Agronomist/crop technical expert, ZAAPs (farmer cooperatives)/Value Chain International Consultant
VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT
Job Title: Agronomist/crop technical expert, ZAAPs (farmer cooperatives)/Value Chain
Mission: To support the Design Phase of the Togo Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA)
Unit/Division: Programme Unit / CO Togo
Contract Type: International Consultancy / CST
Contract Duration: between 1 October 2022 and 15 December 2022 (2 months) with the possibility of longer-term engagement with the Togo ATA
ABOUT WFP
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. We are the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters, and the impact of climate change.
WFP celebrates and embraces diversity. It is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all its employees and encourages qualified candidates to apply irrespective of race, color, national origin, ethnic or social background, genetic information, gender, gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, religion or belief, HIV status, physical or mental disability.
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT
Togo, officially the Togolese Republic is one of the smallest countries in Africa and home to 8.6 million people. Situated in the Gulf of Guinea, Togo serves as a critical corridor to enable the COVID-19 response to landlocked countries in the Central Sahel region.
Togo’s economy depends heavily on both commercial and subsistence agriculture, with both sectors providing employment for 60 percent of the labor force. Socio-political and economic turmoil coupled with devastating floods and now COVID-19 have seen a deterioration in its food and nutritional situation.
Agriculture and food systems are vital to food security, livelihoods, and development. The sector has proven to be more effective for poverty alleviation and job creation than others, and sustainable transformation of agriculture and food systems can underpin economic development for many African countries. One innovative approach to spur transformational change is in the use of a Nodal Agency—successively leveraged by many Asian countries and beyond.
The nodal agency model was successfully leveraged by many Asian countries in the 1960s to 1990s to drive transformational growth and rapidly expand their economies. More recently, the nodal agency model was used successfully by the Government of Ethiopia when it established the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) in 2010.
The nodal agency model leverages key characteristics to achieve impact:
- Operates from a “center of government” position with strong links to senior government officials including the Head of State.
- A high level of authority, independence, and responsibility that allow it to innovate, use evidence to inform decision making, work across public and private sectors, exert influence over actors, and ultimately manage and ensure effectiveness.
- High organizational performance that enables efficient systems to be implemented, focuses on results, and ensures learning takes place within and across institutions and programs to adapt to changing contexts and take advantage of opportunities.
The Government of Togo (GoT), in its 2025 Roadmap, has positioned agriculture as a priority engine of growth for production, income, and job creation. The Roadmap specifically identifies mechanization, irrigation, and extension through public-private-partnerships as areas of significant opportunity.
To further support progress on the Roadmap and in recognition of the need for transformational growth in the sector, the GoT in March 2022 made the decision to leverage the Nodal Agency model and create an Agricultural Transformation Agency. The GoT has engaged TASC to support the scope, design, and establishment of this Agency by January 2023. Togolese stakeholders have worked with TASC to complete development of the scope of the Agency, which includes 5 priority focus areas for the new ATA: mechanization, irrigation, digital extension, ZAAPs (agricultural production areas), and value chains.
To further the development of the Togo ATA, the GoT seeks technical expert consultants to contribute to focus area teams and contribute to the development the Agency so that it can begin operations in January 2023.
JOB PURPOSE
The Government of Togo in partnership with WFP/FAO is now looking to form a high-performing design team that can develop these priority focus areas into a clear set of projects, initiatives, and workplans to enable the ATA to begin activities in January 2023.
The anticipated deliverables for the ZAAPs/VC Team are:
- Develop a concept and vision for success for ZAAPs
- Design a ZAAP Centers of Excellence program that can serve as a replicable and scalable model
- ZAAP Performance Management:
- Design a performance management approach that provides visibility on the current status of pilot ZAAPs, identifies areas in need of attention, and can track improvements over time
- Selection of 17 ZAAPs for the Center of Excellence Program
- Validate the criteria for selecting ZAAPs
- Validate the preliminary list of selected ZAAPs to ensure suitability
- Add new ZAAPs to replace ZAAPs on the preliminary list that do not meet criteria
- Expansion of ZAAP practices:
- Understand key conditions for new crop uptake of the following: maize, rice, cassava, soybean, chili, coffee, cacao, cashew, mango.
- Identify sensitivities influencing uptake of new crops such as land security, management, availability of credit, etc.
- Identify sensitivities for uptake of new practices to improve income and production
- Develop implementation plans
- Create unique implementation plans for each of the 17 selected ZAAPs to improve production, income, and operations
A crop technical expert is required to support the project design for the ZAAPs/value chain priority focus areas. As context, ZAAPs are agricultural development planning areas of ~100 Ha which are initially developed by the government, and then given to local communities for their own use in crop production and income generation. They are to be operated and managed using business principles and without further support from the government.
This focus area is expected to create high-performing ZAAPs and expand the model across Togo so that there is one ZAAP in every canton (400 total) in Togo by 2025.
