Job Announcement at the Land Use Division, Department of Agriculture

Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation (MOALI)

Farming Systems for Sustainability Myanmar (FSS Myanmar)

Position:                      National Project Coordinator FSS Myanmar (full time)

Duty station:               Land use division, DOA, Nay Pyi Taw

Responsible to:           Director, Land Use Division and Project Leader/Coordinator

Closing date of application: 20 February 2019

The position

The job advertised by this vacancy is for the position of national project coordinator. You will lead the project on a day to day basis assisted by a full time executive assistant. You will provide guidance and oversight to a dedicated team of (parttime)DOA staff operating in the implementation area’s of the project: Tatkone, Hopone, Kalaw,Magwe,Pyin OoLwin and Thandaung. On the national level the project coordinator will work together with thefinancialresponsible team inside the Land Use division and the wider DOA context.

You will be responsible for technical and financial management of overall project implementation. In addition you will be responsible for the project component ‘Testing and Improving”.

A team of experts from Wageningen University led by the overall project coordinator will support the implementation of the project. Wageningen is responsible for the project components on Analysis, Design and Scaling. The national project coordinator will be assisted team of experts from Wageningen University &Research (WUR), The national project coordinator is a member of the FSS Myanmar steering committee..

FSSMyanmar

The Farming Systems for Sustainability Myanmar project (FSS Myanmar), is a 4 year project, which started mid 2017 and runs until mid 2021. It uses the farming systems approach to support sustainable intensification in Myanmar Agriculture. The project focuses on upland agriculture and lowland agriculture in Central Myanmar. In each of the 7 implementation areasa group of 12 farms is selected to get sufficient spread in farming systems, agro-ecology and water availability/irrigation systems conditions. Main crops involved are rice, sesame, beans, flowers, vegetables and groundnuts.

The project approach starts with the analysis of current practices and farming systems, moves then to the strategic design of improved farming systems for specific regions and sectors and then tests and improves  these farming systems in practice. Scaling of the experiences to other famers and other stakeholder groups and settings completes the approach. The testing activities will run for a three year period. The three year period will allow for the necessary time to identify, test and develop new practices in the context of the farms, to create a living network with partners, to capitalize on the approach with demonstrations and other dissemination tools and to ensure that a robust and reliable outlook on the feasibility, effectivity and contribution of the methods to the overall objectives is accomplished. The project will be implemented by a joint effort of Wageningen University & Research in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation (MOALI) of Myanmar. The project will be funded by DGIS.

Key Responsibilities

Project coordination: As a national project coordinator you will be responsible for providing overall guidance and leadership to the project staff to ensure efficient and effective management of the project, implementing the project strategies on the farms participating in the project (groups) and ensuring integration and synergy among project components and activities. You will facilitate implementation modalities withinDOA as a host organisation and assume full accountability for the financial, administrative, and programmatic implementation of the FSS Myanmar activities.

Planning, monitoring and evaluation: You will lead knowledge sharing processes within the project,and with other stakeholders. You will lead the work planning process and training for the project team, organize annual review and planning meetings, prepare project annual reports, and ensure submission of timely and accurate technical and financial reports. You will provide secretarial support to the Project Steering Committee. You will be the focal point for project monitoring, evaluation, and reporting.

Testing and improving: You will be specifically responsible for the coordination and implementation of project component 3: testing and improvingThis implies ensuring follow up of the implementation of plans for the individual farms, looking for options and chances to introduce new approaches and methods in crop production as they offer themselves, involving the local DOA and stakeholder community. Organising field days, demonstrations are important to be able to share the experiences wider in the agricultural community

Facilitating partnerships: Your role is also to facilitate collaboration on challenges that will occur when following the pathway of sustainable intensification. Such as finding adequate mechanisation or finding credit facilities. You will look for appropriate partnerships and arrangements to make progress on these issues. This will need both multi-stakeholder meetings and individual meetings.

Support actions on prioritized topics: You will lead specific seed assessments, and develop proposals and action plans for interventions. This includes the development of project proposals, activity plans, budget plans and the negotiation of contracts.

The kind of person we are looking for

Strategically oriented project coordinator with a combination of a strong guiding vision and excellent management and organization skills. The national coordinator will have significant experience in project management in Myanmar’s agriculture sector. An understanding and commitment of Farming Systems approaches is inevitable. As project coordinator you need to be able to communicatethe project strategy, the FSS approach and inspire others to commit and contribute to the sustainable intensification on Myanmar agriculture. Since the implementation team is consisting out of DOA officers from different townships and different level of seniority and experience, a good leadership is very important as is excellent command of english to work as a bridge between the Wageningen team and the local implementation team. The FSS Myanmar national project coordinator will have an established track record as a manager of high integrity with good mediation and facilitation skills and experience in building effective public and private agricultural partnership and networks in Myanmar.

Experience, knowledge, and skills required

The national coordinator shall have knowledge, experience, and skills in:

-   Developing linkages and building partnership networks for wide scale support of FSS Myanmar

-   Maintaining strong coordination among diverse stakeholders: staff, partners, relevant policy/decision makers, and seed value chain actors

-   Designing and facilitating multi-stakeholder processes and facilitating effective dialogue between different stakeholders

-   Organizing and facilitating meetings, workshops and forums for the purpose of facilitating partnerships

-   Participatory planning, monitoring and evaluation, and developing and managing budgets in line with project plans

-   Staff management; identifying clear and objective performance targets and providing timely supervision and coaching to staff

Applicants must satisfy at least all of the following minimum requirements:

-          Masters (MSc, MA, MBA, MPhil) degree in agronomy, soil science or farming systemsor related field of study

-          Ten years accumulated professional experience in related fields of work

-          Experience in project management and team leadership

-          Documented proof of educational training and professional experience, along with the names and contact details for at least two references with whom you’ve worked in the past three years

-          Proficiency in written and spoken English and Burmese

-          Proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint packages

Application information

The gross salary for the position is to be discussed with the selected candidates. Interested candidates are invited to send a well-formulated letter of motivation of no more than one page and their up-to-date full CV before 20 February 2019 by emailto:landusenpt@gmail.com.

All applications must include the job title in the subject line of the application email.

Candidates that pass the first round of screening will be shortlisted according to the experience, knowledge and skills we are looking for. Shortlisted candidates will be invited for an interview. It is only at that stage that credentials such as scanned diploma copies and reference letters will be requested.

For more information on the project, please contact: frank.wijnands@wur.nlor zarmyint@gmail.com.