Company Profile

TechnoServe Inc (http://(www.technoserve.org) is a leader in harnessing the power of the private sector to help people lift themselves out of poverty. A nonprofit organization operating in 29 countries, we work with enterprising men and women in the developing world to build competitive farms, businesses and industries. By linking people to information, capital and markets, we have helped millions to create lasting prosperity for their families and communities.

Founded over 50 years ago, TechnoServe has been named the #1 nonprofit for fighting poverty by the ImpactMatters charity ratings agency.

Job Description

• Reporting to: Technical Leader, Trade and Marketing, and Coordinator, ADVANCE South            
• Location: Sunyani
• Travel: Domestic, up to 50%
• Employment Duration: 12 months to 31st May 2018

Program Description
ADVANCE II is funded by USAID under the Ghana Feed the Future (FtF) Initiative for the February 2014 – September 2018. The goal of the project is to increase the competitiveness of the maize, rice and soybean value chains in Ghana and increase incomes for 113,000 smallholder farmers. 

The project has three components – increased agricultural productivity; increased market access and trade; strengthened capacity for advocacy, and strengthened local institutions to implement inclusive value chain development.

ADVANCE has developed a strategy to promote structured trade in open-informal markets. The key elements among others comprise the use of written contracts, weights and measures, standards and grading, open flow of market information, and good warehousing and storage.

ADVANCE has selected five key maize markets (and traders associations) in the Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo regions as the target group for promoting structured trade i.e. Techiman, Wenchi, Badu, Odumase and Ejura.

Position Description and Responsibilities:

• Build business case for the traders to adopt structured trade elements, and promote it to the traders
• Organize trainings for the traders on structured trade
• Facilitate grants and private sector investment to upgrade market infrastructure and provide the  equipment (e.g. weighing scales, moisture meters, wooden pallets, tarpaulins and inspection tables) required for structured trade in the market and warehouses
• Strengthen the organizational capacity of the traders associations, and build or strengthen the network amongst them
• Assist the traders associations undertake advocacy on enabling environment constraints with national, regional and district level private and public sector institutions 
• Build a system to collect and disseminate price and other market information to grain buyers and sellers, and other market participants. Liaise with the ADVANCE ICT Outreach Specialist to develop the use of ICT as a core element of the system
• Represent TechnoServe and ADVANCE at meetings with stakeholders
• Performs other duties and responsibilities assigned from time to time.

Required Skills or Experience

• Bachelor’s degree or Masters’ in agribusiness, business administration, social sciences or related field
• Bachelor’s degree with a minimum of 5 years’ experience or master’s degree with a minimum of 3 years
• Demonstrated ability to work with traders associations, farmers groups and district assemblies 
• Excellent verbal and written communication, and selling skills. Good Twi speaking skills is a necessity
• Excellent training, facilitation, advocacy and selling skills
• Advanced computer skills in a Windows based environment including Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel
• Demonstrated ability to build and maintain effective working relationships with donors, project stakeholders, in-country collaborators and staff at all levels of the organization.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively and collaboratively in a project matrix structure with tight deadlines
• Strong knowledge of grains commodity trading especially in maize, paddy rice and soybean is a plu