Position: Director- Delivery Unit
Term of Employment: One year with possible extension
Duty Station(s): Addis Ababa
Required Number: One
Salary & Benefits: Negotiable
Application deadline: May 28, 2022
BACKGROUND:
The Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI) is a strategy and delivery-oriented government Institute created to help accelerate the growth and transformation of the country’s agriculture sector. The ATI envisions that smallholder farmers are commercialized with greater incomes, inclusiveness, resilience and sustainability, contributing to transformed agriculture by 2030.
The Institute focuses on two primary national approaches to catalyze agricultural transformation. First, we support the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), and its federal and regional affiliate institutions and other partners to identify and address systemic bottlenecks within the sector’s development plan. Second, we support Regional Governments to accelerate the development of high-priority commodity value chains in clearly defined geographic clusters, through the Agricultural Commercialization Clusters (ACC) Program.
Our major activities include conducting strategic and analytical studies, providing technical implementation support, coordinating platforms to better integrate partners and projects, and designing and directly leading a number of implementation projects. Our headquarters are in Addis Ababa, with regional office representations in Amhara, Oromia, SNNP, and Tigray regional offices, allowing us to work closely with a wide range of public, private and development sector partners across the country.
ATI had launched a Delivery Unit in the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) in 2009 E.C. to directly support MoA’s work to address systemic challenges of the sector. The MoA Delivery Unit will be jointly overseen by the Minister of Agriculture and ATI’s senior management. The Delivery Unit team has been playing a highly visible and pivotal role in accelerating agricultural transformation and development in Ethiopia.
The MoA Delivery Unit will be active in several key areas:
POSITION SUMMARY:
The Head of the Delivery Unit will be seconded at the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and report to the Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture where the DU is placed, with a second functional reporting line to the Senior Director of Systemic Intervention oversight Team at ATI. He/she will work closely with the Minister and office of the Minister to align on DU priorities, agree on annual plans and targets, put in place regular performance monitoring and management routines, seek feedback on DU performance, and escalate critical issues that require the senior leader’s involvement. The DU Head will also be responsible to produce a monthly performance report on the DU to ensure issues in the implementation of this new model can be quickly identified and enhancements proactively made.
Candidates for these roles must therefore bring an entrepreneurial, can-do attitude, and enjoy working in a fast-paced organization that is mission and results driven. They will have to have very strong leadership, senior stakeholder management, and team management experience, and a track record of effectively leading planning and execution of major programs, projects or initiatives. They will also demonstrate very strong analytical and critical thinking skills, attention to detail, and excellent written and verbal communication, and program and project management skills. Strong candidates will also have the ability to exercise good judgment in a variety of situations, multitask and work under pressure and competing priorities.
ACCOUNTABILITY:
The Director of DU is accountable for the delivery support of MoA’s work on the Transformation Agenda and key priority areas of the Minister by:
RESPONSIBILITIES:
The responsibilities of the Director of DU are for the delivery of DU goals. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
Planning
Tracking and Monitoring
Technical Support
Capacity Building
Stakeholder Management - Establish strong, trust-based relationships with and regularly engage relevant internal or external senior stakeholders and initiative owners around annual planning and target-setting for priority initiatives, enhancing execution effectiveness, tracking, reporting and escalation, and problem-solving, to ensure strong stakeholder buy-in and achievement of initiative targets
External engagements
Internal alignment and coordination
Leadership
o Strategic thinking
o Problem solving
o Progress review
o People Performance Management
o Capacity Building
o Operational support
Other