Agribusiness Advisor- Livestock, Horticulture & Crop

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Project background

SNV Ethiopia is implementing a flagship youth employment program designed to create 800,000 dignified and fulfilling job opportunities for rural young women across high-potential agricultural value chains, such as horticulture, poultry, dairy, and related sectors. The program applies a market systems development approach and integrates Gender Equity and Social Inclusion (GESI) and safeguarding principles to address localized socio-economic and gender barriers affecting young women’s participation in agriculture. Implemented jointly with five Ethiopian and international NGOs, the program operates across seven regional clusters to catalyze long-term systems change in rural youth employment.

Summary of the position

This is an exciting opportunity for someone passionate about creating entrepreneurial opportunities for young people—especially rural young women—and tackling systemic barriers that limit their engagement in profitable agricultural and livestock value chains.

Within this framework, the Cluster Agribusiness Advisor- Livestock, Horticulture & Crop plays the fundamental role to catalyze sustainable economic improvement for rural youth, particularly young women, by strengthening the competitiveness and resilience of livestock and crop-based market systems. By directly enhancing value chains, fostering enterprise growth, and building local capacity, the Advisor works to systematically increase incomes, create employment opportunities, and improve livelihoods. Ultimately, the position exists to translate program strategies into tangible, inclusive results at the cluster level, ensuring that market development is not only productive and profitable but also adaptive to climate challenges and equitable in its benefits, thereby contributing to broader goals of poverty reduction and economic resilience.

Value Chain and Market Systems Implementation

• Lead the operationalization of livestock (poultry, dairy, shoat) and horticulture/crop value chain activities at the cluster level, ensuring interventions respond to local market constraints and opportunities identified through analyses.
• Implement a range of core value chain activities—including local market development, input/output market facilitation, market intelligence, aggregation, and business development services—to increase productivity, income, and employment for rural young people, especially young women.

Youth Enterprise Growth & Market Linkages

• Map existing youth- and rural young women-led MSEs in livestock and horticulture/crop, and design tailored approaches to help them grow, diversify, and create more employment for young women.
• Facilitate direct business linkages for these enterprises with input suppliers, buyers, processors, cooperatives, unions, and service providers.. Provide targeted coaching and mentoring to strengthen business skills, value addition, and market readiness of youth and women entrepreneurs.

Capacity Building & Field-level Technical Support

• Organize and deliver hands-on technical support, including practical demonstrations, productivity trainings, post-harvest and handling workshops, and exposure visits for young women, youth groups, and MSEs.
• Build capacity of cluster technical staff, partner experts, and local stakeholders on market systems, gender integration, youth employment strategies, and business development.

Stakeholder Coordination & Multi-Stakeholder Platforms

• Organize and facilitate cluster-level multi-stakeholder forums on livestock, horticulture, and crop value chains to identify systemic challenges and develop collective solutions.
• Document proceedings, ensuring local stakeholders are actively engaged and that follow-up actions are clear and tracked.
• Build strong operational partnerships with local private sector actors, cooperatives, unions, local government offices, farmer groups, and sectoral associations.

Monitoring, Learning & Adaptive Management

• Regularly monitor progress of livestock and horticulture/crop interventions against work plans and targets, ensuring activities meet quality standards and drive toward income and employment outcomes.
• Support documentation of lessons learned, case stories, and innovations from the cluster and share with the national technical team and MEAL staff for broader learning.
• Document lessons learned, success stories, and innovations from the cluster to inform adaptive management, and contribute to broader program learning through annual reviews, mid-term assessments, and final evaluations.

Basic Qualifications: 

Master’s degree in agriculture, Livestock, Horticulture, Agribusiness, Agricultural Marketing, Agricultural Economics, or closely related field.

Experience

• Minimum of 8 years of relevant experience in livestock and horticulture/crop value chain development, agribusiness, or market system development, with direct field implementation experience in rural settings.
• Experience designing and leading youth enterprise growth interventions, including facilitating business linkages and strengthening MSEs.
• Solid understanding of local, national, and regional agricultural and livestock trade systems, including input/output marketing dynamics, relevant policies, and regulatory environments.
• Demonstrated experience organizing multi-stakeholder platforms, building partnerships with private sector actors, cooperatives, and unions.
• Technical skills in gender integration, youth employment, and climate-smart agriculture programming.
• Strong facilitation, coaching, and training skills.
• Fluency in English; proficiency in local languages is an asset.
• Willingness to travel frequently within the cluster to directly engage with communities, enterprises, and stakeholders.
• Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

Contract Type: National, Full-time

Expected start date: As soon as possible

Duty Station: Arba Minch

Contract Duration: One year with the possibility of extension based on performance and budget availability.

How to Apply

If you believe that your credentials meet the outlined profile, we invite you to apply by uploading your CV and a letter of motivation before/on May 30, 2026. Please submit your application only via: >> Smart Recruiters. All information will be kept in the strictest confidentiality.

If your experience and skills match the position’s requirements, we will contact you to advise on the next steps in the recruitment process.

Working at SNV

SNV offers a challenging work environment, opportunities to lead and innovate, and a commitment to growing your skills in a fulfilling and diverse working environment. Our staff benefit from and contribute to an internal and global network of experts.

At SNV, inclusivity is at the heart of our ethos. We celebrate the diversity of our workforce and uphold a policy of non-discrimination based on factors such as disability status, religion, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, and more.

Vetting

SNV carries out rigorous background and reference checks concerning possible safeguarding incidents for all candidates applying for both nationally and internationally determined positions. As SNV participates in the Inter-Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme, all reference checks include a request to past employers to fill in a questionnaire regarding Misconduct (sexual exploitation, sexual abuse, or sexual harassment), the “Statement of Conduct“. This Statement of Conduct adopts the definitions used in the Scheme.

SNV is an equal opportunities employer and female candidates are encouraged to apply.