Agripreneurship Training Specialist

Organizational Setting
 
As part of FAO’s effort to strengthen One Health workforce at community level, NSAH-CJW is implementing the project “Empowering veterinary paraprofessional entrepreneurs”, in Uganda, Nigeria and South Africa. This project builds on a first phase of implementation between 2021-2023 and aims to deliver and evaluate a model for sustainable last mile animal health service delivery through capacity development of private sector veterinary paraprofessionals (VPPs), and by addressing bottlenecks within the business environment.  Gender-sensitive programming is an essential part of the project. Women make up 60% of poor smallholder livestock farmers and are therefore a key target group for last mile animal health services.  
The project is centred around four complementary outcomes:
-    Outcome 1: Strengthened veterinary paraprofessional businesses providing gender responsive preventive healthcare services.
-    Outcome 2: Increased pool of continuous professional development compliant and registered veterinary paraprofessionals
-    Outcome 3: Improved business climate for veterinary paraprofessionals
-    Outcome 4: Increased awareness of private sector primary animal healthcare veterinary paraprofessional business model for improved access to animal health services

In South Africa, the project will train 60 currently unemployed animal health technicians (AHTs) with the aim of empowering and supporting them to establish their own small businesses serving rural livestock farming communities by providing primary animal healthcare services, focussing on preventive interventions. This will be the second cohort of AHTs to be trained in South Africa by the project. The rules governing the work of AHTs in South Africa were changed in December 2022, allowing them to operate private primary animal health care facilities for the first time.

The training follows a blended learning model, providing a mix of online learning, face to face workshops, work placements, mentorship, coaching and guided assignments. The face-to-face workshops will be delivered by partner training institutions and these institutions will work collaboratively with FAO to develop the planning and materials for each workshop.

The Agripreneurship Training Specialist will work as part of the project team in South Africa and will support the development and delivery of the training programme, collaborating closely with the training institutions. The specialist will focus on a) timely development of high-quality training materials, with particular expertise input to materials relating to agricultural entrepreneurship and small business administration b) providing training and coaching to the training institute training teams on best practices in adult learning and participatory facilitation techniques.

Reporting Lines

The Agripreneurship Training Specialist will work under the overall supervision of the FAO Representative in South Africa, the direct supervision of the Assistant FAO Representative Programmes and the technical guidance of the VPP Country Coordinator, Senior Training Advisor and with the technical support of the VPP Global Training Specialist.

Technical Focus

The incumbent will assist in the development and delivery of the training programme in collaboration with the training institutions and ensure quality training materials are produced. 

Tasks and responsibilities

•    Develop detailed workplans for training development and delivery by each training institute with clear allocation of timelines, roles and responsibilities.
•    Coordinate with the training institutions to ensure that training materials and course workshops are of high quality, delivered according to the timeline and that clear communications are provided to participating AHTs;
•    Support the planning and development of workshop outlines, agendas, and content, in particular facilitating review of business workshop training material in close collaboration with the training institutions;
•    Strengthen training institutions capacity with respect to participatory, interactive, and gender sensitive adult learning and facilitation techniques, by conducting training of trainers’ sessions, monitoring the training that is delivered and providing individual feedback and coaching to trainers after each workshop; 
•    Support the preparation of live online training sessions for AHTs, working alongside the training institutions, monitoring attendance, and providing feedback to training institutions post-call for improvement; 
•    Facilitate the AHT community of practice and the training institute community of practice at country level;
•    Support the VPP assistant coordinator to maintain archives of training materials and workshop photographs up to date;
•    Support the monitoring and evaluation of cohort 2 training including post-training impact assessments at AHT and farm level (in field missions), identifying case studies and success factors;
•    Co-facilitate training of mentors through online and face to face training;
•    Prepare in a timely manner training and technical reports and contribute to country project reports in line with partner funding requirements and FAO rules and procedures;
•    Facilitate gender equitable project implementation at country level including the implementation of specific activities in order to target outreach of AHT services to female smallholder farmers.  
•    Undertake other relevant tasks mutually agreed and deemed necessary by the project.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

•    University degree in agricultural economics, economics, business management, rural development, adult education, or other related fields for the position.
•    At least two years of relevant hands-on field experience in the field of micro, small and medium size enterprise (MSME) development / entrepreneurship in the agriculture/livestock sector and/or
•    At least two years of relevant experience in the development and facilitation of training.
•    Working knowledge of English (Level C).
•    National of South Africa or resident in the country with valid work permit.

FAO Core Competencies

•    Results Focus
•    Teamwork
•    Communication
•    Building Effective Relationships
•    Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

·    Experience in micro, small, or medium enterprise incubation in the rural sector.
·    Experience in training development and facilitation, in particular participatory and interactive adult teaching and learning techniques.
·    Understand the concept of agripreneurship and business environment.
·    Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines.
·    Experience in gender sensitive and transformational approaches.
·    Experience of the livestock sector, particularly in rural and/or animal healthcare settings.