Consultant - Internal/External

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) seeks to recruit a Consultant.  The consultancy assignment aims to systematically assess the policy relevant capacities of the regional agricultural offices and relevant affiliated institutions, focusing on key policy skills, resources, and competencies necessary to perform and implement policy functions. It also aims to identify capacity gaps and develop a roadmap to guide effective policy making processes at individual, organizational, and systemic levels. Specific objectives: the followings are the specific objectives of the policy capacity gap assessment to: -

• Assess the skills, knowledge and competencies of staff involved in policy formulation, implementation, developing and enforcing of polices/directives and legislations.
• Assess structure, systems, tools, infrastructure and technological capability for developing data driven policy design, analysis and implementation, M & E;
• Assess capability to track policy implementation and policy outcomes and impacts.
• Explore the capacity organization to mobilize, allocate, manage, monitor financial resources to support policy initiatives.
• Assess the capacity to engaged stakeholder such as public, private sector and civil societies in the policy making process.
• Based on the above information, conducts SWOT analysis for each assessment areas; and Identify and prioritize critical bottlenecks and develop a 5-year policy capacity development road map with detailed interventions with estimated budget breaking by years.
• Provide a two-round training on policy planning, design, analysis and implementation to the agricultural staff. (Training part of the contract will be extended based on the performance of the two rounds-training provided).

General Background:

Policy capacity is a major concern for public institutions entrusted with generating and implementing effective policy responses to complex social issues. In the literature policy capacity refers to the set of skills and resources required for policy functions, which can be classified into three categories: analytical, operational, and political. These competences involve several types of policy-relevant capacities necessary at individual, organizational, and systemic levels. It involves the capability to scan the environment and understand social problems, set policy agendas, identify policy alternatives and assess their implications, and policy formulation and implementation, as well as the capacity to conduct monitoring, evaluation, and impact assessments.

Since 2002, Ethiopia's government has implemented agricultural and rural development policy to foster economic growth, establish a free market economy, and benefit its citizens. Despite its considerable growth, meeting food demand of the growing population, exporting quality products, meeting industry input needs, and achieving structural economic transformation remains the major challenges for the country. In response to the challenges the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) in collaboration with pertinent stakeholders has revised its agricultural and rural development policy to align with home-grown economic reform and the country's ten-year perspective plan, with the goal of capitalizing on sectoral growth possibilities and achieving structural transformation.

Established in 2006, AGRA, in line with Ethiopia's national development plan, has been collaborating with the government to achieve transformation in food systems, strengthen seed systems, promote sustainable farming, adapt to climate change, promote free trade, improve soil health, and reduce women inequality. AGRA Ethiopia Strategy (2023-2027) aims to reach 2.4 million smallholder farmers in Ethiopia, with 30% being women, through four business lines: Seed Systems, Sustainable Farming, Inclusive Markets and Trade, and Policy and State Capability. Through Policy and State Capability business line, it has launched a project entitled: “Strengthening agriculture policy enabling, flagship program implementation and coordination and execution capacity of Minstry of Agriculture and its affiliate institutions in Ethiopia”.

The project aims to strengthen policy capabilities of federal ministry, its affiliated institutions and regional agricultural offices. The efforts involve a step forward to address key capacity challenges related to policy formulation and implementation, such as resource, technical capacity, planning and coordination, tools and methodologies for tracking progress/ impact measurement, etc. By doing so, the support will contribute to speed up inclusive agricultural transformations and contribute to development goals of the country. Conducting policy capacity gap assessment, developing capacity road map, preparing training plan, and developing training manual and provision of training are some the key actions supported by the project.

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) founded in 2006, is an African-led African-based organization that seeks to catalyze Agriculture Transformation in Africa. AGRA is focused on putting smallholder farmers at the center of the continent’s growing economy by transforming agriculture from a solitary struggle to survive into farming as a business that thrives. As the sector that employs the majority of Africa’s people, nearly all of them small-scale farmers, AGRA recognizes that developing smallholder agriculture into a productive, efficient, and sustainable system is essential to ensuring food security, lifting millions out of poverty, and driving equitable growth across the continent.  

