Associate Program Officer, Branchless Banking, Innovative Finance - FISFAP

Position Overview

The Associate Program Officer-Branchless Banking for the FISFAP Project will oversee market development, strategic advisory and technical assistance for AGRAs 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.

Specific responsibilities will include:

· 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 AGRA’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 AGRA in country programmatic work in focus countries

· Oversee grantee actual implementation process and provide relevant technical backstopping as may be required;

· Provide regular periodic reports as may be required by the Team Leader and special products manager.

· Represent FISFAP at grantees fora and liaise with project focal staff for areas where special attention is needed by FISFAP program officers

· Assist the Team leader and Program Officers to assess and identify capacity needs and gaps in grantees ability to implement projects

· Interpersonal skills - should have interpersonal and leadership skills to coordinate team members as well as other stakeholders in the project.

· Organizational skills - ability to assign resources, prioritize tasks and keep tabs on the budget activities to ensure quality and impact of the project's successes.

· Communication skills - ability to clearly communicate project objectives, challenges or problems, scope changes, and regular project status reports.

· Problem-solving skills – ability to effectively handle situations and mitigate risks; ability to objectively present decision alternatives and consequences and drive rational decisions based on the alternatives;

· Strong team player with demonstrated ability to work effectively in multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural settings.

· Represent AGRA with broad stakeholders: financial institutions, grantees, universities, other funders, international organizations, beneficiaries.

· Maintains a wide network of stakeholders and contributors to the work.

· Negotiation skills to bring diverse collaborators together and advocate for their work.

Typical Education, Certification and Experience:

· An advanced degree in Finance, Economics, Business or related Field

· Six-eight 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.

· An understanding of Agricultural value chains, marketing, commodities and higher value product markets.

· An excellent command of Ms Word, Ms Excel, Ms Access, Ms Power Point.

· A 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:

AGRA is seeking to recruit an exceptional and experienced team to fill 4 key positions of 1) Project Team Leader; 2) Program Officer, Special Products and Client Engagement; and 3) Program Officer-Branchless Banking - 2 positions – one based in Kenya and the other in Tanzania. Please send your CV and cover letter to fisfap@agra.org no later than April 25, 2015