Senior Project Officer for Agricultural Value Chain Development

VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT

As a federal enterprise, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH supports the German Government in achieving its objectives in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development. On behalf of the German Government, GIZ currently provides advisory services to the Government of Viet Nam in three priority areas: Vocational training, Environmental policy and sustainable use of natural resources, and Energy. For further information, please visit www.giz.de/viet-nam.

German Cooperation has been supporting Viet Nam to restructure its agriculture sector to ensure sustainable rural development, particularly in the Mekong Delta. In continuation of this support, the Viet Nam country package of the global program “Green Innovation Centres in the Agriculture and Food Sector” in Viet Nam (GIC), has been commissioned to support the transition to higher resource efficiency and value creation in Mekong Delta farming systems. A central element of the project is to increase the ability of smallholder farmers and upstream/downstream companies to adopt climate-smart and sustainable innovations that increase incomes, employment, and the quality of produce while reducing their environmental footprint. Through the promotion of innovations and novel business models along the agro-food value chains rice and mango, GIC contributes to farmer’s stable and competitive production, increased incomes through higher product quality and compliance with standards. Businesses up- and downstream of agricultural production improve farmer’s access to diverse services, and stable access to markets.

The project GIC is looking for a national qualified candidate to fill in the following position:

Senior Project Officer for agricultural value chain development
Duty station: Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam
Duration: ASAP for 2 years with the possibility of extension

Main responsibilities:

Based in GIZ’s Ho Chi Minh City office, the Senior Project Officer (SPO) takes over a technical leadership role in relation to his/her expertise, networking, and operational and strategic capacity. He/she is responsible for the engagement with and support to private sector partners of the agricultural task team’s projects, as well as with national and international public agencies and (I)NGOs in the south of Vietnam and the Mekong Delta. Dealing with a large range of businesses, public partners from central down to district level, from upstream service providers for agricultural production, to post-harvest and processing along various value chains, he or she assesses, develops, and promotes support needs of the partners, and respectively the contributions to common goals. The successful candidate, as a team player, will also share his/her expertise to help junior and mid-career members of the team develop their full potential. Advice to the SPO’s line manager, and development of proposals for specific interventions, as well as autonomous planning, execution, and reporting is part of the scope of responsibilities.

The SPO analyzes partner’s and target groups’ capacity development needs and ensures that the support rendered by GIZ is effective, responsive, goal-oriented, and relevant. He/she suggests solutions to achieving the project’s goals, supports the design and implementation of defined activities, monitors and reports on the activities assigned to him/her, and supports colleagues in identifying and making use of synergies and adding value to work streams through a proactive and structured behavior.

The SPO’s responsibilities are as follows:

Project management

• Contribution to the establishment of the projects’ annual work plans
• Responsibility for the execution of the aspects related to implementation of public-private partnerships, provincial-level stakeholders, and SME partnerships in Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta.
• Technical, methodological, and administrative advice for counterparts, consultants, and colleagues, as applicable
• Drafting of terms of reference and other documents, as applicable, to structure the concrete execution of activities under the projects, and autonomous follow-up and guidance for third-party assignments
• Prepare, coordinate, implement, and evaluate activities, new initiatives in close coordination with partners and the team leader
• Development of the didactic and methodological toolkit for SME training and coaching in view of effective adoption of innovations in the agro-food sector

Networking and partner management

• Developing and acquiring new partnerships, for upscaling of activities or to increase the funding base through acquisition of third-party financing
• Development and pro-active maintenance of the network of relevant actors
• Representation of GIC at relevant meetings and exchanges
• Ensuring partner commitments are delivered timely and in the adequate quality and transparency

Monitoring and knowledge management

• Autonomous research of contextual knowledge, and of experiences and activities by other actors, on approaches and policies pertaining to the value chains promoted, the regions worked in, and the target groups
• Provision of information and data on activities conducted, objectives and results, to the project’s monitoring system
• Regular review of relevant dynamics in the business environment, and the supported value chains as part of the Mekong Delta, Vietnamese, and regional agro-food sector
• Documentation of innovation’s, and business models’ functioning, technical and economic, as well as financial parameters, results and impacts, with a view to further refining innovations and increase large adoption potential
• Provision of inputs for PR and knowledge management documents
• Contribution to planning and implementing knowledge and experience exchange formats between the GIC country package Vietnam and international working groups, as well as for exposure visits.

Minimum requirements:

• University degree in agronomy, agro-economics, business administration, economics, food technology, environmental management, or another relevant field of expertise
• At least 10 years of general professional experience in related fields of work, either in consultant work or as employee. Work experience acquired abroad is considered a strong asset.
• At least 5 years of work experience in the agro-food industry, experience with the rice sector and in the Mekong Delta are considered an asset, as well as an established network in the rice value chain.
• Strong advisory and project management skills, and experience with the initiation, planning, budgeting, execution, monitoring of projects and other project management tasks
• Strong investment planning and assessment capacities with an interdisciplinary perspective, and capacity to assess both technical and economic parameters of business models
• Proven advisory capacities and accomplishments of business level capacity development,
• Strong networking capability
• Readiness for frequent travelling in the Mekong Delta, and to Hanoi, and occasionally abroad, international travel conditions permitting
• Ability to work individually as well as in a team; ability to work together with people from different sectors (e.g. private sector, ministries, international experts) and cultural backgrounds
• High-level proficiency of oral and written English and Vietnamese, including solid reporting skills
• Solid computer skills (e.g. Microsoft Office)
• Strong critical, analytical thinking and structured working abilities. Strong work ethic.

Successful candidates will enjoy good working conditions in a friendly and creative working environment, open corporate culture, competitive benefits and compensation, and good training and professional development possibilities.

Interested qualified candidates are invited to send the GIZ Application Form in English, copies of relevant certificates and references, either by email (to [email protected]) or by post (to GIZ Office Hanoi, 6^th Floor Hanoi Towers, 49 Hai Ba Trung Street, Hanoi, Vietnam), before 22^nd May 2021.

Note: Please state “Application for Senior Project Officer_GIC based in HCMC” in the subject line or on the envelope. Short-listed candidates will be contacted within 4 weeks after the deadline. Telephone contact is not encouraged.

Please complete all the information in GIZ Application form with link download here: http://bit.ly/2nyiCY6.

GIZ – YOUR PARTNER FOR A BETTER FUTURE