AGRA is rolling out a new 5-year strategy to catalyze and sustain an Inclusive Agricultural Transformation in Africa to increase incomes and improve food security for 30 million farmers. Under this strategy, AGRA will deliver through an approach that simultaneously catalyzes change at farmer level, strengthens input and output market systems and puts government at the center to enable and champion private-sector-led agricultural growth at national level.  

Scope of work:

The assignment focusses on conducting a policy gap assessment and developing a road map to strengthen policy formulation and implementation capacity of the regional agricultural offices and its affiliated institutions. Considering to this, the following are the major activities of the assignment:

• Conduct desk review and take a stock of existing policy capacity from previous reports.
• Conduct an in-depth individual and organizational level capacity gap assessment of regional agricultural offices and its affiliated institutions.
• Develop agricultural policy capacity building road map guiding the capacity building of regional agricultural offices and its affiliated institutions.
• Conduct a two-round capacity building training on policy planning, design, analysis, implementation. The policy capacity gap assessment covers national level, with organizations sorted out in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Geographical scope and selected organization:

1. Bureau of Agriculture (BoA)

• Oromia, Amhara, Sidama, South Ethiopia, Benishangul-Gumuz, Somali and Gambela

2. Institutions

• Two institutions per region affiliated to BoA

Required qualifications:

The consultant is required to have the following knowledge and skills Qualifications.

Education:

• A minimum of a Master’s degree or a Ph.D. in agricultural policy/capacity building, agricultural economics, economics, strategic and development planning, development studies, rural development or other relevant field of study.

Experience and Skills:

• At least 10 years of proven experience in designing, conducting and facilitating the capacity gap assessment programs in Ethiopian agriculture or related sectors. Competencies specific to this assignment. 
• Comprehensive understanding of Ethiopia's agriculture sector, including crops, livestock, fisheries, natural resources, and agricultural investment,
• He/she should have a good understanding of the Ethiopian agricultural and rural development policy landscape, institutional arrangement and policy practices,
• He/she should possess expertise in policy planning, development systems, capacity gap assessment, and road map development,
• Proven experience in policy gap assessment and road map development at both institutional and individual levels in Ethiopia or elsewhere worldwide,
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate with government departments and stakeholders at a decentralized level, including experience in conducting quantitative and qualitative surveys and employ participatory evaluations tools,
• Proven experience in Ethiopian food system analysis.
• Qualification in M&E and Programme design is an added advantage.
• Proven record of having been a Team Leader on similar assignments
• Proven expertise in conducting institutional assessments and reviews General competencies Excellent oral and written communication skills, fluent in English and sufficient knowledge of local languages
• High level of accuracy, attention to detail and thoroughness.
• Ability to work under minimal supervision, be proactive, and with sound judgement.
• Excellent interpersonal and human relations skills
• Excellent communication, analytical and writing skills.
• Stakeholder engagement skills
• Workshop facilitation skills.
• Demonstrated ability to deliver quality results within strict deadlines. Additional requirements: The consultant should have team members with complementary knowledge and skills of capacity gap assessment and provision of training

Duty Station:     Addis Ababa, and capital towns of regional stats

Terms of appointment:  The duration of assignment is for 40 days

Applicants should provide a cover letter and curriculum vitae; names and addresses (including telephone and email) of three referees who are knowledgeable about the candidate’s professional qualifications and work experience to be included in the curriculum vitae. Consultants should submit 3 pagers of technical and one page of financial proposals together with CVs of the lead consultant and associate experts.

The position and reference number: REF: C/AGRA/31/24 should be clearly indicated in the subject line of the cover letter. All applications to be submitted online on our recruitment portal: http://ilri.simplicant.com/ before 4 November 2024.

AGRA/ILRI does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process (application, interview meeting, processing or training).  

To find more about AGRA, visit our Website at www.agra.org.   

To find out more about working at ILRI visit our website at https://www.ilri.org/ 

Suitably qualified women are particularly encouraged to apply. 

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