Associate Program Officer - Branchless Banking

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION: 

Established in 2006, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is an African-based organization, with a vision of a food secure and prosperous Africa achieved through rapid, sustainable agricultural growth based on smallholder farmers, majority of whom are women. Its programs develop practical solutions to significantly boost farm productivity and incomes for the poor while safeguarding the environment. AGRA works to catalyze a uniquely African Green Revolution by creating transformative partnerships.

Background: AGRA is implementing the project Financial Inclusion for smallholder farmers in Africa project (FISFAP), funded by the Master Card Foundation. The project will be implemented in Kenya, Tanzania, and Ghana between years 2015 and 2020. FISFAP's overall goal is to reduce food insecurity and increase the incomes of about 700,000 smallholder farmers in target countries by 2020 through financial institutions and agriculture value chain actors, especially agro dealers, aggregators-warehouse operators, and farmer based organizations. The project will also work with financial value chain actors such as banks, crop insurance, and MFIs.

ABOUT THE JOB: 

AGRA is seeking an Associate Program Officer - Branchless Banking. S/he will be responsible for overseeing market development, strategic advisory, and technical assistance for the organization's branchless banking partnerships in Kenya, Tanzania, and Ghana. These partnerships will include mobile network operators, agent aggregators, commercial banks, and other financial service providers. Initiatives will include agency banking, mobile banking, and other ICTs applicable for smallholder market information and extension.

Tasks and Responsibilities:

• Assess available ICT and other mechanisms that facilitate financial service delivery and agricultural value chain functions;
• Deliver a cost benefit analysis of existing ICT based financial and non-financial services delivery mechanisms;
• Deliver a program strategy for seeding and scaling low cost rural branchless solutions for financial and non-financial services;
• Identify and manage organization's related commercial and noncommercial partnerships;
• Facilitate expansion and promotion of effective national platforms for finance and non-finance financial services (e.g mobile based index insurance);
• Take a leadership role in facilitating innovation and ongoing channel enhancements to significantly improve cost efficiencies of rural delivery. Track the business for diverse channels in close collaboration with partners;
• Work closely with the special products manager in Kenya, Tanzania, and Ghana to facilitate client engagement and feedback for improving customer service and technology capabilities for strong usage of financial and non-financial services;
• Develop and implement a data monitoring and management system for supported projects in consultation with M&E units, the team leader, program officers, and where necessary, with grantees;
• Develop and/or review the project implementation framework including implementation strategy with grantees and providing detailed annual work plans and budgets;
• Monitor grant portfolio to ensure grantees are implementing project in accordance with the contractual agreement;
• Ensure selected ICT platforms are integrated with the other on-going organization's in country programmatic work in focus countries.

Qualifications:

• Advanced degree in Finance, Economics, Business or related field;
• About 6-8 years of relevant experience in development and design of financial products and activities (rural or agricultural finance), preferably in the private sector (with mobile network operators, leading m-commerce firms, commercial banks, card companies, management consultancies etc);
• Candidate should have worked in a managerial capacity in one of these types of entities with a strong focus on financial services delivery;
• Deep understanding of emergent opportunities in branchless banking and related ecosystem;
• Familiarity with existent industry challenges and constraints for rural access;
• Understanding of agricultural value chains, marketing, commodities, and higher value product markets;
• Excellent command of Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint;
• Sound knowledge of, and experience in agricultural finance development at national, regional and/or international levels;
• Ability to travel up to 50% of time required.

HOW TO APPLY: 

Interested candidates can send their resume and cover letter to fisfap@agra.org

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