Program Officer, Systems Agronomist in Regenerative and Sustainable Agriculture at Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

Role Summary:

Reporting to the Country Manager – Kenya, the Program Officer Systems Agronomist in Regenerative and Sustainable Agriculture will represent AGRA in the country and will manage and provide technical direction on investments to improve the following systems:  Improved agronomic practices, regenerative and sustainable farming, resilience, soil health, and landscape restoration. The ideal candidate will contribute to the other thematic areas in AGRA such as strengthening input distribution systems through the generation, codifying and dissemination of key knowledge products across in the focus counties in Kenya and, and AGRA in general. 

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Scope and identify opportunities for collaboration with key stakeholders in Kenya. 
• Create road maps documenting the resources and constraints to agricultural transformation, especially in the areas of regenerative agriculture.
• Identify opportunities for investments via competitive grants for interventions aimed at promoting sustainable farming development and resilience systems in Kenya.
• Distil critical knowledge, innovation and practices in regenerative farming and communicate widely.
• Collaborate with government at local and national level to design and implement agricultural transformation initiatives and policies.
• Collaborate with private sector at local level to upgrade agricultural value chains and improve adoption of good agronomic practices, climate smart and resilience-based products, and practices by smallholder farmers.
• Develop/strengthen coalitions for effective implementation of programmes.
• Engage with other players to create synergies between AGRA funded programs and other donor agricultural initiatives in the concerned counties. 
• Collaborate with other Program Officers and relevant technical and operations staff to jointly design and implement strategies for disseminating sustainable farming technologies and practices.
• Contribute to Soils, Resilience and Climate Change Unit strategic documents and knowledge products development.
• Participate in thematic strategic meetings when and where required.
• Support and manage the development and implementation of AGRA projects and programmes in support of the inclusive agriculture transformation agenda 
• Showcases AGRA’s success stories, best practices and lessons learnt in various donor and other stakeholder forums.
• Create capacity of partners in good agronomic practices and facilitate exchange of knowledge. 
• Ensure generation of quality agronomic and productivity data, compile, and share.
• Lead and organize for capacity building of grantees and setting up of systems for county governments in data capturing, management, and reporting.
• Assess and monitor projects’ implementation progress and does the necessary follow up with the relevant grantees.
• Engagement in technical and policy conversations on issues around key thematic areas that contribute to regenerative agriculture and resilience issues.
• Write and disseminates reports from meetings and evidence generated from project implementation to enhance information knowledge flow and sharing among AGRA staff, as may be required.
• Assist the Grants Unit in making all necessary changes in grant memos and proposals following review by the Grants Committee.
• Deliver on administrative functions such as coordination of periodic audit, stakeholder forums etc.
• Participate in fund raising for interventions that contribute to agriculture transformation in Kenya.

Academic, Professional Qualifications and Relevant experience:

• A Master’s degree in Agriculture, Agroforestry, Food Systems, with specialization in Climate change, resilience, Agronomy, NRM & Extension and Policy development and implementation.
• Minimum of 7 years’ experience in Food Systems, Climate change and resilience, Natural Resources Management, Agriculture Economics, Agronomy, and extension in Africa.
• Experience in managing complex, multisectoral initiatives in the non-profit, private and/or public sector with a sound knowledge of, and experience in agricultural development at national, regional and/or international level.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with a team orientation and strong collaborative skills.
• Proven writing skills.
• Policy advisory and technical skills.
• Coalition building and partnership and resource mobilization.
• Strong Project Management experience.