About Practical Action: 

Practical Action is a British charity established in 1966 with the vision of a sustainable world free of poverty and injustice in which technology is used for the benefit of all. We have been working in Sudan since 1988 and are operational in Blue Nile, North Darfur, and Eastern Sudan, supported by our country office in Khartoum and our Head Office in the UK. We work in the fields of Agriculture for resilience, energy and Rural WASH with markets, gender and climate change cross-cutting all our work.

JOB PURPOSE:

Agricultural Advisor will work closely with head of impact and influence to perform a wide range of duties, including consultative, advisory, and monitoring functions; identifying, analysing, and implementing agriculture programs and activities; formulating, quantifying and tracking results and performance indicators. In addition to technical and administrative functions, will provide guidance to implementing partners in making adjustments to programs and plans to achieve targeted results.  Will also keep abreast of economic, political and social developments which may affect activities, identifying and assessing their importance and impact on overall agriculture's program objectives.

• As the drivers of strategy, Agriculture Advisor key points of introduction for technological and methodological innovation into Country projects, programmes, new thinking and influencing, and for knowledge creation
•  provide leadership in project development including fundraising, ensuring a strong strategic coherence is maintained that brings together both local needs and international Aim priorities in a clear focus
• Providing the support to project staff needed to ensure appropriate technical and methodological approaches are applied successfully in the implementation of all projects.
• Maximize Practical Action’s ability to generate knowledge and new learning from projects, partnerships and alliances, identifying key development questions that project work should be trying to resolve.
• focus for policy analysis, advocacy and awareness raising, thereby increasing the impact of Country projects and programmers and the organization's abilities to influence agencies in Sudan, feeding into international policy processes in association with Practical Action’s head office
• A strong focus on working as a team is essential to programmed development
• Self-regulating, members identify a facilitator from within the team according to the issue to be addressed – whether agenda setting, project fundraising, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, lesson learning, or influencing

• looking to continuously innovate, reinvent and invigorate itself both in terms of its function, knowledge and influence.

Relation to Practical Action’s International Programme Aims

• Acts as a single point of contact for the international Aim leader
• Is responsible for preparation of the Country Aim Review
• Attends the Annual international Aim meeting
• Is responsible for the preparation of Programme Partnership reports for all Country programme partnerships
• Reviews and refers learning and innovation to the international Aim team in relation to the International Aim priorities

Strategic Planning

• Supports the Head of Impact and Influence  in the formulation of the Country Strategy
• Supports the Senior Manager - Operations and Area Coordinators in the preparation of site-specific Area Office strategic plans

Fundraising

• Has overall responsibility for project fundraising ensuring all proposals are innovative, on time, correctly coasted and budgeted, presented in the correct format, and written to high quality standards
• All project ideas and fundraising opportunities are initially referred to or developed by the Aim Team which collectively accepts or rejects the idea or donor opportunity
• If accepted, the Aim Team identifies which Aim leader should take forward the project Idea or donor opportunity to completion and donor submission
• The Agriculture Advisor  in charge of the proposal develops approved ideas into an initial draft with input from Area Coordinators
• Representatives ensure all project drafts balance Area/Country Office needs with those of the project concept. Thereby ensuring
  • Clarity in relation to Area Office context and priorities
  • There is sufficient Area Office capacity for successful implementation
  • Sufficient Overhead Recovery is included in the proposal to maximize coverage of project running costs, human resources, logistics etc
• At this stage the Agriculture Advisor responsible for the proposal must ensure the draft meets donor criteria, carries hypotheses or learning objectives, has an initial budget, and justification against Practical Action’s International Aims – each of these issues except the budget is addressed in the PROMISS Project Idea format
• Ensure quality Assurance for draft proposals and share with head of impact and influence for registration and assessment against donor criteria, and to the International Aim leader for comment.
• The Agriculture Advisor is ultimately responsible for ensuring the proper registration of projects with Practical Action’s database is completed well in advance of donor submission.

Project Support and Programme Implementation

• Provides technical, methodological and process backstopping to Project Managers and Area Coordinators to ensure project implementation approaches are in line with original concept and/or updated according to emerging learning
• Designs the monitoring framework providing necessary training and support of Project Managers and the Area Coordinator in the project concept, hypotheses and consequent monitoring approach
• Supports the employment and support of first-rate human resources for project delivery
• May undertake staff and organizational capacity development responsibilities as agreed with the head of impact and influence, head of program delivery and Area Coordinators.
• Establishes, develops and supports Country partnerships for project implementation, supporting the strengthening of local level partnerships, community and stakeholder engagement in project activities where appropriate.
• Supports the head of impact and influence , head of program delivery and Area Coordinators to obtain timely donor permissions for changes to project implementation plans and objectives

Project Reporting

• Provides a quality check of all project report drafts as completed by Area Offices ensuring adequate technical backstopping of the report and that the project is on track according to the contract
• Forwards revised drafts to Senior Manager - Operations according to agreed schedules. A timetable should be agreed for the review and revision of all reports.

Knowledge Management

• Attends quarterly Area Office- Aim Team meetings within Area Office to review progress of all ongoing projects, their monitoring, learning and reporting; fundraising priorities; financial, human, logistic and other resource gaps etc
• Supports preparation and delivery of a monitoring framework for all projects.
• Supports the design of, and may engage in, periodic mid-term and final project evaluations according to donor contracts, and supports head of impact and influence in the implementation of Impact Assessments including setting of impact indicators and milestones.
• Designs and leads project impact assessments including setting a range of impact indicators, milestones and frameworks
• Captures, packages and aggregates project learning about hypotheses, best practices and impacts from meetings, the review of donor and internal reports, monitoring records, evaluations and impact assessments
• Leads the communication/sharing of main lessons and knowledge to the International Aim teams, donors, communities, partners and wider stakeholders

• A Bachelor degree in agriculture or a related study.

 KEY COMPETENCES:

• Excellent Time management and organization skills
• Prepared to be flexible, to work under pressure and adhere to strict deadlines

ESSENTIAL:

• Proven senior management and line management experience
• Trends and developments within thematic area of work.
• Ability to oversee budgeting, reporting, planning

RELEVANT JOB EXPERIENCE

At least 5 years’ relevant experience in development programs

NB:

Interested candidates should submit their application letters clearly indicating Job title and work station, C.V. and copies of educational and experience certificates through Sudanjob.net

Only short listed candidates will be called for interview.

Closing date TWOWEEKS FROM THE ADVERTISMENT.

Women are strongly encouraged to apply for this post