Agribusiness Advisor-Livestock (Program Officer)

Professional Alliance for Development (PADet) is an indigenous, not-for-profit; a nongovernmental humanitarian organization established in 1998. It has been serving disadvantaged and marginalized segments of the community especially youth, women children in the areas of Reproductive Health HIV/AIDs Prevention and Care, Child Protection, Women Development and Livelihood &Food Securities for the last 25 years.

Project Background

PADet, as a consortium partner in a program led by SNV and funded by Mastercard Foundation will be implementing an anticipated flagship program focused on enabling 112,000 Rural young women (RYW) to access dignified and fulfilling jobs in Eastern Amhara regions. The program will target high-potential agricultural value chains (e.g., horticulture, poultry, dairy), using a market systems development approach. So PADet needs to recruit qualified and competent candidates in the following job opportunities.

Job title: Agribusiness Advisor-Livestock (Program Officer)

Grade level: IX

Location: Field office/Dessie

Report to: Cluster Coordinator

Number of staff required: 1

Job summary:

The position holder is responsible for leading the implementation of livestock sector and agribusiness development activities at the cluster level, with a strong focus on practical facilitation, market linkages, and enterprise growth. The role involves supporting market system interventions in poultry, dairy, shoat, and related value chains, mapping and coaching RYW led MSEs, and strengthening partnerships with local private sector actors, cooperatives, and unions. The advisor will ensure that activities are executed as planned to create meaningful income and employment for young women and men, drive market system improvements, and generate lessons for adaptive learning.

Key Responsibilities:

Facilitate market and value chain interventions

• Lead the operationalization of livestock value chain and market system activities at the cluster level, ensuring interventions are tailored to the local context and effectively address constraints identified through earlier market analyses.
• Contribute annual, quarter and monthly planning, as well as regular reporting related to livestock value chain and market system activities of the cluster
• Lead local assessments and analyses of the livestock sector to identify agribusiness opportunities tailored to rural young women.
• Design and execute market-based intervention strategies that address identified constraints and leverage opportunities in the livestock value chain, specific to the cluster context.
• Implement core value chain and market system activities—including market development, market intelligence, facilitation of local input/output market linkages (such as feed/inputs, veterinary services, aggregation, and value addition), and business development services—ensuring this leads to increased livestock productivity, income, and employment.
• Coordinate practical market linkage activities that connect rural young women-led and youth-led MSEs to input suppliers, buyers, processors, and service providers.
• Facilitate the introduction of new livestock technologies and practices (e.g., feed improvement, husbandry) and link these to business opportunities for youth.

Supporting youth enterprise growth interventions

• Map existing youth-led MSEs in livestock and agribusiness and design strategies to enable them to grow, diversify, and employ more young women.
• Support capacity building of youth groups and enterprises on business skills, value addition, and market requirements to enhance their competitiveness.

Strengthening partnerships and systemic change

• Work closely with local private sector players (aggregators, processors, traders), cooperatives, and unions to identify and develop mutually beneficial business relationships with youth entrepreneurs.
• Facilitate cluster-level multi-stakeholder livestock forums to discuss and address systemic bottlenecks in input and output markets.

Capacity building & technical support

• Provide tailored coaching, mentoring, and hands-on support to cluster technical teams and local stakeholders on livestock market systems, youth enterprise growth, and business development.
• Organize practical demonstrations and exposure visits to stimulate adoption of good practices.

Monitoring, documentation & learning

• Regularly track implementation progress of livestock and agribusiness activities in the cluster, ensuring they align with approved work plans and contribute to employment and income targets.
• Support documentation of lessons learned, case stories, and innovations from the cluster and share with the national technical team and MEAL staff for broader learning.
• Represent the program in local livestock and agribusiness platforms and forums, building strong networks with other projects, government offices, private sector associations, and community stakeholders.
• Ensure that gender and climate considerations are mainstreamed into livestock value chain interventions at the cluster level.
• Undertake other tasks as assigned to support program implementation and results.

 

Qualifications & Experience

• Masters/BA degree in Livestock Development, Agribusiness, Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Marketing, or related fields.
• Minimum 4 years of experience in livestock/agricultural value chain development or agribusiness, with practical experience working with youth and women in rural contexts.
• Experience in youth employment programming and Market system development
• Solid understanding of market systems, livestock input/output marketing, and local trade systems.
• Skill in project formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation
• Experience in facilitating business linkages, multi-stakeholder platforms, and building partnerships with private sector actors and cooperatives.
• Knowledge of livestock policies and local government structures, and experience aligning interventions to national and regional strategies.
• Proven report writing and communication skills
• Good interpersonal and make logical and timely decision skills
• Willingness to travel frequently within the cluster to support field-level activities

Personal Competency:

• Willingness to work extra working hours and weekends with staff.
• Highly motivated, self-managed and Strategic oriented.
• High level commitment to achieve project goal and Objectives.
• Able to work with minimum supervision.
• Ability to prepare and submit quality reports timely