IDRC is looking for a Senior Program Officer with experience in Nutrition and Food Security to develop and implement an exciting collaborative research program in East and Southern Africa: the Cultivating Africa’s Future (CultiAF). Priority themes include nutrition, water management, and reduction of post-harvest losses. CultiAF is a partnership program with the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research. Based in Nairobi, the Senior Program Officer will work closely with other IDRC and ACIAR team members around the world, and will report to the Program Leader (Agriculture and Food Security) while working under the supervision of the IDRC Regional Director. CultiAF is part of the Agriculture and Food Security program of IDRC, a program that supports innovation for more efficient and sustainable agricultural production to enhance food security, incomes, and nutrition that benefit small-scale farmers, particularly women.
CultiAF funds research projects to improve food security in the countries of East and Southern Africa. The current portfolio of research includes innovative projects on management and post-harvest loss in fisheries, non-traditional feeds in fish and poultry sectors, commercial bean products for nutrition and convenience. Projects strive to ensure effective communication of results, gender transformative outcomes and improved economic opportunities for youths, while involving research users and the private sector.
Overview of Qualifications:
- A PhD in a relevant discipline associated with food security such as food science and nutrition.
- Provide intellectual leadership to the development and expansion of CultiAF in the next phase of programming in East and Southern Africa;
- Lead the revision, development, management, monitoring and evaluation of the portfolio of research projects within the priority themes to ensure that the program is implemented within timelines and meets its objectives;
- Facilitate tracking, learning and synthesis of key program results across projects and according to program indicators to be able to demonstrate programs’ achievements;
- Influence the uptake of research for impact at scale through production and dissemination of communication material to key audiences including policy makers;
- Produce high quality documentation, synthesizing and reporting on program results to the Governance Committee and donor partner;
- Build and maintain productive working relationships with grantees, researchers, private sector and government institutions with the objective to improve program’s efficiency and facilitate uptake of research results; and
- Collaborate effectively within a multi-regional team and provide expertise in food systems and nutrition.