Market Access Officer

World Food Programme is recruiting a Market Access Officer, to be based in Maputo.

Duties

• Coordination of the pilot project Purchase for Africans to Africa (PAA Africa) for dietary diversification of school feeding through the direct contracts with 20 first level smallholder associations to supply maize grain and identification of farmer’s associations capacities, in Changara and Cahora Bassa, to supply diversified agricultural products such as horticulture and fruits
• Coordinate the second phase of PAA (2014-2018)
• Coordinate the implementation of the Joint Programme Commodity Value Chain with UN sister agencies: FAO and UNWOMEN, in Tete province, in the same framework of P4P activities of strengthening farmers organizations capacities to aggregate and sale quality products such as maize and pulses, taking into consideration the gender awareness and sensitization. It includes training in leadership and good governance, associations, records keeping, quality assurance and procurement rules and procedures, construction of warehouses and deliver warehouse basic equipment
• Analyze and clean the assessment study conducted by national consultant on the Farmer’s Organization (FO) progression after the 5 years implementation of Purchase for Progress (P4P) pilot, in order to define a better investment and business plans for each of the 20 second/third level farmers organizations participated in P4P. These plans will allow the development of a progression strategy for the next 5 years of the EU-MDG1c programme
• Coordinate the implementation of Market Access activities of the EU-MDG1c project, including the component of the strengthening of the market information systems and the feasibility study of the commodity exchange in Mozambique
• Discuss, negotiate, prepare and supervise the implementation of Memorandums of Understanding signed with the Ministry of Industry and
• Commerce and the Ministry of Agriculture, for the modernization and harmonization of the existing Market Information Systems (INFOCOM –MIC and SIMA-MINAG); with Mozambique Commodity Exchange to support the establishment of the commodity exchange in Mozambique; and with other partners for developing and conducting training to strengthen the Farmers Organizations capacities
• Participate in the joint programme coordination meetings with the related directorates of the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce and the UN sister agencies: FAO, UNWOMEN, UNIDO and IFAD. On this task includes the narrative and financial reporting
  Funds management of grants allocated to Market Access Unit worth $6million such as P4P, PAA Africa, other donors’ contributions Flemish, One UN; which include prepare budget plans and revisions, monitor expenditures and consumption reports on WFP corporate system “WINGS”, the P4P quarterly reports and financial reports. Currently, funds management of EU-MDG1c for market access and market information components and PAA Africa second phase worth of $2.5 million and guide/advise other Programme Officers on this area
• Coordinate studies on the P4P pilot; its impact at farmers and association level; and documents lessons learnt under this project initiative
  Initiate and follow up on all the procurement processes of the goods and services ordered for the Market Access programmes such as construction of community storage facilities, purchase and distribution of cleaning/threshing/sorting and warehouse and quality assurance equipments.
• Participate actively in the Purchase Contract Committees for Non-food items (goods and services), Logistics services and Food Commodities
• Supervise, monitor and guide 3 Field Staff activities such as training plans to Farmer Organizations, monitoring and follow up activities to Farmers Organizations, price and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) data collection
• Support the Procurement Officer with the food procurement processes organizing and attending to the Open panels and FPCCs; including follow up of cargo loading progress of WFP local purchases particularly on those under the P4P & PAA. Occasional participation in the food purchase negotiations
• Continue strengthening of the understanding of the quality marketed products and using lessons learned from P4P experience, conducted on job training and close follow up to reduce the high costs of the cleaning/sorting exercises in the other FOs engaged in the P4P/Joint Programme
• Provide extensive support to the Head of Programme
• Carry out frequent field missions to targeted districts: assessed project outputs and beneficiaries (small/medium traders and small-scale farmers’ organizations), and conducted training sessions and recommendations on best practices both on quality assurance side and on the organizational side to overcame each obstacle faced during the process of aggregation and processing, and the main bottleneck identified was under the cleaning/sorting and fumigation activities
• In coordination with WFP logistics officers and the P4P field staff, ensured adequate management and cost-effectiveness of all logistics operations and assets involved with the P4P food purchases, by planning with logistics the transport needs and possible points of collection, negotiate the contracts and close follow up through the Field staff and FO board, of the processing activities
• Organize with FAO the quarterly technical group meetings, under PAA Africa project

Requisites

Education

• Master degree in one or more of the following disciplines: economics, agriculture, international affairs, business administration, social sciences, development studies or a field relevant to international development assistance

Experience

• At least five years of postgraduate professional experience in emergency, humanitarian, relief, recovery, resilience related fields

Language

• Fluency in Portuguese is essential. Fluency in English is an added value

Notes

• Only short listed applicants will be contacted