Kenya: Dairy Technical Director

Dairy Technical Director

Kenya Crop and Dairy Market Systems Development Activity

Nairobi, Kenya

Background:

Land O'Lakes International Development is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit helping communities around the world build economies by strengthening agriculture from farm-to-folk, helping businesses grow, and linking farmers to markets. Since our start in 1981, we have been leveraging nearly 100 years of expertise in dairy, animal nutrition, crop inputs and agricultural insights from our close affiliate, Land O’Lakes, Inc., a farmer-owned agribusiness committed to fulfilling its purpose of feeding human progress.

Our team is made up of nearly 350 employees who are committed to market-led approaches, and passionate about collaborating locally to create lasting inclusive economic growth. By unlocking the potential of agriculture for the last 36 years, the lives of more than 3 million people have been transformed through nearly 300 programs in more than 80 countries.

Project Description:

Land O’Lakes International Development is seeking expressions of interest for Dairy Technical Director candidates for the Kenya Feed the Future Crop and Dairy Market Systems Development Activity. The program will focus on horticulture, staple crops and dairy value chains with an emphasis on sustainable market driven approaches. The anticipated value is $50-$60M.

Position Summary and Primary Responsibilities:

The Dairy Technical Director will support the overarching technical approach for dairy activities. Specifically, this position will coordinate and manage all program activities that support dairy producing households to sustainably increase their production and access existing and new markets for milk resulting in increased income and consumption of milk at the household level. The program is expected to take a market facilitative approach, working through market systems actors. It is also expected that the program will emphasize household consumption of nutrition foods as part of the overall strategy. This individual is expected to coordinate with the project senior management to integrate and coordinate activities relating to dairy production and post-harvest handling and its link to markets, employment, and nutritious food production.

Technical

• Lead the start-up, implementation, monitoring and adaptation of dairy and activities to productivity and market access, and improve access to and use of nutritious food through diversification of food production. Manage a team of technical staff and work with local implementing partners to achieve project deliverables.

• Build relationships with key market players to facilitate improved access to inputs and increased market opportunities for farmers.

• Lead market system assessments and design strategies for implementation that facilitate increased private sector engagement in value chains and accomplish program goals for the benefit of farmers.

• Develop technical materials, in collaboration with technical advisors and possibly outside consultants, to further project activities, objectives and results.

• Train and oversee partners, agricultural extension officers and community volunteers who deliver household outreach and group training.

• Regularly travel to field site locations in to lead the start-up, manage implementation, and in coordination with M&E staff, the monitoring of project activities.

• Build staff capacity for dairy focused activity design, implementation and monitoring.

• Oversee and contribute to the design of assessments in order to guide program design, implementation, monitoring and adaptation.

Operational

• Provide timely and accurate written and verbal reporting.
• Contribute to project strategic planning and to well-written, focused project reports, annual implementation plans, success stories and other written products.
• Ensure high quality project implementation, monitoring and reporting.
• Make regular field visits to monitor project quality and collect data.
• Collaborate with M&E staff to ensure that collection and analysis of data is accurate, rigorous and incorporated into project implementation.
• Coordinate with other technical leads in work planning, implementation, monitoring, reporting, and adaptation.

Reporting & Supervision:

The Dairy and Livestock Technical Lead will report to the Chief of Party.

Required Skills and Qualifications:

· MSc in agriculture, livestock or animal production or a related field with 10+ years of implementation experience;

· Minimum of 10 years of relevant field experience with an international organization in agriculture and livestock programming.

· Strong technical grasp of livestock, environmental safeguards strategies, and natural resource management.

· Experience, knowledge and skills in improved livestock production.

· Experience in agribusiness development preferred.

· Experience in systems strengthening, capacity building, service delivery, and quality improvement is highly desirable.

· Demonstrated experience in project and time management.

· Demonstrated experience in working effectively with CSOs and community-level actors, stakeholders and beneficiaries.

· Experience applying and knowledge of the design, implementation and best practices for promoting behavior change and adoption of improved practices and technologies in agriculture and livestock programming, including training of trainer activities and development of training materials.

· Significant knowledge of livestock, food security, nutrition and gender issues in Kenya.

· Excellent interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to lead and work effectively in team situations and independently.

· Familiarity and understanding of donor policies and procedures is a plus.

· Excellent writing and oral communication skills in English required.

Please note only finalists will be contacted. No phone calls please.

We are an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer. Land O'Lakes enforces a policy of maintaining a drug-free workforce.

https://lol.avature.net/Careers/JobDetail/Kenya-Dairy-Technical-Director/1091