Vacancy: Senior Associate Diversification Enterprise Development

Company Profile

Job Description

• Job Function: Staff Position


• Job LEVEL: 4A


• Location: Ghana (Sefwi Wiawso).


• Reports to: Manager, Landscapes and Livelihoods


• Department: Programs - Africa

Position summary

At Rainforest Alliance we are looking for a collaborative and engaging Senior Associate who will work to create an entrepreneurial society in rural landscapes and increase awareness about how to increase economic opportunities for farmers and strengthen business development in forest-fringe communities. The incumbent will accomplish this by building resilience and helping farmers to create viable additional income through community-based forest enterprises that support rural economies and communities to improve livelihoods while combating deforestation and degradation of tropical forests and contributing to global climate change and loss of biodiversity. The incumbent will work closely with the project manager and Chief of Party to advance the interest of the RESTORE (Resilient Ecosystems and Sustainable

Transformation of Rural Economies) project to secure economic and social empowerment of women and youth in rural landscapes.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to designing approaches and economic incentives to support and empower cocoa producing families, local authorities, local governments to foster socially inclusive additional economic opportunities and make scalable contribution to rural and national living income targets;


• Support implementation of actions of RESTORE among farmers and communities in the designated landscapes and critical ecosystem to promote sustainable business practices to improve upon the livelihood of farmers;


• Facilitate economic and social empowerment of women and youth through inclusion and improved access to inputs and services and through micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), based on sustainable use of natural resources;


• Contribute to RESTORE project learning and support colleagues to communicate and share learnings with external parties and interested general public;

Entrepreneurship Development: 

• Facilitate an entrepreneurial society by organising community wide session to create awareness about business ideas, and supporting to identify entrepreneurial women and youth;


• Facilitate business idea development among Landscape Management Boards (LMBs), rural entrepreneurs, women and young people and help increase understanding of opportunities and respond with simplified business ideas and/or plans;


• Design and provide training, awareness raising, technical assistance and coaching to LMBs, rural entrepreneurs, program colleagues and partners, and stakeholders on entrepreneurship and business gender and youth perspectives and support them in including these in their way of working;


• Teach, coach and backstop entrepreneurial women and young farmers to start, develop and/or grow their diversified enterprises as economically viable additional livelihood opportunity.


• Provide supervision, backstopping and monitoring of farmers’ activities after training to check progress of implementation of training ideas;

Business and diversified value chain Development

• Apply capacity needs assessment tools to assess capacity gap of farmers for each of the value chains identified in their individual and collective LMB business plan and build capacity for each of the value chains identified


• Provide strategies for recruiting farmers, analysing business plans to determine which enterprises will qualify for start-up funding and designing incentive package plan for farmers for participating in the implementation of their business and financial plans;


• Provide the LMB and cooperative groups with advice and recommendations regarding new revenue generating opportunities and services in the rural forest economies;


• Facilitate training, coaching and mentorship for adult entrepreneurs, women and young people in bookkeeping and record keeping, financial management and marketing and branding of their products;


• Build and provide guidance and support to selected artisans to construct the relevant tools of trade and required infrastructure for additional diversified livelihood enterprise and businesses in the landscape;


• Coordinate with stakeholders to strengthen access to finance for women-owned MSMEs and support farmers/rural entrepreneurs in identifying and obtaining funding from multiple sources to launch and grow their diversified livelihood enterprises; and


• Other responsibilities as assigned.

Salary:

• Commensurate with experience.

Required Skills or Experience

• A minimum of Bachelor degree in Commerce, Business Administration, Agricultural Economics, Social Study or other relevant vocational training and disciplines  


• Minimum 4 years of experience in similar position, including minimum of 2 years of work experience in developing and implementing business plans with MSMEs and with working with smallholder cocoa farmers in Sefwi landscape;


• Knowledge of natural resource management and/or agriculture commodity production or trade and/or development themes in the region is strongly preferred;


• Gained substantial exposure and versatile skills in construction-industry through hands-on participation in carpentry and woodworking, masonry and block working, and in-depth knowledge of construction process;


• Highly skilled and hands-on experience in forest-based enterprise development, tools development, entrepreneurship, and demonstrable experience in establishing scalable models and technical capacity, and economic incentives for rural entrepreneurs to diversify income


• Creative thinker, highly organized and autonomous, and able to multi-task and prioritize workload;


• Excellent interpersonal and relationship building skills;


• Strong computer skills required (Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, project management systems); and


• Willingness and availability to travel up to 40% of time.