Summary
Date Posted: Tuesday, May 31, 2022 , Base Salary: Not Disclosed

JOB DETAILS:
About self help africa:
• Self Help Africa (SHA) is an international NGO dedicated to the vision of an economically thriving and resilient rural Africa. Headquartered in Ireland, SHA creates scalable and sustainable solutions to eradicating long-term poverty through knowledge transfer, investment, and market linkages.

• In 2021, Self Help Africa merged with United Purpose. This doubled our size and created an international NGO that is implementing projects to end extreme hunger and poverty across 17 countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. Collectively a part of the wider Gorta Group, which also includes social enterprise subsidiaries Partner Africa, TruTrade and Cumo Microfinance, the organisation will work with close to six million people this year.

• We believe in market-based solutions to the alleviation of long-term poverty and our primary clients are smallholder farmers in Africa. We work with all participants in the agricultural value chain and believe that you can only achieve long-term sustainable growth by creating profitable businesses (whatever the size) and farmer organisations that can operate at scale.

• We are committed to establishing social enterprises and believe in the business of doing good business throughout Africa. Our subsidiaries include TruTrade, which supports market access for small-holder farmers in the agricultural value-chain; and Partner Africa, an ethical auditing and consultancy firm that operates across more than 40 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.

Job Purpose:
• This role is central to the achievement of SHA’s vision of thriving rural economies and is part of the global technical advisory team. This post will explore and advise on best practice from within Self Help Africa and experiences from other market systems actors to ensure programmes across all countries of operation are providing effective enterprise development support to smallholder farmers moving them beyond subsistence farming to developing commercial, market-based enterprises, promoting their inclusion in national, regional and global markets.

• The Enterprise Advisor will embed market-based approaches in country programmes, identify collaborating partners in the development and private sectors and encourage innovation and facilitate learning across all of our country operations.

• The Enterprise Advisor will be part of a Global Team of Advisors covering Agriculture, Enterprise, Dairy Systems, Gender and Social inclusion, Nutrition, WASH, Forestry and Natural Resource Management.

Key responsibilities:
• The main purpose of this role is to lead our strategy on agribusiness opportunities for smallholder farmers, their associations, cooperatives, etc. Success in this role will be demonstrated by a measurable increase in farmer incomes, through improved market access, attracting additional financing into farmer organisations, strengthened organisation structures, and ensuring better business acumen in every farmer organisation we work with.

• Market System Development: develop a consolidated approach to Market Systems Development across the organisation. Track international best practice. Develop and maintain appropriate guidelines and resources and disseminate to programme teams.
• Sustainable Food Systems: provide vision and inspiration to assist agri-food enterprises to provide safe, nutritious and affordable food to all.
• Enterprise Community of Practice: Build the SHA Enterprise Community of Practice.
• Training and capacity building: provide bespoke training to SHA field staff, partners and clients on Enterprise-related topics.
• Recruitment: support country offices to recruit enterprise specialists.
• Technical Support: provide detailed support, including sourcing external expertise, for the design and implementation of projects covering, but not limited to • Cooperative management and development, •Social Enterprise development •Agro Enterprise management •Market and Value Chain Analysis •Value addition to agriculture produce •Project Appraisal •Business Planning •Access to financial services and products: SACCOs, VSLAs, Micro Finance / Cooperative Bank, insurance and risk management • FinTech: track the rapidly expanding field of mobile financial service appropriate for SHA beneficiaries • Intellectual Property (IP) management • Market based approaches for the delivery of WASH services •graduation of farmer-led enterprises from grant to commercial finance.
• M&E: work with the M&E team to design indicators, data collection and analyses, design the ToRs for midterm reviews and final evaluations, and take part in joint evaluation missions.
• Policy: Lead and contribute to developing policy documents in relation to our agribusiness work and keep abreast of innovations to inform our work.
• Networking: Represent Self Help Africa in relevant regional/international communities of practice, networks in order to promote our work. Document and disseminate Self Help Africa’s experiences.
• Strategy: Ensure that enterprise development practices and projects are in line with Self Help Africa’s group strategy and internal policies on partnership and participation; inclusion (including gender and HIV/AIDS targeting); and environment (natural resource management and adaptation to climate change).
• Proposal development: Support the Fundraising Teams to win new business and funding to support enterprise development throughout the organisation.
• Gorta Group: Working closely with colleagues in TruTrade and Partner Africa to explore opportunities for collaboration and to win new business.

Key relationships:
• Internal
• Technical Advisors at Head Office and Country Programme level
• Programmes Director
• Desk Officers
• Regional Directors/Country Directors/Heads of Programmes
• Fundraising
• TruTrade country leads and TMEA focal point
• Partner Africa Executive Director
• Group CEO

• External
• External stakeholders including but not limited to institutional and private donors, Irish Aid, and international aid agencies such as USAID and FCDO
• Partners/service providers – Establish and maintain effective working relations, particularly national and regional agribusiness

Knowledge & experience
• Essential:
• Primary degree (minimum) in agriculture, cooperative management, social enterprise, finance, business, economics or a related discipline.
• 10 years’ experience of working in the agribusiness sector in Africa.
• Proven professional experience in at least 4 of these sectors:
• Cooperative management and development
• Social Enterprise development.
• Agro Enterprise management
• Market and Value Chain Analysis
• Project Appraisal
• Business Planning
• Micro Finance: SACCOs, VSLAs, Micro Finance / Cooperative Banks.
• FinTech: experience of the rapidly expanding field of mobile financial services.
• Intellectual Property (IP) management.
• Market based approaches for the delivery of WASH services.
• Programme cycle management.
• Excellent skills in report writing and proposal development.
• Strong research, evaluation and analytical skills.
• Experience in using participatory approaches in project design, monitoring and evaluation
• Excellent written English essential
• Flexibility and the ability to work in a multi-cultural team
• Self-motivated with good organisation, planning and management skills and a track record in working remotely.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills and experience in providing remote support.
• Commitment to the vision, mission and values of Self Help Africa

• Preferred:

• International Experience in Africa and Asia.
• French or Portuguese
• Previous experience as an advisor.
• Proven professional experience in > 4 of these sectors: • Cooperative management and development • Social Enterprise development • Agro Enterprise management • Market and Value Chain Analysis • Project Appraisal • Business Planning • Micro Finance: SACCOs, VSLAs, Micro Finance / Cooperative Banks • FinTech: experience of the rapidly expanding field of mobile financial services • Intellectual Property (IP) management • Market based approaches for the delivery of WASH services.

• Experience with key donors: EU, Irish Aid, UK Aid, GIZ, FCDO 4 of these sectors: • Cooperative management and development • Social Enterprise development • Agro Enterprise management • Market and Value Chain Analysis • Project Appraisal • Business Planning • Micro Finance: SACCOs, VSLAs, Micro Finance / Cooperative Banks • FinTech: experience of the rapidly expanding field of mobile financial services • Intellectual Property (IP) management • Market based approaches for the delivery of WASH services. • Experience with key donors: EU, Irish Aid, UK Aid, GIZ, FCDO ">

Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months: 24

Level of Education: Bachelor Degree

Job application procedure
• To apply: https://selfhelpafrica.org/ie/careers-apply/?jbcd=5001v000022SyKP%20-%20Global%20Enterprise%20Advisor%20(31726 


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