The agreed ATA design scope for the ZAAP initiative is to develop a Centre of Excellence program focused on a pilot of 17 pre-existing ZAAP sites – with the intention that these can serve as a replicable and scalable model to enable wider national agricultural transformation. Of the 17 ZAAPs, at least three are included for each region, whilst each of these have also been assigned a focus crop from priority commodities (Coffee/Cocoa, Chili, Mango, Cashew, Maize, Rice, Soy, Cassava, Sesame).
KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive, within delegated authority):
The ZAAP Crop Technical Expert will be under the supervision of the Focus Area Team Lead, who is responsible for ensuring the team produces expected deliverables and is able to respond any contextual changes. The Lead in turn will report into an overall Design Phase Director.
Technical expertise in agronomy is required to evaluate, recommend, and support expansion of new agronomic practices and cultivation of new crops as part of the ZAAP Centre of Excellence program. Specific activities are expected to include:
- Work closely with Focus Area Lead as part of the Focus Area Team
- Work with GoT agencies responsible for developing and promoting agricultural information, e.g., Extension Agency (ICAT), Research (ITRA), and others.
- Conduct field visits to specific ZAAP sites throughout the country to assess the level of production, identify bottlenecks, and make recommendations that fit within the context of each specific ZAAP
- Act as a key technical point of contact for the ZAAPs focus area design work – including close collaboration with relevant government partners from federal to Canton level
- Review available information on the specific focus crops and determine how to apply it to the 17 ZAAPs. The focus crops are: maize, cassava, rice, chili, coffee, cacao, sesame, cashew, mango
- Provide technical input to the ZAAP/VC Design Team to support validation of the preliminary list of 17 ZAAPs to ensure they are suitable for the assigned focus crops
- Develop approaches for introducing new crops to ZAAPs in appropriate agroecologies that have not grown the crop before. Work with the ZAAP organization technical expert to develop an approach that combines agronomic and management activities.
- Advise the Digital Extension Team on information needs of the farmers based on ZAAP experience
- Develop agronomic improvement plans for each ZAAP including crop types, production technologies, and post-harvest technologies) that could support improvement in ZAAP performance
- Support the design of improvement measures, and identify the most appropriate mechanisms for delivering these effectively
- Advise other focus area teams on crop needs in mechanization, irrigation, and digital extension
QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
Education:
Bachelors, Masters, or PhD degree in agricultural sciences / other relevant areas.
Experience:
Minimum of 4 years+ relevant experience for MS/PhD, or 6 years+ relevant experience for BSc in relevant roles.
Deep understanding of Togo’s technical and institutional agricultural context is required, and a professional network of relevant agricultural actors who could be leveraged in this design phase would be a key asset.
Knowledge & Skills:
- Deep technical knowledge of Togo’s agricultural context, focused on production of in-scope crops and their associated value chain activities of the majority of the focus crops with the ability to leverage network and literature to develop knowledge on the other crops (focus crops: Coffee/Cocoa, Chili, Mango, Cashew, Maize, Rice, Soy, Sesame, Cassava)
- Technical knowledge about planting, cultivation, crop management including the importance of soil health and interventions to improve it
- Proven experience and results related to supporting the design of different value chain initiatives which have demonstrably improved performance (not just related to production, but relevant interventions along the full value chain for certain commodities)
- Proven experience in providing technical input which supports program design and performance management; especially advantageous if this was for a ZAAP
- Strong interpersonal, operational and organizational skills, and able to effectively problem-solve and come up with innovative solutions
- Deep institutional knowledge and a professional network of relevant agricultural actors who could support this design phase
- Familiarity with broader non-agronomic challenges faced by farmer groups/cooperatives
Language:
Fluency (level C) in French and at least an intermediate knowledge (level B) in English (written and verbal).
WHY WORK WITH US?
This is an opportunity for an exciting and challenging position in a multi-cultural and interdisciplinary team, based in a unique location, on a topic with high relevance. In addition, we offer:
➡️Meaningful and impactful careers:
Our day-to-day work makes a difference in the lives of the people we serve
➡️Continuous learning and training:
We provide learning tools for our staff to continually develop their careers
➡️Multicultural and stimulating work environment:
We encourage gender and cultural diversity to make our teams stronger
Join us to make a difference, watch this video to know more about us!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnaxfnNKdsM&t=7s
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: September 7, 2022
All employment decisions are made based on organizational needs, job requirements, merit, and individual qualifications. WFP is committed to providing an inclusive work environment free of sexual exploitation and abuse, all forms of discrimination, any kind of harassment, sexual harassment, and abuse of authority. Therefore, all selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks.
No appointment under any kind of contract will be offered to members of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), FAO Finance Committee, WFP External Auditor, WFP Audit Committee, Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) and other similar bodies within the United Nations system with oversight responsibilities over WFP, both during their service and within three years of ceasing that service.
