Crop Production and Irrigation Team Leader

Organizational Setting

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) supports the 2030 Agenda through its Strategic Framework, promoting efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable agrifood systems for better production, nutrition, environment, and life, leaving no one behind.

FAO Country Offices, guided by the Strategic Framework, provide policy advice, technical assistance, and core services to countries in FAO’s mandated areas. These offices implement country-specific priorities outlined in their Country Programming Frameworks (CPFs) and aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF), ensuring efficient operations with adequate human and financial resources.

FAO Ethiopia country office works in close collaboration with Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and other relevant government institutions implements a various intervention aimed at promoting sustainable crop production systems, providing related technical assistance and policy advice, enhancing access to knowledge and technology, promoting seed systems and genetic resources and supporting appropriate and timely response to food security challenges and emergencies.

Reporting Lines

Under the overall supervision and guidance of the FAO Representative in Ethiopia (FAOR) and the direct supervision of the Better Production Team Leader, in close collaboration with the FRETH Programme implementing teams, the Crop Production and Irrigation Team Leader will provide technical advice and input to the Country Programme Framework (CPF) development and implementation for efficient, cost-effective and impactful interventions of FRETH crop production and irrigation programmes and projects ensuring alignment to the needs of the country. Furthermore, the incumbent will provide leadership to the crop production, plant protection and irrigation specialists in line with the CPF and FAO’s Four Betters. 

Technical Focus

The technical focus areas for the incumbent will be: (a) Identifying bottlenecks in the country’s crop production, plant protection irrigation development programs and come up with appropriate and innovative solutions; (b) Participating in crop production forums and events as FAO crop production technical advisor; (c) Supporting the establishment of appropriate community level FAO supported sites to demonstrate crop production best practices (d) documenting FAO supported crop production and irrigation success stories and lessons learned.

Tasks and responsibilities

In particular, the incumbent will be responsible for fulfilling the following specific tasks: 
•    Provide overall leadership, guidance and oversight to Crop Production, Irrigation Management, Plant Protection and agricultural extension interventions 
•    Coordinate the identification and documentation of constraints and challenges in crop production, irrigation management, agricultural extension and plant protection and development of innovative sustainable solutions to the impediments.
•    Oversee the formulation of innovative intervention ideas to guide crop unit project proposal development in line with FRETH CPF, UNSDCF and FAO’s global corporate level strategic objectives. 
•    Guide the formulation and submission of crop unit project proposals to funding partners. 
•    Provide leadership and guidance on the formulation and implementation of crop unit project workplans including documenting project results and lessons learned in line with project reporting and visibility requirements.
•    Provide technical support including expert advice to relevant government, private sector entities and other development partners on crop production, irrigation management, and plant protection towards attainment of country food and nutrition security targets
•    Coordinate the provision of FAO technical support to the government on collection and maintenance of crop production and irrigation development data to facilitate performance monitoring toward attainment of set targets and sharing of customized information with relevant stakeholders.
•    Provide technical support and for regular review of the national seed system and to the designing of intervention to address bottlenecks and challenges in a sustainable manner. 
•    Provide support on policy review to foster sustained improvement of operating environment that allow farmers and other value chain players to contribute to the overall performance and competitiveness of the Ethiopia agriculture sector. 
•    Provide leadership on gender mainstreaming during crop production and irrigation development project formulation and implementation as well as generation of data to track progress. 
•    Coordinate the identification of relevant R&D topics that can facilitate unlocking Ethiopia’s agriculture sector and share ideas with relevant agriculture sector R&D partners / platforms.  
•    Participate in the preparation and review of FRETH field programme/project and thematic work plans to ensure technical consistency.
•    Perform any other duties as required

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements  
  
•    Candidate should be a national of Ethiopia.
•    Advanced university degree in Agriculture or related fields
•    A minimum of 7 years of professional experience in crop production programme management. 
•    Working knowledge of English and working knowledge of the duty station language (Amharic).

FAO Core Competencies

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

Technical/Functional Skills 

•    Work experience in more than one location or area of work
•    Extent and relevance of experience in crop production
•    Extent and relevance of experience in crop production
•    Familiarity with Ethiopia agrifood systems transformation program

Selection Criteria 

•    Extent and relevance of experience and knowledge on crop production and protection
•    Extent of experience and knowledge on crop production project implementation
•    Extent of knowledge and experiences in working with various stakeholders, including UN, Government, NGOs, private sector, academics, and others
•    Extent of experience in doing similar work/ assignment
•    Experience with donor relations will be considered an asset. 
•    Familiarity with FAO’s work in Ethiopia and African region will be considered an asset.
•    Demonstrated experience in working with government partners, UN Agencies and other stakeholders dealing with health-related matters.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION