Job Title:  Market Development Facility Specialist

Organisation: TechnoServe (TNS)

Duty Station:  Northern Uganda, Uganda

Reports to: Program Manager

Travel: Remote rural locations

About US:

TechnoServe (TNS) is an international non-profit international development organization founded in 1968. Its mission is to help entrepreneurial men and women break the cycle of poverty by building businesses that create jobs, income, and economic opportunities for their families, their communities, and their countries.

About Program:

TechnoServe has been implementing HortiMAP to support market actors to work towards creating a vibrant, sustainable Ugandan horticulture sector since 2020 with financing from the EKN. The project was restricted to 23 districts in the Central, Eastern and South-western region excluding the North which has equally great Horticultural potential. Over 80% of the HortiMAP financing was strategically redirected to support more of productive activities leaving a gap on the market systems development end of the Value Chain.

TechnoServe will implement the NU-Hortimap funded by aBi Investments Ltd to scale the successes gained under Hortimap in Northern Uganda. This program over the 18 Months will support market actors to work towards creating a vibrant, sustainable Ugandan horticulture sector. The program combines catalytic funding through a Market Development Facility and Technical Assistance fund to leverage private sector and local resources and expertise to strengthen SMEs and local supply chains, while delivering world-class entrepreneurship training to farmers and retailers to realize their potential. These interventions are expected to:

a) Train & support 7000 farmers on entrepreneurship, regenerative good agricultural practices (GAP), post-harvest handling (PHH) & reduced loss, financing & use of technologies, nutrition

b) Provide tailored business advisory support and catalytic finance to producer organizations (POs) and farmer-facing micro, small c) Provide technical assistance to 2 public sector actors to disseminate information on market standards, inspect horticulture farms, and develop a domestic digital traceability system and d) Support 4 market-facing MSMEs with tailored business development advisory, investor readiness support, and access to catalytic finance.

Also Read: Programme Officer Job – Andre Foods International (AFI)

Job Summary:  The Market Development Facility Specialist provides strategic leadership on the Markets Systems Development, oversees the recruitment of agribusiness supply chain clients, farmer organizations, vendor associations, individual entrepreneurial farmers, and develops the HortiMAP Market Development Facility for the program, businesses, producer organizations, vendor associations, entrepreneurial farmers who will partner with NU-HortiMAP through the MDF. The Market Development Facility Specialist will assist clients in diagnosing constraints and opportunities and using bespoke technical assistance and financial solutions that address firm-specific constraints while demonstrating new models for replication and scale by other businesses. In particular, the MDF Specialist will technically back-stop the Senior Business advisor and the Program Manager to support the clients to pilot and scale more inclusive business models that prioritize economic opportunity for women and youth and adopt climate-smart technologies. In addition, the position will help in building an SME pipeline to leverage the funds that will be mobilized as private capital to complement the MDF.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:  

Principal Responsibilities:

• Oversee MDF client sourcing and shortlisting
• Manage the application and SME onboarding process
• Lead the Partnership managers to shortlist applicants against eligibility criteria.
• Support the Selection committee to select final partner clients from the shortlisted applicants
• Oversee planning for meetings, site visits, and due diligence of MDF applicants
• Oversee design and execution of partnership roadmaps
• Leverage Nu HortiMAP networks to link MDF clients with buyers
• Lead relationship development with commercial finance providers to leverage additional finance that complements catalytic grants
• Ensure private-sector match commitments

MDF Finance and Investment Mechanism:

• Sourcing Clients: The MDF specialist will coordinate will develop the sourcing criteria and recruit via events, a robust and broad communications strategy, and networking an adequate number of qualified applicants to the MDF facility, with particular emphasis on women-owned or managed businesses and those with many women in their employ or supply chain.
• Shortlisting and selecting clients: Lead the process of screening based on eligibility criteria and alignment with program objectives; responsible for developing client dossiers with inputs from partners to submit to the MDF advisory board for evaluation and approval or referral for further development.
• Partnership Road maps: The MDF specialist will lead the development of Partnership Road Maps – concise opportunity diagnostics and support the development of plans, easily accessible to businesses and financial partners
• SME Client Partnership Implementation: Ensures implementation of each agribusiness partnership roadmap (PRM) agreed upon activities, outputs, and deliverables to reach specific commercial and inclusive objectives (e.g., revenues, sales, jobs created, etc.), guided by a budget, and an M&E section.

