USAID/Rwanda Modernizing Agriculture Activity

Trade and Market Access Advisor

CNFA

CNFA is a not-for-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., dedicated to stimulating economic growth in the agricultural sector by nurturing entrepreneurship, private enterprise, and market linkages. CNFA specializes in fostering private sector investments in training, new technologies and marketing as a means to increase the overall competitiveness of agricultural value chains and rural development, to increase people’s incomes, to develop skills in the rural workforce, and to facilitate exports.

Program Description USAID/Rwanda Modernizing Agriculture Activity

The purpose of the Modernizing Agriculture Activity is to support increased agriculture productivity and income, access to finance and markets, and access and consumption of nutritious food products in Rwanda, while increasing the resilience of the agriculture and food systems to the changing climate. To achieve this goal, the Activity will sustainably increase agricultural productivity, increase access to finance for farmers and agribusinesses, improve producers’ nutrition and market outcomes, and strengthen the enabling environment to foster market-driven outcomes in agriculture.

Position Description

Reporting to the Nutrition and Market Development Director, the Trade and Market Access Advisor is responsible for supporting and strengthening the private-sector oriented market systems in key agricultural high value and nutritious commodities, as well as value chain strategy development, facilitating the creation of horizontal and vertical linkages along the value chains, and building the technical capacity of the targeted value chain actors, stakeholders, and project staff. The Trade and Market Access Advisor will also provide strategic vision, leadership and technical assistance in the select value chains to expand local and export market opportunities, with an emphasis on promoting nutritious and safe foods and developing market places and platforms where market actors (buyers and sellers) can meet to facilitate exchange or transaction of goods and services The Trade and Market Access Advisor is based in Kigali.

Duties and Responsibilities

The main duties of the Trade and Market Access Advisor include, but are not limited to:

• Coordinate with private sector actors such as major processing operations, small and medium sized firms, cooperatives, lenders and farmer groups to implement market access and value chain upgrading-related activities for firms, farmers and households at the National, provincial and district levels;
• Facilitate capacity building of cooperatives and other value chain actors to improve their ability to access markets for their products, while also facilitating their access to additional resources (e.g., working capital, post-harvest facilities, irrigation equipment, and digital technologies) to service these markets;
• Develop strategies and interventions to increase and strengthen market linkages and trust between market actors and reduce market access barriers for farmers;
• Coordinate with ModAg grantees and sub-contractors to effectively roll out the digital market information systems for both inputs and output products as well coordinating “pitch fairs” to generate competitive submission of innovations for grant and subcontract funding for partners;
• Interface and collaborate with the project’s targeted value chain stakeholders, including Government of Rwanda officials, grantees and subcontractors to advance program objectives and activities especially in areas of market development and market access for smallholders;
• Identify and lead the development of innovation and partnership opportunities for the project with a focus on nutrient dense foods, ensuring coherence of approaches within the Nutrition and Market Development component;
• Collaborate with the Finance and Investment team to facilitate access to finance for partner market actors, enabling them to meet market demand;
• Collaborate with productivity and nutrition teams to develop the key nutritious foods to promote in available in target markets at affordable prices in the Feed the Future Zone of Influence (ZOI), at key times throughout the year.
• Identify and pursue opportunities to increase market access for women, youth and disabled farmers and women- and youth-led agribusinesses and increase their productive economic resources;
• Participate actively in the Private sector and Market access working groups to advocate for private sector engagement.
• Contribute to the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning framework (including reporting), in close collaboration with the Nutrition and Market Development Director and the MEL Director;
• Coordinate with relevant technical leads in the field and the Kigali-based technical and administrative management units to ensure smooth implementation of market development activities;
• Undertake other assignments or tasks at the request of the Nutrition and Market Development Director, the DCOP and/or the Chief of Party.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree in Agribusiness, Agricultural economics, Agriculture, Business Administration or a related field;
• At least five years of progressively responsible work experience in sustainable private sector and rural development approaches for complex donor-funded project(s) related to agricultural finance, value chain development, agricultural investment, private sector investment management and/or access to finance;
• At least 3-5 years in a supervisory capacity or experience managing teams of direct reports, experience in coordinating field teams, grantees and service providers is a plus;
• Proven experience and understanding of innovative market development approaches including inclusive aggregation models, market incentives such as certification and the use of digital tools in market development is a plus;
• Demonstrated ability to interact and communicate with wide range of stakeholders both verbally and in writing, creating effective value chain analyses and powerful client reporting,
• Effective at collaboration; willingness to innovate and ability to think systematically;
• Proven experience in managing multiple and competing tasks while maintaining quality of deliverables within deadlines;
• Advanced oral and written communication skills in English and Kinyarwanda required, French considered an asset.