Senior Policy Specialist

Job Title: Senior Policy Specialist

Program: Kenya Feed the Future Local Food Systems

Reports to: Senior Food Systems Manager

Position location: Nairobi Kenya

Grade: 8.

TechnoServe Background:

TechnoServe works with enterprising people in the developing world to build competitive farms, businesses and industries. We are a nonprofit organization that develops business solutions to poverty by linking people to information, capital and markets. With more than four decades of proven results, we believe in the power of private enterprise to transform lives.

Program Overview

The Kenya Feed the Future Local Food Systems is a five-year USAID project designed to increase agricultural production and productivity, increase resilience capacities, and improve nutrition outcomes in 9 counties in Kenya – Bungoma, Busia, Garissa, Homa Bay, Isiolo, Kakamega, Makueni, Migori, and Siaya. The program will also support investments in other regions of Kenya to support the flow of food, goods, and services to the 9 focal counties and strategic corridors in the Northern ASALs.

Food systems are critical to Kenya’s economic development, as the agri-food sector contributes to more than half of the nation’s gross domestic product and employs over 70% of the rural population. Kenya’s agri-food sector has the potential to support inclusive and resilient economic growth and deliver nutritious diets to vulnerable populations. LFS will capitalize on Kenya’s economic growth and growing cities, the emergence of innovative and dynamic agri-food businesses, and the GOK’s investments in economic development to accelerate inclusive growth in the agri-food sector.

LFS supports four priority objectives, as well as a number of crosscutting objectives, to catalyze transformational changes in the food system. These include:

• Increased productivity, profitability, and diversity in the local food system
• Strengthened resilience capacity for HHs, communities, and institutions to mitigate risks and shocks in the local food system,
• Increased access to and consumption of adequate safe, nutritious food, especially by women and children
• Strengthened collaboration, iterative learning, and adaptive management for effective locally led development

LFS will use key leverage points to anchor its approach to implementation of five work streams:

• First and last mile service provision
• Entrepreneurship development
• Food and Feed Markets / Processing
• Policy Alignment and Influence
• Collaboration, learning, and adapting

The Role:

TechnoServe seeks a Senior Policy Specialist (SPS) responsible for leading policy influencing and activities to sustainably improve the enabling environment agricultural productivity, nutrition-sensitive production, promote inclusive and competitive market systems, create jobs and reduce poverty. The SPS facilitates public-private dialogue forums. The SPS engages private and public sector stakeholders to influence national and county level policy implementation and/or formulation to support food system transformation.

The SPS constitutes part of the LFS Technical Integration Team and will lead policy-related activities that sustainably increase agricultural productivity, nutrition-sensitive production, promote inclusive and competitive market systems and increase resilience to shocks. The SPS provides technical expertise in the analysis, design, implementation and effectiveness of institutional strengthening activities at the county and national levels. The success measure for this role is an improved enabling environment for first/last mile distribution, agro-processing, nutrition, policy implementation, collaboration and learning among key food system stakeholders, access to finance, gender, youth and social inclusion (GYSI), and entrepreneurship.

Key Roles & Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership – Food Systems Policy Influencing:

• With guidance from the Chief of Party (COP), DCOP and Senior Food Systems Manager, provide strategic guidance, leadership, management, and general technical oversight of policy influencing activities in the LFS’s zone of influence.
• Support initial market assessment and strategy development, including serving as the primary liaison for policy and governance short-term technical experts
• Generate innovative ideas, and effectively manage partnerships especially with public sector actors to drive program success at the national level and within the regions.
• Build and implement capacity building interventions and institutional strengthening for national-level private sector organizations to assess, participate in or advocate for enabling policy environments.
• Continuously assess the current state of policy imperatives affecting local food system(s), relevant value chains, and market dynamics and identify new strategic opportunities to expand the impact of the project through policy influence.

Strategic Leadership – Stakeholder engagement and capacity building:

• Develop and maintain relationships with national and county level public and private sector stakeholders in agriculture and health sectors etc. relevant to the Kenyan food system.
• Work with stakeholders to co-create policy interventions that strengthen the production, processing, distribution, and access components of the regional food systems
• Facilitate public-private dialogue between county governments and private agribusinesses
• Develop, adapt, and oversee implementation of governance self-assessment and participatory tools
• Build capacity of county governments to make productive investments in agriculture and utilize data to drive decision-making;
• Provide ongoing support to government counterparts to implement action plans and evaluate investments; Organize cross-county learning and exposure visits.
• Independently and with the regional implementation teams, to support the development and relationship management of county and inter-county level partnerships
• Facilitate multi-stakeholder coordination, joint planning, and collaborative problem-solving
• Engage with external stakeholders to build essential partnerships, as determined by the COP, DCOP and the Senior Food Systems Manager

