Solidaridad West Africa is a not-for-profit organization that supports the sustainable development of farmers and production systems in West Africa, through the enhancement of value chains of fresh and processed agricultural commodities and other non-agricultural commodities.

Our activities in West Africa are focused on fresh fruits, oil palm, gold, cotton, maize, soy and cocoa. As the Regional Expertise Center (REC) within Solidaridad’s international network, we are part of a growing global movement advocating and supporting sustainable and responsible production and trade.

As the Regional Expertise Center (REC) within Solidaridad’s international network, SWA focuses on stimulating sustainable supply chains through innovations in good practices, robust infrastructure, sustainable landscapes management and enabling policy environment.

Solidaridad trains producers in best practices to produce more with less. We provide capacity building to producer organizations and enable them to access knowledge, inputs, finance and markets. We develop and promote the integration of good economic, social and environmental management into standard business and production practices.

Solidaridad West Africa’s regional office is based in Accra, Ghana. SWA currently have program activities and operations in Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire, Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone. SWA seeks to recruit highly qualified and motivated persons for the following positions for their operations in Ghana and within the West Africa sub-region.

Profile summary

• The role’s key purpose is to create sustainable impact in supply chains through support of local companies, cooperatives and SMEs to become bankable and connect them with Impact Investors, commercial financing as well as blended finance sources. The Manager should be able to facilitate the development of investable propositions based on sound business cases for agricultural and non-agricultural produce as well as service provision enterprises. He should good knowledge and skills in financial analysis relating to businesses and commercial financing. The Manager should have skills to build the capacity of staff on business case development and analyses and ability to train commercial financing institutions to understand the dynamics of agricultural value chains to elicit interest in financing investable agri-based and non-agri based commodities.

• The Manager would work with a team of local and international Impact Specialists, Business Incubation and other Agri-business Officers within the Solidaridad Network.

Key responsibilities

• Provide support and training to SWA staff on business case development and financial analyses for commodity and landscape programs,
• Develop training material on local business development and landscape financing,
• Identify local companies, co-operatives, SME’s and local/regional public and private stakeholders that have the potential to speed up and scale successful innovation using commercial/blended finance,
• Support the development of new programs, collaborate with program staff to develop needed pipeline for SMEs, cooperates and companies expand their businesses in a competitive manner,
• Facilitate the development of business cases for landscape assets e.g. carbon and water, and translate them into investable propositions,
• Develop high quality, focused and concise screening of finance reports that allow for efficient decision making within agreed time frames
• Identify business support needs of local companies, co-operatives, SME’s and develop a proposal and/or provide direct business advisory support (e.g. business plan development, financial risk analysis and assessment, cash flow
• Conduct regular monitoring visits to investees/incubates/SMEs and: -
• Report on the financial performance
• Adoption of business advisory recommendations
• Advise management where an investment poses a business risk
• Advise on disbursements
• Evaluates investments and ensure they creates intended impact
• Carry out the due diligence/feasibility evaluations of potential investees
• Organize matchmaking calls with existing impact investors and other types of commercial financing.
• Support commodity managers in fundraising

Qualifications Required & Experience

• A Master Degree either finance, accounting, investment planning and management, banking and/or development finance,
• A minimum of seven (7) years of a demonstrated track record in supporting local companies, co-operatives and SME’s in mainly the agricultural sector to access commercial financing through assisted bankable investment propositions,
• Demonstrable experience in the commercial financial sector,
• Demonstrable experience in business development and investment portfolio management
• Well networked and experienced in business finance,
• Excellent financial and analytical skills,
• Written and spoken fluency in the English language with French as an added advantage,
• Solid organizational skills including attention to detail and multi-tasking skills and team spirit.

Location: Accra

How to Apply For the Job

Please send a one-page motivation letter (addressed to the Regional Director, Solidaridad West Africa) and a resume in English to

solidaridad.wa@solidaridadnetwork.org and indicate the position you are applying for in the subject header.

Closing Date: 30 June, 2017

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for interview.