Jobs at Heifer International

Financing Pipeline Development and Technical Assistance (30%)

• Financing Pipeline Development: Assess and identify financing opportunities for smallholder (women) farmers to adopt improved backyard poultry practices (and improved animal management practices) through financing.  
• Financing Technical Assistance: Support farmer cooperatives and agribusinesses to develop bankable business plans (both at start-up and growth stages) and connect with focused financing instruments as needed. 
• Prepare strategies to identify credible financing opportunities to promote the adoption of project-promoted practices roll out plans and track progress periodically.  
• Identify and recommend the best-suited financing strategies, pricing system for the business ventures,  
• Identify new business ventures (medium and large-scale business ventures) in the selected value chains and coach/facilitate entrepreneurs who may access provided financing to scale business.  
• Provide technical assistance through formal/informal training, coaching, exposure, and other interventions,  
• Guide, coach and facilitate the Smallholder Farmer Organizations (SFOs) and other Value Chain (VC) actors in the process of branding the products. 
• Document strategies and procedures for the facilitation of branding Heifer farmers’ products 

Build Capacity of Project Staff, Partners, and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO) (20%)  

• Assist in aligning the organizational development and business development and build the capacity of the stakeholders in financing.  
• Assist in preparing capacity-building plans for project staff, and partners in the field of market system development, enterprise, and value chain development. 
• Orient FPO staff on financing, follow up the job-related functions to achieve the target  
• Build capacity of the partner staff and FPO staff through facilitating training, coaching and other capacity-building initiatives on financing of farmers, tracking repayment of loans, value addition at FPO through financing etc.
• Ensure stakeholders have a good orientation on financing needs and biosecurity problems to be solved through financing 
• Facilitate training and other capacity-building initiatives as per the Implementation Plan.
• Ensure FPO staff and implementing partners are trained on the biosecurity financing tools customized by the financial intermediary.
• Assist project partners to support FPOs and value chain players to engage and leverage financing to do so. 

Monitoring, Review and Reporting (20%) 

• Ensure that the partner and the financial intermediary meet the identified monitoring and evaluation requirements and the deadlines
• Reviewing the adoption of financing tools at the project level with partner staff on a monthly basis
• Participation in ongoing training and workshops
• Documentation and sharing of the best practices in terms of financing and adoption of biosecurity practices in the project.
• Work in collaboration and consultation with the Country Program Office (CPO) team
• Activity-based reports are to be submitted to the Project Manager as per the schedule
• All financing in the project is to be reviewed and reported to assess implications on the adoption of project-promoted practices.
• Forecasting of financing needs at the project level is to be done jointly monthly and submitted to the Project Manager.
• Participate in all trainings with financial intermediary, FPOs and workshops Guarantee Administrator regularly throughout the project
• Internal and external financing-related field visits are organized following the organizational protocol.
• All activities of the specific initiative are at par in quality with project standards

Portfolio Management and Due Diligence of Loanees and Lenders (25%) 

• Work with borrowers to put together an investment package that will meet the requirements of the lenders.
• Act as a linkage between potential loanees, investees and lenders to ensure regular updates on the status of loans requested. 
• Portfolio management to assess the repayment status of the loaned-out amount

Leadership & General Operations (5%) 

• Manage the biosecurity loan product development process.
• Develop market development and private/public sector engagement strategy for the project.
• Ensure systematic documentation of successes and lessons learnt for internal programmatic use and external sharing.
• Develop project implementation plans for biosecurity loan products with clear timelines and deliverables.
• Timely delivery of milestones relating to Biosecurity loan products.
• Produce periodic reports and knowledge documents.

 Perform other duties as assigned  

• This will be dependent on the specific duties assigned.

Minimum Requirements

• A bachelor’s degree from a recognized university in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Agribusiness, Agricultural Economics, Rural Development, Enterprise Development or other related fields and a minimum of five (5) years of experience with an international organization in a similar context is required.
• Experience working with financial institutions supporting farmers and FPOs (farmer producer organizations)/cooperatives and associated businesses.

Preferred Requirements

• Technical experience with the commercial sector, agribusiness development in a mix of economic growth/trade, value chain competitiveness, investment promotion, or agriculture development. 
• Prior work experience in a USAID-funded project.  

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Project management and Effectiveness (50%)

• Provide technical advice on activities that improve livestock productivity – animal health and nutrition, husbandry, herd management and feeding  
• Provide technical leadership to activities that improve livestock productivity, including but not limited to animal health and nutrition, husbandry and breeding practices, herd management, and feed. 
• Coordinate the organization of extension activities including field days, farm visits, and field demonstrations if any 
• Develop a detailed project work plan that guides the implementation of activities in line with the overall objectives of the project for approval and ongoing monitoring to ensure project activities are on schedule. 
• Design scalable market-led mechanisms to promote access to quality animal feed, inputs and services for livestock producers.  
• Designing sustainable livestock markets co-management approaches, working closely with livestock marketing associations (LMAs) and county government department of trade.  
• Design, awareness creation, roll out and monitoring adoption of index-based livestock product (IBLI) among pastoralists and agro-pastoralists.  
• Provide coordination of project implementation including technical, administrative, operational, and logistical direction of the project. 
• Monitor and review progress on project tasks within the context of agreed project deliverables and timelines. 
• Collaborate with relevant teams and departments and ensure timely dissemination of project information and reports. 
• Lead in the identification and advice on project beneficiaries (farmer organizations, service providers) and potential partners/stakeholders in line with project goals 

Quality and Risk (25%) 

• Carry out all necessary activities with the guidance of the project manager for the review, documentation, and optimization of processes that will enable seamless project execution. 
• Provide project performance highlights and communicate major issues, and slippage, and suggest remedies and escalations as required. 
• Track and assess the effectiveness of projects. 
• Provide project status reporting and updates on progress, dependencies, issues, and risks. 
• Compile and present findings and recommendations beneficial to the project 
• Develop periodic reports (monthly, quarterly, semi-annually and annually) as agreed with the Project Manager per the reporting guidelines communicated by the PM and MEL officer.  

Stakeholder Management (20%) 

• Collaborate with the Project Manager in achieving successful execution of the project. 
• Oversee and ensure the quality of tasks performed by service providers and market actors to increase animal production 
• Coordinate plans for multi-stakeholder engagement and learning, including collaboration with respective county governments 
• Participate in periodic stakeholder meetings.  

 Any other duties as assigned by the supervisor 

• This will be dependent on the specific duties assigned.

Minimum Requirements

• A bachelor’s degree in livestock development, veterinary medicine, animal science/production, Range management/natural resource management, Environmental science or its equivalent.
• At least five (5) years of job-related practical experience in livestock production and marketing, index-based livestock insurance, including at least two years working in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs).
• Knowledge of project management principles and practices involving processes, systems, and reporting, and the ability to provide leadership and support to partners.
• Proficient and experienced in livestock value chain development particularly within the red meat value chains.
• Experience working with community organizations such as cooperatives and feedlotting work.
• Experience working within the ASALs with pastoralists and agro-pastoralists will be highly desirable.
• Partnership management experience and working through partnership structures, private sector partners and government collaboration.

Preferred Requirements

• Sound business knowledge especially in the agricultural and agribusiness sector.
• Demonstrated understanding of the economic, social, and cultural dynamics of pastoralist production systems in the pastoralist communities including rangelands
• Knowledge of market systems development approach in project implementation.
• Experience working in Isiolo and/or Kajiado counties