ability to prepare and submit quality reports timely.