Regional Technical Advisor at GIZ Nigeria

GIZ EAT - a vibrant new project for the ECOWAS region

The BMZ funded regional project ECOWAS Agricultural Trade (EAT) is implemented by GIZ and officially started in January 2022 with a funding of 10 Mio. EUR for 5 years. The project management unit is based in Abuja. Major activities will start from January 2023. The project focuses on five countries, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and three others to be determined with the partner.

The objective of EAT is to improve institutional and technical requirements for intra-regional agricultural trade in the ECOWAS region and selected countries. The main partner is the ECOWAS commission (Directorates for agriculture, trade and customs), regional organizations and national line ministries or trade associations.

EAT works on 3 components:

1.    Strengthen the role of the ECOWAS Commission in coordinating sustainable gender-sensitive agricultural trade instruments with ECOWAS Member States

2.    Support sustainable gender-sensitive agricultural trade facilitation measures and services for traders at border posts and along agricultural trade value chains.

3.    Improve regional agri-trade promotion services and business performance of the traders.

The target group of the project comprises trade companies, organizations and actors in agri-food sector trade in the ECOWAS region. The supported agricultural commodities are raw, semi-finished and finished products that are traded form farm gate, factory or warehouse to consumer markets.

A.        Profile

You are supporting the Project Leader of the ECOWAS Agricultural Trade (EAT) project with key strategic and operational tasks along the project cycle such as conceptualization, planning and implementing or backstopping of all project components. You are representing the project in absence of the Project Leader and when needed, collaborate with 2 Technical Advisors and an Administrative and Financial team to manage and implement activities. The position involves key responsibilities to support the ECOWAS Commission in policy advice for trade facilitation and trade promotion by providing technical advice. Another key responsibility is to assure on-track project implementation and sound management. Excellent and adaptive communication skills to support political partners, private sector actors, target groups and team members on various levels is one of your main strengths. You are taking over responsibility proactivity within your scope of work and have a results-oriented way performing in a team approach. This includes co-leadership for the technical advisors in the team. With a mind-set and passion to improve processes for management change and innovation, you contribute essentially to major project outputs and key requirements of ECOWAS Commission. You find the right balance between service orientation and convincing partners to change perspectives. You have a motivation to frequently travel within the ECOWAS region and to work in close contact with various partners and stakeholders in different contexts.

As a Senior Technical Advisor, you will have the following responsibilities and tasks:

1.      Project management and co-leadership

• Give advice to the Project Leader on strategic and operational aspects and assures co-leadership for the team
• Supports the Project Leader with management, backstopping and technical inputs related to all components
• Ensure proactively a sound and efficient planning, organization and implementation of activities and events
• Assure the use of (digital) GIZ project management tools during implementation
• Contributes to the elaboration of a Capacity Development Strategy for the project and to a communication strategy
• Drafts TOR, initiates and manages service or financial contracts according to the overall planning
• Manages, backstops, follows-up implementation of activities in 3 components with the 2 Technical Advisors and with partners
• Assures efficient collaboration between technical and financial teams for project implementation
• Assures the compliance with GIZ rules and standards within the technical team
• Leads and motivates the technical team to take responsibility for their work and to provide quality results
• Travels to countries within the ECOWAS region to assure quality of implementation and to manage partner networks

2.      Policy advice and technical inputs

•  Assures the availability of data, findings, results and recommendations of studies
•  Feeds back information and knowledge into policy advice and formulation of agri-trade instruments and measures; extract key messages for policy advice
•  Give updates on major developments and events in agricultural trade policies, trade promotion and facilitation in the ECOWAS region. Manages information on agri-trade and sector policies, news and events with 2 Technical Advisors and the Monitoring and Communication Expert
•  Organizes joint activities with ECOWAS and members states at political level with the GIZ and ECOWAS advisors

3.      Communication, facilitation, partner and knowledge management

• Assure fluent communication with ECOWAS Commission and other regional partner institutions at technical levels
• Focal person for the GIZ Advisor at ECOWAS Commission to assure the exchange of information and the cooperation on activities
• Facilitate and moderate during conferences and workshops, as well as team meetings
• Organize a system for partner network management with key partners
• Support the Project Leader and the Monitoring and Communication Expert on knowledge management and learning through evaluation of activities carried out, identification of lessons learned and best practices.
• Assures flow of information and high degree of collaboration in the project team and other GIZ units, esp. M&E, technical and financial staff

C.        Required qualifications, Competences and Experience

Qualifications

Master’s degree in agronomy, international economics, geography, political sciences (with special qualifications in economics or agronomy) or other related field of study

Professional Experience

• At least 7 years’ experience working in the areas of agricultural value chains, trade or market development with the private and public sector in West Africa.
• At least 5 years of professional experience in project management, policy and technical advice, cooperation and communication with public and private partners institutions.
• Previous work with regional institutions such as ECOWAS Commission, regional business chambers and associations is an advantage
• Know the business environment, cultural and socio-economic context in at least 2 other West African countries esp. related to agricultural value chains and trade
• A deep understanding of the work and mandate of the ECOWAS commission on agricultural and trade policies, implementation of ECOWAS trade instruments in the member states and knowledge of the regional context in trade promotion and facilitation for agricultural value chains  

Other skills and competences

• Ability to work in a highly political and dynamic context from regional to national and local levels by understanding the different mandates and interests of institutions and actors.
• Capability to analyze and summarize complex situations, find pragmatic solutions for complex technical and policy related challenges in agricultural trade promotion and facilitation
• Identify policy and business network in the region that are capable to contribute to the objective of the project
• Spoken and written language skills in English (level C2) and French (level C2) are required for this position.
• Proficient use of MS Office and MS Teams