Zambia Scale Innovations Project Specialist at One Acre Fund

Founded in 2006, One Acre Fund supplies smallholder farmers with the agricultural services they need to make their farms vastly more productive. We provide quality farm supplies on credit, delivered within walking distance of farmers’ homes, and agricultural trainings to improve harvests. We measure our success by our ability to make farmers more prosperous: On average, farmers harvest 50 percent more food after working with One Acre Fund.

We are growing quickly. We currently serve more than 800,000 farm families in Eastern and Southern Africa, with more than 7,500 full-time staff, and we aim to serve 1 million farm families by 2020.

JOB DESCRIPTION

The Scale Innovations Specialist will shape operations strategy to create lasting and noticeable impact for smallholder farmers. The main responsibilities of this position are to design, manage and coordinate trials and design processes focusing principally on program changes that increase One Acre Fund’s scale, Impact and sustainability.

The major SI project for the Zambia program is the shift of our repayment system from cash to Mobile Money. Given the transaction size of our clients, our field team is put at risk carrying the collected cash on the field. We started the trial in May 2018 and have around 1,000 farmers using this system currently. The SI PS will be responsible for scaling up Mobile Money to the whole program (12,000 farmers in LR2019) while securing key indicators such as repayment, clients’ satisfaction or retention. Leading the Mobile Money project will involve the following (non-exhaustive list): trial scale up strategy, departments’ coordination, relationship building with main partners (MNOs, super-agents, micro-credit institutions...), field team transition and trainings. The SI PS will be responsible for reporting on the trial progress to the department head and country director.

However, our ambitious growth target will require One Acre Fund Zambia to change, adapt to new market opportunities, and find new ways of delivering impact to farmers. The mandate of the Program Innovations team is to develop and test changes to the One Acre Fund program model that allow for the realization of these ambitious goals, which means that the SI PS will have the opportunity to diversify his project portfolio as the team grows.

Responsibilities:

Mobile Money Trial management

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  MM Strategy & trial scale up decisions – the Project Specialist will be leading the MM project from strategy to execution with the support of a JG3 for execution.


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  Partnerships & relationship building – a large part of the current trial and of the future scale-up relies on our capacity to build long lasting relationships with our main partners (MNOs, Super-Agents etc.). the PS will be responsible for building and maintaining these relationships to ensure smooth scale up of the trial.


• Departments coordination (SI, INN, FOPs, BIZOPS, TECH)


• Execution oversight & follow-up
  
  
  
  • Clearly document all stages of the trial planning process, to allow staff in other countries or future years to understand the work and the findings come out of every trial
  
  
  • Create detailed project plans that allow for seamless execution of complex operations
  
  
  
  


• MM sub-projects strategy and implementation – the PS will be responsible for identifying sub-projects that will support the development of the trial

Communication & Coordination

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  Coordinate closely with departments across One Acre Fund’s in-country and global teams


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  Manage collaboration with Field and Systems teams whenever relevant

Management & Training

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  Manage one junior staff member and ensure consistent and high quality professional development


• Prepare staff member for future responsibility of Mobile Money project

Strategy, Spending and Budgeting

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  Participate in strategy prioritization with department lead and identify future opportunities for SI Zambia


• With manager support, follow-up trial spending and budget


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  Regularly review monthly actual spending against planned spending. Keep all projects operating to maximum efficiency and within planned budget


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  Make financially sound project recommendations that take into consideration OAF’s long-term sustainability

One Acre Fund invests in building management and leadership skills. Your manager will invest significant time in your career development. We provide constant, actionable feedback delivered through mentorship and through regular management consulting-style career reviews. We also have regular one-on-one meetings, where we listen to and discuss career goals, and work collaboratively to craft roles that each person can be passionate about.  Because of our rapid growth, we constantly have new high-level roles opening up and opportunities in many functions. This results in fast career growth for our staff.

We are seeking an exceptional professional with 2-5+ years of experience and a demonstrated passion for and knowledge of agricultural sciences and development. Candidates who fit the following criteria are strongly encouraged to apply:

• Bachelors or Masters Degree in any discipline


• 3+ years of experience in planning, implementing, and evaluating field based projects


• Fluent English speaker


• History of building, managing, and mentoring a team


• Demonstrable computer skills including but not limited to:
  
  
  
  • Google sheets and excel data management and analysis
  
  
  • Email fluency and ability to communicate effectively using this tool
  
  
  
  


• Diplomatic working and communication style – a natural ability to work across teams to achieve buy in and move projects forward while considering multiple competing priorities


• Strong desire to split work time between the office and field and focus on project planning and management


• Ability to handle multiple priorities at one time – for example providing direct management and professional development support to a team while maintaining project progress, responding to challenges, and controlling for costs against budget goals

Manager support:

The Scale Innovations Specialist will receive manager support through:

• Formal and documented weekly manager check ins which provide a venue for feedback on project work and professional development


• Structured opportunities to collaborate with and present/propose solutions to the wider OAF management team through:
  
  
  
  • Within three months of taking this position the manager will provide the position holder with a development plan that aims to clearly define expectations and prepare the position holder for future career growth within One Acre Fund
  
  
  • A formal performance and development review (which will coincide with a salary review) every six months
  
  
  
  

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