PURPOSE OF THE ROLE
Farm Africa has the ambition to be the leading European NGO specialising in Agriculture, Natural Resource Management and Market Engagement. The Country Director will be responsible for developing the strategic direction of the Tanzania country programme in line with Farm Africa’s global strategy to help us achieve this objective, to be the first choice of donors/business in Tanzania on the three pillars of Agriculture, Natural Resource Management and Market Engagement.
The Country Director position is a key role in the Farm Africa global senior management team which comes together every quarter to share progress and review the strategic direction of the organisation. In country he/she is pivotal in driving funding opportunities and ensuring a healthy pipeline for the country programme. The pipeline would build on existing initiatives but should also include projects that expand our geographical and technical foot print in country.
On day to day basis the Country Director will also provide management to the programme teams, supporting Programme Managers in the setting and delivering of project goals, ensuring quality and timely delivery of reports. He/she would also be responsible to build the technical capacity of the programme team, ensuring that teams are aware of and are using key Farm Africa documents such as the Approaches papers to inform technical design of projects.
Externally the Country Director is responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with senior counterparts in partner governments, donors and private sector and raising the profile of Farm Africa’s work carried out in country.
The Country Director will also oversee a team that is responsible for the financial management, human resources and logistics functions in country. Current programme spend is circa £2m per year.
KEY TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
1. Set the strategic direction of the programmes in Tanzania
· Develop a strategic direction for the Farm Africa Tanzania programme based on the Farm Africa vision, mission and technical specialist approaches developed within the organisation Tanzania Country Director 301117
· Develop innovative programmes that build on our core competencies of productivity increase, farmer organisation and natural resource management to help smallholders gain improved access to markets and maximise post-harvest values
2. Ensure a healthy programme pipeline
· Work with Business Development to develop a proactive funding strategy based on the donor opportunities
· Grow the pipeline by 25% in 2 years
· Key contact with Business Development team in UK. Responsible for updating pipeline and keeping team in UK up to date with progress as well as soliciting their help and advice on identifying opportunities.
· Explore new opportunities to deliver Farm Africa’s strategic objectives including active partnerships with the private sector, service contracts as well as grants, consultancy etc
· Develop new opportunities for Farm Africa to assist our core communities - farmers, and forest communities - through supporting the planning and development of new Farm Africa initiatives. This will include preparing proposals for submission to donors, in close collaboration with other country programmes and relevant departments in London (especially the Head of Programme Funding).
3. Management and delivery
· Ensure that Farm Africa’s programmes attain the highest standards of delivery, effectiveness and value for money
· Working closely with the global programmes leadership, be responsible for the programme cycle in Tanzania from beginning to end working to improve still further the efficiency and effectiveness of our contract management, project delivery and compliance
· Manage, develop and support the Tanzania programme team with particular focus on staff development and proactive performance management
4. Monitoring, evaluation and impact
· Working closely with Farm Africa’s Head of Programme Quality impact, ensuring a focus strongly on the design and implementation of M & E plans to enable Farm Africa to measure the impact of our work so that we can maximise our effectiveness (including programme design) and provide evidence to influence external stakeholders
· Working closely with Farm Africa’s Head of Programme Quality and Impact to develop knowledge products from our projects that can showcase our results
· Ensuring that Programme Participatory review meetings take place on bi-annual basis to track project indicators
· Ensuring that Programme Quarterly reviews take place to track progress against activities and budget
5. Relationship management, funding and dissemination
· Strengthen relationships with partner organisations including donors, governments, private sector organisations and other NGOs to achieve the strategic goals of Farm Africa in Tanzania
· Lead key relationships with donors and other strategic partners in Tanzania and in the region, with particular focus on our relationship with AMDT, DFID and the EU
· Oversee key partner relationships (RUDI, VECO, SEGUCO)
· With the Programmes SMT and technical managers (Agriculture and Market Engagement), lead our external influencing of policy and the dissemination of learning and knowledge to ensure Farm Africa is seen externally as an expert in our chosen sectors of crops and forestry Tanzania Country Director 301117
6. Corporate leadership
· As a key member of the Farm Africa senior management team, provide broader leadership across the organisation, contributing to the overall strategy and future growth of Farm Africa
· Chair the senior management team in Tanzania providing support, development and performance management to the team
· Ensure outstanding communication of programme information across the organisation, working closely with the other directors and senior managers on internal learning and knowledge management
· Represent Farm Africa externally in Tanzania and internationally, providing thought leadership and influence to help achieve our mission and goals
7. Carry out any other duties as assigned by the Director of Programmes.
PERSON SPECIFICATION
Essential education, qualifications & other knowledge
-Degree in a relevant discipline
-A profound understanding of the socio-political and economic climate and institutions in Tanzania and the region
Essential experience
-Country Director in an International NGO with 3 years of experience with clear evidence of having made a strategic contribution to the organisation’s aims and objectives Experience as Country Director in TZ
-Strong track record in the developing of and the fundraising for new programmes with a range of stakeholders including governments, institutional funders and private sector, governments and NGO’s Knowledge of key donors in agriculture, climate change, resilience, market engagement.
-Experience in ToC, log frame design and designing M & E frameworks
-High level of expertise in agriculture, agricultural economics, natural resource management or closely related field in a developing country context Knowledge and experience of M4P approaches to value chain
-Significant experience of managing operational teams in complex environments, including a profound understanding of operational and delivery risk
-Significant demonstrable experience of delivering projects to time and budget in Sub Saharan Africa Significant demonstrable experience of delivering projects to time and budget in Tanzania
-Experience in working with multiple partners including grass roots communities, private sector, governments and NGOs Commercial experience in agriculture in Sub Saharan Africa
-Proven track record as thought leader and influencer
-Experience of working in Sub-Saharan Africa in a rural context
-Experience in gender analysis and ability to design projects with a gendered lens Essential skills & abilities
-High intellectual capacity with strong analytical skills
-Mature and positive leader, able to manage and work in an international environment with strong inter-personal skills
-A pro-active creative thinker with demonstrable ability to adapt to a constantly changing environment
-Strong written and verbal communication skills in English with the ability to engage with a wide variety of external and internal stakeholders Swahili and advantage
-Ability to prioritise and delegate a constant and demanding workload Tanzania Country Director 301117
-Strong people management skills, including an excellent understanding of team dynamics and project management
-Financial management ability and entrepreneurial flair
-Ability to motivate and develop individuals and teams for high performance
-An outstanding networker, able to build and maintain key relationships
-A team player
-A willingness to learn
Values
Farm Africa's values are very important to us as an employer and they are also very important to our employees. All prospective employees should take some time to carefully consider our values and how they fit with your own personal values before attending interview with Farm Africa. Farm Africa seeks to employ those who believe, as we do, that farmers can and will play a key role in achieving long-term rural prosperity in Africa and who seek to deliver on those beliefs by:
· being experts in our field, delivering insightful/impactful evidence-based solutions
· pushing boundaries, being creative with new and old solutions
· acting for the long term, building relationships and delivering long-lasting change for farmers
· working flexibly, taking advantage of the most effective solutions, whether from the communities, private sector or government
· sharing knowledge with others, reaching more farmers than we do alone, ensuring effective technologies are widely accessed.