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Position Title:Financial Services Officer
Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda
Organization:The Agricultural Business Initiative (aBi) Trust
Employment Type:Full Time Permanent
Application Deadline:13th March 2015
Organizational Profile:
The Agricultural Business Initiative (aBi) Trust is supporting agribusiness
development in the private sector to achieve the objective of the Government of
Uganda's Competitiveness and Investment Climate Strategy (CICS). The Trust is a
multi-donor entity jointly founded by the Governments of Denmark and Uganda.
The mandate of aBi Trust is to support the private sector actors to increase
their contribution to the agricultural sector by increasing land and labour
productivity, and market competitiveness thereby contributing to poverty
reduction through economic growth, wealth, and employment creation. The aBi
Trust strengthens competitiveness of the Agricultural and Agro-processing
sectors through three (3) interrelated components: Value Chain Development
(VCD) including trade-related Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary and Quality
Management Systems (SPS/QMS), Financial Services Development (FSD) and a cross
cutting Gender for Growth (G4G) Fund.
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
·
Works closely with financial
Institutions to expand financial services in all areas of agribusiness lending
and other products.
·
Provide technical assistance to
improve and strengthen financial services for agricultural and agribusiness
enterprises and broader finance and investment issues impacting on rural
finance and value chain development;
·
The incumbent will be
participating in design and implementation of aBi agribusiness programmes,
especially in relation to financial services and investment; as required and
provide technical backstopping to supported field projects;
·
Offer technical guidance to aBi
partners on ways to address strategy and policy issues for finance and
investment which support increased flows of financing of the agricultural
sector, especially to small and medium agro-enterprises, rural households;
·
Appraise financing and investment
requirements for agribusiness and recommend appropriate financing strategies to
financial institutions for reducing risk and improving effectiveness in
agribusiness lending;
·
Actively participate in capacity
assessments and training needs of both existing and potential partners,
evaluate capacity building needs in financial partner institutions for products
and services which support improved impacts of access to finance and financial
inclusion;
·
Actively participate in coordination
and preparation of subcomponents business plans annual work plans, quarterly
and annual reports;
·
Work closely with partners and
technical assistance consultants to develop, pilot and market new products that
contribute to value chain development as well as participate in the forums for
promoting agricultural insurance, financial services and innovations,
institutional strengthening and other stakeholder partnerships;
·
Develop and maintain working
contacts with counterparts in other organizations, associations, private sector
firms and development agencies specialised in finance and agribusiness;
·
Support component team especially
Operations and Portfolio Officer to track outstanding technical assistance and
provide informative reports in accordance with the monitoring and evaluation
system; maintain records the performance of aBi portfolio with partner
financial institutions.
·
Perform any activities as
assigned to him/her by the component Head.
Qualifications, Skills and Experience:
·
The candidate should possess a Master’s Degree
in Business Administration (MBA), Development Economics, Statistics and/or
related degree(s) required.
·
At least eight to ten years of
proven operational and/or project management experience in one and/or a
combination of i the following areas in access to finance: Microfinance, SME
banking, agri-finance, insurance/micro insurance, m-banking, credit reporting,
and risk management.
·
Strong expertise and experience
working with client I financial institutions; experience in participatory and
qualitative methodologies such as process evaluations, before-after designs,
and other approaches that make use of interviews and focus-groups; etc.
·
Skills and competencies in
marketing financial services
·
Institutional Development and
strategic management
·
Credit risk analysis skills
·
Working knowledge of Branch
banking or rural lending needs
·
Working knowledge of financial
product development
·
Lending to agricultural firms,
·
Proficient in portfolio analysis
and building a lending,
·
Guarantee or credit portfolio;
·
Possess excellent interpersonal
and teamwork skills.
·
Keen attention to detail, analyse
and interpret complex documents.
·
Initiative and ability to manage
multiple tasks with ;
·
Excellent planning and
organizational skills
·
Possess the ability to
effectively communicate and respond to i sensitive inquiries.
·
A good and resilient negotiator
with sound judgment
·
Past excellent interpersonal and
teamwork skills.
Mode of application:
All qualified and interested candidates should send their applications
enclosing detailed curriculum vitae giving three professional referees and
copies of academic and professional certificates /testimonials via E-mail to:
vacancy@abi.co.ug
NB: Documents should not be more than 2MB.
Only Shortlisted candidates who meet the criteria will be contacted.
Deadline: 13th March 2015.