Technical Assistance Mechanism:

• Generate a pipeline of Technical Assistance needs of SME clients and work with the Identified Consultant/ experts to provide the TA
• The MDF specialist will work with the Finance and Operations, and country procurement teams to develop a list of pre-qualified list of local Technical Assistance providers and regularly update as necessary
• Support Business Advisors to provide sector-wide training to small businesses not contracted under the MDF.
• Prioritize identifying local business development service providers to whom needy SMEs can be linked for post acceleration support after the project life.
• Ensure external service provider contracts include a clear scope of work, and disbursement of payments will be tied to satisfactory outputs.
• Monitor execution of technical assistance to ensure the quality of delivery and alignment with Partnership Roadmaps

Partnership & Client Management:

• Map client and partner’s needs and capabilities, develop standards for vetting them and ROI proposition ( the program framework) to the potential partners to secure their commitment to participate in the program
• Coordinate with the Horticulture Value Chain team to integrate program participants in client value chains and vice-versa;
• Together with the M&E team, operationalize the framework for supervision and tracking of MDF client performance and compliance with the obligations under the partnership roadmaps signed
• Make regular visits to the partners & clients to track their performance and provide regular updates/reports on their progress

Program Coordination and Implementation:

• Maintain strong working relationships with partners and relevant stakeholders in the agribusiness investment space by leading coordination meetings
• Review the narrative reports of MDF project partners and write the comprehensive annual report.
• Actively participate in regular team meetings to track implementation progress and share relevant program and administrative data
• Ensure the delivery of Sector-wide entrepreneurship training packages is of high quality, is appropriate to the local context, and is effectively reaching participants
• Support the Program Manager in convening MDF Advisory Board Meetings
• Share best practices and lessons learned with team members

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

• The applicant must hold a Bachelor’s degree in business administration, economics, agricultural economics, or related course plus 3 years experience. Hands-on facilitating growth for Micro, Small, medium, and large companies at various stages, including start-up and growth phases in Uganda. OR masters degree plus 1 year experience.
• An MBA plus indicated experience will be considered an added advantage
• Training and experience in implementing market systems development approach agriculture sector with clarity of the idea on linking enterprise support to agro-market growth.
• Strong practical skills in financial modeling, business strategy design, growth planning, financial analysis, and project management
• Practical experience in building SME pipelines for impact investments
• Experience managing impact investment fund within a project setting is an added advantage.
• Track record of building solid relationships with business and other stakeholders, including central government
• Experience working with food aggregation and processing, supply chain development, out-grower networks
• Excellent interpersonal and oral, and written communication skills are a must
• Ability to develop well-written, cohesive analyses and reports
• Ability to generate innovative solutions in work situations
• Proven ability and experience working with teams will be an added advantage

Success Factors: Competency is a combination of knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) directly related to successful performance on the job.

Core Competencies include:

• Integrity and honesty: Is widely trusted; seen as a direct, truthful individual; presents truthful information appropriately and helpfully; keeps confidences; admits mistakes; does not misrepresent themselves for personal gain.
• Team Work/ Relationships: Works cooperatively and flexibly with other team members with a complete understanding of the role to be played as a team member and leader to achieve a common goal. Ability to build and maintain effective relationships and networks.
• Learning attitude: Proactively takes advantage of opportunities to learn. Actively identifies new areas for learning; applies and shares new knowledge and skill appropriately.
• Diversity/Inclusiveness: Demonstrates an understanding and appreciation for diversity and supports diversity efforts. Interacts inclusively with people of all races, cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds, religions, ages, and genders.
• Communication: Expresses ideas effectively in individual and group situations. Listens effectively; shares information, ideas, and arguments; adjusts terminology, language, and communication modes to the needs of the audience; ensures accurate understanding; acts in a way that facilitates an open exchange of ideas and information; use appropriate non-verbal communication.
• Decision making/Problem Solving: Can analyze situations, diagnose problems, identify the key issues, establish and evaluate alternative courses of action and produce a logical, practical, and acceptable solution. Can make effective decisions daily, take ownership of decisions, and demonstrate sound judgment in escalating issues where necessary.
• Results-Oriented/High-Quality Deliverables: Stays focused on the efforts necessary to achieve quality results consistent with programmatic or departmental goals. Demonstrates the ability to achieve effective results; works persistently to overcome obstacles to goal achievement. Accomplishes tasks by considering all areas involved, no matter how small; showing concern for all aspects of the job; accurately checking processes and tasks.
• Planning & Time Management: Establishes a course of action for self and others to accomplish a specific goal. Effectively plans, schedules, prioritizes, and controls activities; identifies, integrates, and orchestrates resources (people, material, information, budget, and time) to accomplish goals. Prioritizes work according to the program or department’s goals, not just own job responsibilities; manages own time effectively.
• Business Acumen: The ability to use information, ask the right questions, and make decisions that impact the overall business performance.

Job Specific/Technical Competencies include:

• Financial & Resource Management: The ability to estimate, justify, and manage appropriate funding levels to support goal accomplishment. Managing Resources is about understanding human, financial, and operational resource issues to make decisions to build and plan efficient project workflows and improve overall organizational performance.
• Donor/Partnership Management: Identifying opportunities and taking action to build strategic relationships between one’s area and other areas, teams, departments, or organizations to help achieve business goals.
• Analysis, Research, Report Writing: Experience in business planning and analysis, modeling for feasibility and execution. Able to analyze and express oneself clearly in business writing.
• Innovative Mindset: Curious inquiries, asks questions and seeks out information from multiple sources, learns from mistakes, sees change as an opportunity.

Career Pathways: The position that may be a next career opportunity for employees in this job title include  MDF Lead

How to Apply:

All applicants who wish to join Technoserve in this capacity should apply online at the link below.

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