Ghana: Team Leader - West Africa Food Markets Programme

The West Africa Food Markets Programme (WAFM) is looking for an outstanding and dynamic development professional to step up to the role of Team Leader for an innovative food markets programme. This is an excellent opportunity for an ambitious mid-level development professional, keen to fast-track into the management stream. Based in Accra, Ghana, this role offers the right candidate the chance to work on an innovative pilot programme, with the potential to scale up after 3 years, spearheading DFID’s approach to tackling food security in West Africa.

The Position

The Team Leader role will provide overall leadership and direction to the WAFM programme, as well as additional technical leadership and management oversight of the Challenge and Policy Funds. You will manage the project team, spread across Accra and Abuja, provide donor relationship management, represent the Programme externally, and undertake knowledge management and financial management.

This is a fixed term position for 4 years to be based in Accra and reporting directly to the Programme Director.

The Programme

Through the West Africa Food Markets Pilot Programme (the Programme), DFID will pilot a new approach to tackling the causes of the multiple market failures in staple food markets in West Africa by establishing a Programme Management Unit (PMU) that has an in-depth understanding of staple food market systems and the policy environment in West Africa. The Programme will focus efforts on increasing staple food trade along key corridors across two key borders (Ghana – Burkina Faso & Niger – Nigeria) only. The PMU will play a brokering role between public and private players in these markets systems. The PMU will address market failures by deploying interventions carefully targeted on regional and “potentially regional” staple food value chains across the 2 target borders, by stimulating private sector investment in the regional markets and by targeting complementary policy and regulatory changes deemed realistically achievable. In the process, the Programme will generate learning on the development of regional food staple markets in Africa.

The objective of the Programme is to achieve the impact of better functioning regional staple food market systems between the target four focus countries (Ghana – Burkina Faso, Niger – Nigeria). This will be realised through the outcome of more staple food traded and more farmers and farming households benefitting from cross-border value chains. The Programme, together with the East and Southern Africa Staple Food Markets Programme (ESASFM) and the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF), will contribute to Africa Regional Department's headline result of an additional 3 million people benefitting from cross-border value chains. The West Africa Food Markets Pilot Programme will benefit over 130,000 farmers and more than 700,000 people (including household members) by 2018. The Programme will also contribute to DFID’s Sahel Disaster Resilience Strategy by improving the functioning of food markets in the Sahel in order to make food more affordable to poor people.

Person Specification

Required:

· 7+ years’ experience working in a managerial role

· Experience on a donor funded programme, preferably DFID

· Deep understanding of market and policy issues around trade and food systems in West Africa

· Significant experience working in francophone Africa

· Demonstrable experience with agricultural value chains and access to finance

· Experience of fund or grant management

· Experience brokering strong partnerships, particularly in the private/public space

· Dynamic attitude and proven ability to develop innovative solutions

· Fluency in English and full working proficiency in French

· Excellent report writing skills

Desirable:

· Previous Team Leader or Chief of Party experience

· Ability to effectively line manage team members from a distance

· Understanding of the key challenges surrounding the use Challenge Funds in donor-funded programmes

· Nationals of West Africa are strongly encouraged to apply

Interested?

Please submit your application via the following link:

http://grminternational.force.com/Careers/ts2__JobDetails?jobId=a0I9000000ReENxEAN&tSource=

Please note that the deadline for applications is July 21st 2015.

The job advert will be closed early if a suitable candidate is found.