Advisor, Agriculture and Food Security

Chemonics seeks an Agriculture and Food Security (AFS) Advisor that will provide expertise and technical direction and guidance on proposed, new, and ongoing AFS projects primarily to Chemonics’ West and Central Africa & Haiti (WCAFH) Business Unit (BU) and to other regional BUs as required. The AFS Advisor will be a professional who brings business development, program implementation and management, and evidence and learning expertise in the growing challenges facing developing countries around the world in addressing complex food insecurity problems and impacts of increasing economic, conflict, and climate shocks. The advisor will have experience with resilience, food systems, market systems, value chain, and nutrition approaches.

 

The advisor will work primarily with proposal leads, project directors, chiefs of party (COP), and technical leads to develop and, as applicable, implement best practice and innovative AFS approaches that are tailored to the country and client context, with particular emphasis on resilience, agriculture transformation, market systems, and nutrition. While performing these duties, the advisor will, as applicable, contribute to technical approaches in proposals, with inputs on interventions, expected results, outcomes, and outputs; monitoring indicators and targets; partnering; staffing; and other relevant matters. Likewise, on new and existing projects, the advisor will, as applicable, contribute to the development and implementation of annual work plans; monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) plans; and other technical deliverables. The advisor will collaborate as needed with colleagues in the AFS Practice to ensure alignment and cohesion of technical guidance and thought leadership. The advisor will report to the Senior Advisor of the global AFS Practice.

 

Responsibilities:

Project Management

• Participate in meetings between project management units (PMUs) and in-country project offices to stay abreast of technical progress and contribute to solving any challenges.
• Participate in and/or lead periodic technical meetings between PMUs and project staff.
• Serve as an AFS technical advisor and resource to project directors and COPs.
• Conduct reviews of technical deliverables prior to USAID submission.
• As needed, mentor COPs and/or key personnel who are new to the position or new to Chemonics. Also, mentor Chemonics staff who have a desire to deepen their AFS knowledge and skills.

 

Technical

• Provide technical and analytical inputs to deliver high impact results across the USG Business Line’s portfolio of new and existing projects.
• Serve as a member of new AFS projects start-up teams with a focus on helping to develop first year work plans, MEL plans, designs for baseline and initial surveys and data collection exercises, and other technical deliverables. As applicable, advise on staffing decisions; develop job descriptions; assist with staff recruitment; assist with developing subcontractor scopes of work; participate in start-up workshops, etc.
• As needed, assist existing projects during annual work planning or during periods when project teams are making material changes to technical approaches, etc. This may include working with project teams to analyze past interventions and outcomes against targets and desired results, examine material changes to the operating environment and forecasting how these may impact future interventions, and select appropriate course corrections.
• Periodically review project work plans and progress reports to offer constructive feedback and ideas that could enhance project performance and development impact.
• Participate in technical discussions with the client to ensure that there is a clear and mutually agreed understanding of a project’s technical approach and expected results.
• Complete billable assignments on new or existing projects in accordance with specific scopes of work. The focus of such assignments may be technical or management.

 

New Business Development

• Lead capture efforts for upcoming AFS-related projects.
• Lead or participate in fact finding missions (g-trips) to countries with upcoming AFS projects; meet key stakeholders; maintain detailed trip notes; and debrief relevant capture / proposal teams and WCAFH and other BU management on trip findings.
• Review and provide technical input on AFS-related solicitations.
• Contribute to the design of AFS specific compon