Financial Services Lead, Food for Progress SunGold Project

RTI International is an independent scientific research institute dedicated to improving the human condition. Our vision is to address the world’s most critical problems with technical and science-based solutions in pursuit of a better future. Clients rely on us to answer questions that demand an objective and multidisciplinary approach—one that integrates expertise across social, statistical, data, and laboratory sciences, engineering, and other technical disciplines to solve the world’s most challenging problems. We believe in the promise of science and technical solutions, and we push ourselves every day to deliver on that promise for the good of people, communities, and businesses in the US and around the world. If you are looking for the opportunity to make a real difference, RTI is the place for you.

About the Hiring Group

RTI’s Center for International Development implements large-scale, multidisciplinary projects across health, energy, agriculture, water, and education by leveraging RTI’s deep cross-institutional knowledge, proven solutions, and contextual expertise to increase global impact by improving lives, driving economic growth, and enhancing stability in fragile and developing geographies.

What You’ll Do

RTI is seeking Financial Services Lead candidates for a 5-year Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food for Progress (FFPr) program in Ethiopia. This Food for Progress program will use a market driven, U.S.-led value chain approach to transform Ethiopia’s sunflower sector and benefit U.S. businesses by addressing key productivity, market linkage, financing, and policy constraints identified by public and private actors. The program will focus on four broad activities that increase Ethiopian sunflower productivity, competitiveness and value addition while reducing trade barriers for U.S. agribusiness. These activities include building the capacity of extension services; facilitating financial services, improving market access through contract farming; and promoting improved policies and regulatory frameworks.

The Financial Services Lead will identify key challenges in sourcing finance for farmers and agricultural SMEs in the sunflower value chain and develop key steps and interventions to address these challenges to enhance the growth of agricultural SMEs in the sector. The Lead will also serve as a key liaison among Financial Institutions, producers and off takers in the production areas and will lead efforts to resolve access to finance challenges in the sunflower sector in Ethiopia.

The Financial Services Lead will coordinate with actors in the financial ecosystem in selected sunflower growing woredas in Oromia, South, Sidama, Center and Southwest Regions. The position will be based in Jimma, with frequent travel to project woredas in the select regions. This position reports to SunGold’s Deputy Chief of Party and he/she will be leading the implementation of Activity 2 – Access to Finance and Activity 3 – Market Access and work closely with the Agriculture Lead on Activity 1 – Agricultural Extension Agents and Services and Activity 2 and 3.

Key responsibilities and tasks

Technical

• Supervise two Sungold Agribusiness/Market Officers, one in Jimma and one in another field office.
• Work closely with the Agricultural Lead and other Sungold staff to support implementation of SunGold’s activities.
• Contribute to the Sunflower value chain and other analyses to identify opportunities and constraints in the Sunflower market system.
• Facilitate linkages between input suppliers, farmers, cooperatives, processors, and traders together with the Sungold Agribusiness/Market Officers.
• Identify the appropriate financial instruments and guide RTI’s engagement with Financial Institutes (guarantee schemes, matching funds, etc.) to be used to improve access to finance for agriculture SMEs.

Grants

• Develop expression of interest (EOI) and request for proposals (RFP) for financial institutions, Business Development Services firms or consultants as per the access to finance grant mechanism for technical assistance to agri-SMEs and farmers.
• Contribute to the evaluations of submitted EOIs and proposals by the preselected bidders.
• Develop performance-based contracts or agreements with financial institutions and conduct negotiations for signature.
• Monitor implementation of the (grant) agreements with financial institutions, BDS, and consultants ensuring quality and timely contractual targets achievements, through deliverable reviews, e.g. reports, tools, products, and field monitoring visits.
• Develop tools for the (grant) agreements implementation and monitoring.
• Support agricultural SMEs in accessing finance by meeting the loan requirements, e.g. preparing the required documentation and application form.

M&E

• Organize (pause and reflect or) exchange workshops with partners to draw lessons and document best practices.
• Collect, track, and create materials to disburse learned lessons from best practices of the project supported enterprises.
• Support project monitoring and evaluation efforts through routine data collection, cleaning and verification, support M&E compliance among project partners and sub-grantees through regular follow-up, facilitate data collection for baseline, annual, midline, and endline evaluations/surveys in the field, collect feedback from project beneficiaries and stakeholders to inform learning and adaptation, and support the compilation and submission of monthly and quarterly progress reports.

Communications

• Contribute to the development of communication materials, e.g. photos, stories, blogs.
• Develop draft annual workplan and budget for the Activity 2 – Access to finance and Activity 3 – Market Access components.
• Act as a liaison between all relevant project stakeholders (e.g. regional teams, project HQ management) on anything related to access to finance activities.
• Provide regular updates to SunGold’s senior management team.
• Any other task as requested by Sungold project.

What You’ll Need

Required Qualifications and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, banking, economics, management, accounting, agricultural economics or other relevant and 8 years of relevant experience, or Master’s degree in finance, banking, economics, management, accounting, agricultural economics or other relevant and 6 years of relevant experience.
• Experience in the Ethiopian financial sector, RUSACCOs, and NGOs with the projects’ main focus on access to finance for MSMEs and agri-SMEs.
• At least 3 years’ work experience in agricultural finance in an Micro-Finance Institution or a bank in Ethiopia.
• Demonstrated ability to interact effectively and collaboratively with a broad range of public and private sector counterparts and other key stakeholders in the agriculture sector.
• Excellent and demonstrable in-depth understanding of the dynamics of the Ethiopian agricultural private sector, SME financing, and challenges related to financing agricultural SMEs in Ethiopia.
• Track record of successfully working with large financial institutions in Ethiopia.
• Verbal and written fluency in English and Afaan Oromo.
• Ability and willingness to travel frequently throughout Ethiopia to regional activity sites.

Desired Skills and Experience

• Specific work experience in agricultural SME financing, financial product design, and agricultural market linkage.
• Past experience working with international donors.
• Demonstrable track record of success with program design, performance management, monitoring, and evaluation.
• Strong organizational and interpersonal skills, attention to detail, and ability to work in a team-oriented setting.
• Proven ability to work under pressure, and with multiple concurrent demands.

Additional information for the candidate

• This position is open to Ethiopian Nationals only.
• Submit a 3-page CV and a 1-page cover letter only. You should not submit additional information, i.e., certificates, diplomas etc. at this stage.