The position is open to All South African citizens and permanent residents or those with valid work permits at the time of application. Deadline: October 31, 2022

Project Background

The USAID Africa Trade and Investment (ATI) program is a five-year, flexible buy-in mechanism jointly managed by the USAID Africa Bureau, Middle East Bureau, and Africa Regional Missions. It was designed to mobilize enterprise- driven solutions that increase trade and investment in Africa, including North and Sub-Saharan Africa. It strengthens Africa’s markets by developing new trade and investment relationships, particularly between the United States and African continent. It also works to achieves development outcomes across all sectors.

Overview of Job Description

The ATI investment objective seeks to mobilize trade finance and investment, including two-way investment flows between the U.S. and Africa, through a proactive approach that identifies and/or improves private sector awareness of opportunities, information sharing and direct facilitation of new and existing business relationships. This effort will require significant collaboration and creativity that leverages the combined resources of various USAID Missions across the African continent. The role will also facilitate increased information sharing with the private sector to ensure programming is grounded in transactions and market opportunities that businesses and investors are specifically pursuing. The role will employ an approach that empowers companies to identify and directly manage these efforts rather than establish a list of predefined service offerings and experts. Firms will be expected to co-invest in these activities. In addition, activities undertaken under this position will respond with investment and trade finance solutions to ongoing food shortages and supply chain disruptions caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

This role will work collaboratively and in conjunction with the Team Leader, ATI Food Security and Resilience, the Senior Technical Director – Africa and Senior Technical Director-USA to coordinate and lead all ATI technical activities, overseeing development of technical tools and approaches, and ensuring adoption of ATI innovations and best practices across the mechanism. The Investment Specialist will also advance trade finance and investment responses that can be scaled using ATI resources to derisk private sector investment. Examples of such templated response mechanisms are fertilizer fund models that enhance private sector driven fertilizer and seed marketing to smallholder farmers through private sector models, credit guarantee mechanisms that enhance robust grain and processed food trade, food crop production through expansion of offtaker-led financing of outgrower schemes and development of commercial mechanisms for coping with climate induced crop failures. ATI will co-invest with private-sector partners to increase gender-equitable trade and investment for African enterprises, domestically, regionally, internationally and to and from the U.S. 

This role will require the candidate to have local connections with the business community, technical experience in trade and investment (especially in agriculture), market development, SME technical assistance and financing. The position will manage all trade and investment activities across the country for a responsive, demand- driven implementation.

Responsibilities

• Lead the investment development of buy-in work-planning and activity design;
• Support buy-in development and scoping based on effective models to maximize impact;
• Provide close technical leadership to all activity staff and partners to ensure that they apply best practice implementation methodologies in the targeted activities;
• Lead program learning activities to translate lessons into tangible intervention adjustments and strategies;
• Provide quality assurance to the team and on all buy-in deliverables, ensuring quality standards, and working with ATI leadership to improve deliverables when they fall short;
• Provide leadership and strategic vision to all interventions, including market assessments, partnership selection and management, and overall strategic planning and design;
• Lead the identification, structuring, and support of trade and investment deals;
• Provide technical input in the technical evaluation committees to assess potential trade deals, grants, and subcontracts solicitation(s), private sector engagement and network development, and the regional buy-in service offering(s);
• Serve as a representative for ATI under the buy-in in meetings with officials from USAID, other USG agencies and partners, governments, corporations, capital partners, and other key stakeholders across the buy-in geography;
• Manage and oversee technical and operations buy-in personnel and consultants assigned to support the ATI buy-in activity;
• Participate in strategic and technical meetings in collaboration with the USAID Mission or others as part of ATI’s co-creation process with USAID’s regional and bilateral Mission stakeholders under the buy-in; and
• Contribute to the quarterly reporting and Activity updates to ensure that the ATI team proactively reports to USAID Missions as appropriate

Qualifications

• 10 years of experience of increasingly proficient management and technical leadership of market systems- based finance and investment programming
• Postgraduate degree in finance, investment and private sector development or relevant university degree that demonstrates complementarity to the scope of requirements;
• Proven experience assessing markets and working with private sector partners to design market-based finance and investment interventions and support to SMEs and agribusinesses;
• Experience working in an investment and finance or related programming context;
• A proven proactive approach to work and self-driven leadership;
• Demonstrated technical expertise in investment programming and processes;
• At least ten years of demonstrated experience supporting, leading, designing, and/or supporting projects that contribute to significant investment results in Africa;
• Strong analytical, organizational, written, and oral communication skills, attention to detail, and ability to prioritize tasks and work efficiently;
• Solutions-oriented, customer-service motivated team player who is also able to work independently and on own initiative; 
• Ability to work in a multi-cultural and dispersed team environment across different time zones;
• Identify and develop priority partnerships to create synergies between ATI and other ongoing trade- and investment-related activities in Africa, in close collaboration with the Sr. Technical Director – Africa, and Sr. Technical Director- USA;
• Develop strategies to target marginalized communities, both socially and economically, including women, youth, and persons with disabilities;
• Excellent interpersonal, diplomacy, and leadership skills, including the ability to manage relationships at the highest levels of government; and
• Demonstrated ability to motivate and lead a dynamic team of professionals across large geographies.

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS:

Please submit your application letter and CV. Please indicate your eligibility to work in South Africa. Applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible as interviews will be conducted soon. Please note, due to the volume of applications that we receive and the urgency to fill-up positions, only shortlisted applicants will receive notification on next steps.

About the Organization

Ndarama Works is a regional African advisory consultancy and project management firm. With close-on a decade of expertise in delivering bespoke solutions in private sector, trade, and investment development, we act on behalf of governments, foundations, and corporations to tackle enterprise and market system-level challenges. We also support and equip international development firms with the local capacity to design and deliver productive bespoke projects – from strategy to results attainment and reporting.

Ndarama Works retains capacity and networks across the African continent and international affiliations to initiate and run large-scale, big-ticket projects on extended timelines.

Ndarama Works is committed to attracting and retaining the best employees from all races and backgrounds in our continued effort to become a better development partner. All of our positions are therefore subject to stringent vetting and reference checks.