Program Management:

• Support the development (at the technical integration team) and coordination (at the regional team level) and implementation of policy-related activities in the execution of project work plans, and budgets,
• Work closely with the CLA Unit and Finance and Admin units to ensure alignment of resources, activities, and key performance indicators related to policy engagement.
• Support the development schedules, tools, and processes for deploying a robust policy engagement strategy;
• Develop, design and oversee grant activities that support policy influencing or strengthening;
• Identify issues and risks related to implementation promptly, suggesting appropriate program adjustments
• Lead, or in supporting role, manage, contribute to, and provide quality control to data analysis and report writing at technical national integration team level.

Capacity Building and Support:

• Support sub-awards and grantees in intervention design and operational management.
• Collaborate with the National Integration Team to provide Food and market systems coaching and guidance to program staff and partners

Monitoring and Evaluation and Reporting:

• Work with the Monitoring and Evaluation, and CLA unit to document and disseminate lessons learned, best practices, and project impacts to inform future initiatives
• Collaborate with the M&E team to monitor and evaluate program progress.
• Support or contribute to knowledge management activities including writing articles on project developments, learning or opinion pieces.

Innovation and Best Practices:

• Develop innovative approaches to enhance TechnoServe’s work and share these innovations to promote the adoption of best practices within the organization.

Representation and Networking:

• Represent the program at networking events with private and public sector actors, as per the guidance of the COP and DCOP

Miscellaneous

• Perform other related duties as required to contribute to the program’s success.

Desired Qualifications and Experience

• Minimum Masters degree in agricultural economics, agribusiness, business administration, agriculture, international development or relevant field, or equivalent work experience.
• 5-7 years of experience in policy influence and advocacy preferably within US government funded activities, project management, food systems development, market systems, and/or community resilience programming, preferably in a rural, developing context
• Strong background in agricultural/livestock value chains, natural resource management, climate change adaptation, and/or social protection
• Demonstrated track record of building and managing strong client and stakeholder relationships, including with government, civil society and private sector
• Strong gender leadership, supervisory, problem-solving, communication, and coordination skills required.
• Demonstrated commitment to advancing gender equality.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and problem-solving skills
• Willingness to travel extensively within LFS Eastern Kenya zone of influence,
• Proven ability to develop strategies and conduct analysis on complex commercial questions
• Experience in authoring concise and well-written reports and presentations
• Demonstrated competency in program and staff management, coaching, and team leadership
• Experience working on donor-funded projects is preferred.
• Strategic and analytical thinking skills
• Exceptional interpersonal and cross-cultural skills
• Fluent user of MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in the LFS zone of influence an added advantage
• Proven experience in incorporating complexity awareness with programmatic implementation
• Proven experience with the Kenyan agricultural and livestock policy environment at the national and county level.

Required Languages:

Fluency in English and Swahili, with excellent oral and written communication skills required. Knowledge of local languages an added advantage.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Demonstrated Leadership: Proven ability to inspire and lead teams toward program goals, fostering adaptability and creative problem-solving.
• Results-driven: Committed to achieving measurable impact and program outcomes, consistently seeking improvement opportunities.
• Strategic Management and Adaptability: Proficient in systems thinking, quick to adapt strategies in response to change, with expertise with policy influencing within Market Systems Development (MSD) approaches,
• Problem-Solving Expertise: Strong at addressing market system challenges and developing innovative solutions.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Skilled in building effective relationships with diverse stakeholders to drive collaboration and results.
• Gender and Inclusion: Familiar with gender-sensitive and inclusive program approaches, dedicated to reducing social and economic inequalities.
• Initiative and Independence: Takes initiative, works independently, demonstrating self-motivation and proactiveness.
• Effective Communication: Friendly and approachable, facilitating communication and collaboration with colleagues and stakeholders.

Supervisory Responsibilities: 

• Where applicable STTA.

Additional notes:

We encourage all qualified individuals who share TechnoServe’s vision of improving the lives of others through proven business solutions to apply.

With our commitment to diversity, we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and affirmative action employer and do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, HIV/AIDS status, protected veteran status, disability, and all other protected classes.

We are also proud of our commitment to protecting staff, partners, and beneficiaries from abuse and exploitation and thoroughly vet all final candidates through rigorous background and reference checks.

If you have a disability that affects your ability to use our online system to apply for a position at TechnoServe, please get in touch with Human Resources at [email protected] or call +1 202 785 4515.

More information on TechnoServe at: Twitter: @TechnoServe jobsnear.org Facebook: @TechnoServe jobsnear.org LinkedIn: @TechnoServe

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