Coordinator – Market Systems Development Full Time

Organization Profile and Background

Welthungerhilfe is an international NGO with Head-Quarter in Bonn and working in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Welthungerhilfe is fighting to help free the world of hunger and poverty. This vision is the basis of our organization’s character and activities. Welthungerhilfe secure funds from private donations and international funding organizations, for example, EC, UN-OCHA, ECHO, and German Government. We work in the sectors of Rural Development, WASH, Natural Resource Management and Social Development. Welthungerhilfe Ethiopia follows partnership approach for project planning, implementation, and administration with Ethiopian Partner-NGOs and in exceptional cases WHH implements projects by itself.

Coordinator – Market Systems Development

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Contract: Initial contract 1 years (with strong prospects for extension)
Eligibility: Open to Ethiopian nationals only

Your responsibilities

1. Project Coordination and Implementation

• Coordinate the implementation of Market Systems Development (MSD) activities in line with project objectives, work plans, budgets, and donor requirements.
• Ensure the timely delivery of project activities, outputs, and reports.
• Monitor project progress, identify risks and bottlenecks, and support timely corrective actions.
• Maintain effective coordination with internal teams, partners, and relevant stakeholders.

2. Market Systems and Partnership Development

• Identify and engage private sector actors, service providers, producer organizations, financial institutions, and other relevant market actors.
• Support the design and implementation of inclusive market-based interventions that address key constraints and opportunities within selected market systems.
• Build and manage strategic partnerships that contribute to sustainable and scalable outcomes.
• Facilitate collaboration among market actors and promote partnership models that create shared value.
• Conduct or support market systems analysis, including market mapping and identification of systemic constraints and opportunities within targeted value chains.
• Contribute to the development of intervention strategies that address root causes of market failures and promote sustainable, market-led solutions.

3. Technical Support and Adaptive Management

• Contribute to market analysis, intervention design, and implementation using a facilitative and systems-oriented MSD approach.
• Support the testing, review, and adaptation of interventions based on field learning, evidence, and changes in the operating environment.
• Work closely with MEAL and program teams to track results, document learning, and improve implementation quality.
• Promote approaches that strengthen inclusion, resilience, and sustainability within market systems.
• Apply facilitative MSD approaches to stimulate behavior change among market actors rather than direct service delivery.
• Support the development of intervention logic and pathways for systemic change, including strategies for scaling and crowding-in of additional market actors.
• Collaborate with the MEAL team to monitor systemic changes in market systems, including market actor behavior, service uptake, and broader market impacts.

4. Partner and Stakeholder Engagement

• Represent the program with private sector actors, local partners, government stakeholders, and other relevant institutions.
• Support partner identification, assessment, onboarding, and performance monitoring.
• Contribute to partnership and procurement-related documentation, including scopes of work, expressions of interest, and related documentation.
• Identify opportunities to leverage private sector investment and co-investment models that support sustainable market development.
• Engage with relevant government institutions and sector platforms to address enabling environment constraints affecting market system performance.

5. Reporting, Compliance, and Program Support

• Support project planning, budget monitoring, contract follow-up, and narrative reporting.
• Ensure project documentation is complete, accurate, and aligned with donor and organizational standards.
• Contribute to internal learning processes, program reviews, and coordination mechanisms.
• Support business development efforts related to MSD programming, including inputs to concept notes and proposals where needed.
• Document and share learning from MSD interventions, including lessons learned, best practices, and case studies to inform program improvement and future project design.

• Bachelor’s degree in business management, economics, cooperative management, social enterprise, finance, agriculture, or a related field.
• At least 5 years of relevant professional experience in market development, business support, private sector engagement, or value chain development, ideally in an INGO, consultancy, development program, or the private sector.
• Good understanding of Market Systems Development and inclusive market approaches, including facilitative approaches such as M4P.
• Strong understanding of market dynamics, economic development, and livelihoods programming.
• Experience working with private sector actors, producer groups, cooperatives, service providers, or other market actors.
• Experience in project coordination, stakeholder management, and partner engagement.
• Ability to support implementation in a practical, solutions-oriented, and adaptive way.
• Experience in rural development, agricultural economics, community engagement, or related sectors is an asset.
• Strong planning, communication, coordination, and relationship management skills.
• Strong written and spoken English and Amharic is essential.
• Knowledge of the Ethiopian context and private sector landscape is highly desirable.