Agriculture Adviser at Concern Worldwide

Job Title: Agriculture Adviser

Reports to: Senior Adviser Food and Nutrition Security & Livelihood Team Lead

Liaises with: Other units in the Strategy, Advocacy and Learning department, Country Offices, International Programmes and Emergency Directorates**

Job location: This position is based in Dublin HQ (remote working for COVID). The position qualifies for a base location outside of Ireland (assessed on critical skills required). Therefore an exception may be made for the successful candidate to be based in the UK (and work from our office in London – remote working for COVID).

Substantial (30%) overseas travel is a part of this role

Pay Band: Band 5 (Adviser) €49,167 – €57,843**

Contract: One year, fixed term**

Job Purpose:

Concern Worldwide is a non-governmental, international, humanitarian organisation dedicated to the reduction of suffering and the elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries. Concern is headquartered in Dublin with other principal offices in London, New York, Belfast, Seoul and in each of the countries of operation.

Concern Worldwide works to develop and scale up effective, evidence-based interventions to promote sustainable livelihoods, particularly among the extremely poor and vulnerable. The organisation actively supports programmes in 25 countries in the Livelihoods (including agriculture and Natural Resource Management), Health (including WASH and nutrition) and Education sectors. Concern currently supports livelihood programmes in emergency, transition and development contexts in all countries of operation.

The Agriculture Advisor will sit within the Strategy, Advocacy and Learning (SAL) team and closely liaise with the other Livelihood Advisers in the head office (Agriculture, Food Security, Social Protection, Cash and Markets, Climate and Environment). The adviser’s primary responsibility is to ensure that Concern country programmes are enabled to deliver high-quality Agriculture interventions. S/he will be expected to provide technical support to Concern’s Agriculture work across the range of countries in which Concern works—emergency, fragile/ transitional and stable development contexts—with a special focus on the inclusion of those living in extreme poverty. S/he also contributes to organizational learning through documentation of best practices and development of tools/ resources designed for Concern programme staff in the field.

The Agriculture Advisor will be an active part of Concern’s global Livelihood team. Up to 30% international travel is anticipated for this position. Focal countries currently include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burundi, CAR, Ethiopia, Liberia, Malawi, Pakistan, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and South Sudan (but are subject to change).**

Key Responsibilities:

• Provide technical and strategic support on climate-smart agriculture to country teams to ensure programmes are designed, implemented, monitored and evaluated to ensure optimum impact on the extreme poor.
• Develop further Concern’s thinking on the role of agriculture in food systems and how agriculture can contribute to food and nutrition security in the countries in which we work.
• Build the technical capacity of Concern country teams through formal training, webinars, remote mentoring, and production and sharing of key technical resources.
• Synthesize and document practical evidence and learning from our programmes; identify ways to apply it in a timely fashion to improve policy and practice within and beyond Concern.
• Support and develop relationships with other agencies in the area of agriculture and livelihoods in general, including research institutes, technical working groups and represent Concern in national, regional and international fora as required.
• Support Fundraising and the New Business Development Directorates to develop relationships with donors and support the development of new proposals in line with the organizational strategic plan.
• Support the Advocacy unit to feed into international policy discussions related to agriculture, natural resource management and pastoralism.
• Support the prioritization, design, implementation and dissemination of operational research undertaken within Concern programmes – in collaboration with field teams and research partners.
• Support the recruitment of country programme staff and engage in multi-sectoral/ inter-departmental initiatives such as staff induction, M&E guidance, etc.
• Potentially be deployed to support emergency responses for up to six weeks.

Skills and Experience Required:

Essential:

• A postgraduate degree in agriculture, crop science, animal production, veterinary medicine, soil science, natural resource management, environmental science or related field.
• A minimum of five years’ experience working in the area of agriculture in an NGO, development agency or the private sector, three of which should have been based in a developing country in Sub Saharan Africa or Asia.
• Strong understanding of agriculture best practices and how climate smart agriculture fits within the wider framework of promoting resilience and positive climate change adaptation, particularly in drought-prone contexts.
• Experience in implementing farmer-led approaches, strengthening government agriculture extension services and working with local partners including the private sector.
• Experience in supporting farmers using a market systems development approach – assessing markets, developing agriculture value chains, implementing cash and voucher assistance programmes.
• A strong understanding of gender issues in relation to agriculture and livelihoods programmes and practical ways to promote gender equality within them.
• Ability to work both as part of a team and independently. Adaptable to evolving work priorities and schedules.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication, and writing skills in English.
• Prior experience in emergency, conflict settings, or fragile states.
• Ability to travel internationally up to 30% in fragile and conflict affected contexts, sometimes on short notice.

Desirable:

• Practical hands-on experience working in the agriculture sector in multiple contexts (e.g. drylands, coastal areas, urban, camp settings).
• Experience in supporting the roll out of cross cutting approaches within agriculture (e.g. conflict, environment, DRR, equality, protection).
• Experience in livelihoods analysis, field surveys, use of PRA tools, and nutrition sensitive programming.
• Experience working with research institutions, coordination fora and other relevant international agriculture and livestock institutions.
• Experience working in integrated, multi-sectoral programmes; ability to communicate in French is considered an asset.
• Prior work experience with Concern either in one of the head offices or country programmes.

Concern has an organisational Code of Conduct (CCoC) with three Associated Policies; the Programme Participant Protection Policy (P4), the Child Safeguarding Policy and the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Policy. These have been developed to ensure the maximum protection of programme participants from exploitation, and to clarify the responsibilities of Concern staff, consultants, visitors to the programme and partner organisation, and the standards of behaviour expected of them. In this context, staff have a responsibility to the organisation to strive for, and maintain, the highest standards in the day-to-day conduct in their workplace in accordance with Concern’s core values and mission. Any candidate offered a job with Concern Worldwide will be expected to sign the Concern Code of Conduct and Associated Policies as an appendix to their contract of employment. By signing the Concern Code of Conduct, candidates acknowledge that they have understood the content of both the Code of Conduct and the Associated Policies and agree to conduct themselves in accordance with the provisions of these policies.

Your Personal Data

During this job application, you will provide Concern with your personal data. Concern takes its responsibilities towards this personal data very seriously and is committed to complying with all relevant data protection legislation.

Concern receives a substantial amount of funding from external donors each year. Increasingly donors are introducing requirements whereby future funding is conditional on ensuring that the name of any employee or volunteer (existing or new), does not appear on terrorism lists generated by the European Union (List of person, groups and entities to which Regulation (EC No. 2580/2001 applies), the US Government (Office of Foreign Assets Control list of specially designated Nationals and Blocked Persons) and the United Nations (Consolidated List).

Any offer of employment (either paid or voluntary) with Concern Worldwide will only be made following a successful clearance check being conducted on the applicant and such checks may be updated periodically during the course of the period of employment.

By submitting a formal application for paid or voluntary employment to Concern, you agree to Concern carrying out a clearance check as outlined above and that Concern will not proceed to recruit you should your name appear on any of the aforementioned lists**

In certain circumstances, donors may request that personal data relating to employees to work on the activities that they fund be provided directly to them – so that they can perform their own counter terrorism checks. This may involve transferring some basic personal data outside the EEA. It will be a condition of your employment contract that Concern be allowed to share this information with institutional donors for these purposes.

For additional information please consult our web site or contact the Human Resource Division in our Head Office.

You have certain rights under data protection legislation. For more information on how to exercise those rights please visit www.concern.net/about/privacy

Please only apply for this position if you are satisfied with the proposed processing of your personal data as outlined above.