Senior Project Officer III – Agribusiness in Crops Full Time NEW

ETHIOPIAN AGRICULTURAL TRANSFORMATION INSTITUTE

Position: Senior Project Officer II – Agribusiness in Crops

Term of Employment: One year with possibility of extension

Duty Station(s): Oromia (Based at Addis Ababa), Amhara(Based at Bahir-Dar), Tigray ( Based at Mekkelle), and Hawassa

Required Number: Oromia (1), Bahir-Dar (1), Mekelle (1) and Hawassa (1)

Application Deadline: October 3,2025

Please Note: WE WILL ONLY CONSIDER APPLICATIONS THAT CLEARLY INDICATE THE SPECIFIC DUTY STATION THE APPLICANT IS APPLYING FOR.

Background

The Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI), formerly known as the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), is a strategy and delivery-oriented government institute created to help accelerate the growth and transformation of Ethiopia’s agriculture sector, which is a key contributor to the country’s GDP, exports, and workforce. The ATI’s work is cantered on improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers (SHFs) across the country for improved income, inclusiveness, resilience, and sustainability.

The ATI works to transform the agriculture sector in Ethiopia by conducting policy and analytical studies, providing technical implementation support and capacity building, coordinating.

platforms to better integrate partners and projects and designing and directly leading several innovative/pilot interventions. The Institute joins forces with various stakeholders, including policymakers, researchers, farmers, and development partners, to support the implementation of agricultural development programs and initiatives. In addition, the ATI collaborates with national and international partners to facilitate knowledge exchange and learning opportunities. The Institute plays a crucial role in generating and disseminating information to support evidence-based decision-making in Ethiopia’s agricultural sector.

Our Culture

We have an exceptional team of highly competent employees with a proven track record of success in managing complex activities and achieving transformational results. Our culture is one where talented, dedicated and adaptable individuals are committed to doing their best and exhibit great team work to achieve excellent results.

At ATI, we provide an exceptional platform for people who want to achieve their highest potential and make a meaningful contribution in changing the country’s agricultural sector. We offer rewarding work in a young, fast-paced growing organization with passionate, committed, motivated colleagues and excellent career development and training. We recognize our most valuable assets are our staff and are committed to providing our employees with the tools, training and mentorships necessary to achieve their career goals.

Program and position summary

The Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI) has launched the Energizing Women and Youth in Agri-Food System (EWAS) project to tackle unemployment and promote green energy in the agricultural value chain, focusing on young women. ATI integrates youth employment, gender equality, climate-smart practices, and nutrition-sensitive agriculture across its programs to create sustainable job opportunities and build resilience. ATI currently works with over 3 million smallholder farmers, including 540,300 women and youths, through its Agricultural Commercialization Clusters (ACC) and digital agriculture programs. Additionally, the ADEY program also creates jobs for women and youths in ACC regions and Somali by improving access to markets and strengthening MSMEs. Leveraging ATI’s experience, EWAS project aims to create over 4,100 jobs for young women by establishing enterprises in three value chains namely grain milling, horticulture collection centers, and honey processing, supporting through capacity-building, skills development, and provision of essential equipment.

The officer is expected to have strong skills and experience in crop husbandry, agronomy, agribusiness, project implementation, stakeholder management, and coordination, desire to improve the lives of youth women. The officer is also responsible for implementing and coordinating the interventions planned in the EWAS project at his/her respective assigned region to achieve high quality result promptly. To achieve this, the officer will be responsible for planning, implementation, monitoring/supervision, of the intervention implemented by woreda-level coordinators. The officer will organize and support the establishment of young women-owned grain milling enterprise and horticulture collection centers.

The officer will report directly to the Project Team Lead at the head office (project reporting) and the ACC Regional Director (functional reporting) within a matrix reporting structure. In this role, the officer will collaborate closely with ACC project leaders and ADEY’s Senior Project Officers. The focus will be on working with the Regional Bureaus of Agriculture and the Bureau of Labor and Skills, following guidance from the Project Team Lead, ACC Director, and Regional Senior Director. Additionally, the officer will be responsible for compiling and reporting on all project activities, outputs, and progress toward the desired outcomes.

Major Duties and Responsibilities

• Support project management in accordance with project documents, work plans, and budget and ensure that work is aligned with the project implementation document.
• Actively involve in annual planning, budgeting, tracking & target setting activities for the prioritized crop-related interventions in the project for the assigned region.
• Ensure all crop-related interventions in the assigned region are successfully implemented and project outputs are achieved in accordance with EWAS result framework targets
• Ensure the alignment of the project’s implementation and budget utilization with the planned activities for the region
• Actively engage in supervision, monitoring, and technical backstopping, review, and frequent reporting to ensure proper implementation as per the project’s annual plan.
• Develop targeting criteria for project participants and provide supports to the regions to ensure effective establishment of enterprises in the crop value chain of the regions.
• Work closely with the government, private sector and other relevant partners to ensure effective establishment and sustainability of the agri-enterprises.
• Closely work with the partners to identify power sources, work premises, production potential for input sourcing and market opportunities for grain milling and horticulture retail and wholesale businesses.
• Support the enterprises to access resources and technologies that are safe, time saving and reduce workload on young women.
• Provide technical supports to the youth enterprises in establishing backward and forward value chain linkages to ensure effective input sourcing, marketing, and service provision.
• Conduct and supervise readiness assessments for the established groups to ensure they meet the prerequisite criteria for machine provision
• Provide technical support during the installation and calibration of machinery for the crop value chain in their respective region.
• Assist implementation and provide support in resolving strategic and operational problems that arise over the course of the project lifetime in the region.
• Work closely with ADEY and other ACC teams to strengthen the whole value chain activities including production, postharvest handling, storage, processing, packaging and marketing.
• Provide capacity building and advisory service on technical matters to the woreda level project coordinators, stakeholders, youth enterprises in the region
• Develop Terms of Reference (ToR), coordinate logistics, and collaborate with the operations team to organize successful workshops, trainings and meetings.
• Effectively collaborate with ATI verticals, including digital agriculture, procurement and finance, to ensure effective delivery effective implementation of the project.
• Regularly track the progress of the project, and identify and flag any issues to the project lead in a timely manner and ensure that it is properly addressed.
• Coordinate with the ATI operation teams, including the procurement and logistics teams, to ensure effective delivery grain milling and cold store equipment to the enterprises in the respective region
• Ensure women social inclusion and safeguarding practices in the implementation of the grain and horticulture business activities
• Identify potential risks that could impact the implementation of regional crop-related interventions, report these issues to the project lead, and propose potential solutions
• Timely compile, review, and submit quality reports (quarter, semi-annual and annual) and operational issues to the regional program manager.
• Ensure effective communication with the project team, other ATI teams and external partners.
• Undertake any other duties as assigned by the supervisor.

Required Qualification, Competencies and Experience

• Minimum master’s degree in Agronomy, Plant/Crop Sciences, Horticulture, Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness or other related fields
• Minimum of 8 years of relevant experience in implementation of youth and women focused initiatives along the crop value chains
• Strong technical experience in grain and horticulture value chains, including production, post-harvest management and agro-processing and marketing
• Experience in green energy project is a plus
• Extensive experience in implementing and managing donor-funded projects focused on the establishment of youth and women-based agri-enterprises
• Experience in supporting transportation, installation and calibration of crop processing machineries
• Very good experiences in business plan development, business advisory, and agri-entrepreneurship development
• Practical experience in developing linkages between producers and markets, and working across crops value chains in Ethiopia
• Strong experience in multistakeholder process, partnership and community-level participatory development approaches.
• Desire of creating dignified employment opportunities for youths and improving qualities of their lives
• Willingness to undertake frequent field visits
• Strong English communication skills (writing, speaking, composing, presenting, etc.).
• Proficiency of the respective regional language is a requirement.

Safeguarding risk level

• The role holder will have frequent or intensive contact with program participants as he/she will be responsible for implementing and monitoring program activities.