FARA is the apex organization for agricultural research for development in Africa. The FARA Secretariat is the lead institution for Pillar IV of NEPAD’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) which encompasses agricultural research and technology dissemination and adoption. FARA works closely with sub-regional organisations (SROs) and national agricultural research and extension systems to ensure effective implementation of CAADP activities.

FARA’s mission is to create broad-based improvements in agricultural
productivity, competitiveness and markets by supporting Africa’ sub-regional organisations in strengthening capacity for agricultural innovation.

FARA in partnership with its constituent Sub-Regional Organizations (SROs), the African Network for Agriculture, Agro forestry and Natural Resources Education (ANAFE), the African Technology Policy Studies network (ATPS) and the Pan African Agribusiness and Agro-industry Consortium (PanAAC) is implementing a five year Universities, Business and Research in Agricultural Innovation (UniBRAIN) initiative supported by The Royal Danish Foreign Ministry (DANIDA).

UniBRAIN’s Development Objective is for innovation and entrepreneurship derived jobs in the agricultural sector to be created through partnerships between universities, research institutions and the private sector.

Job Title:E-Capacities Support Personnel - Ref: FARA/adv./e-capacity/2013

The major components of the UniBRAIN Initiative are:

•   Agricultural business innovations developed in a conducive institutional setting linking universities, research institutions and private sector in Danida priority countries. These are in Eastern Africa: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania; in West Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Ghana; in Southern African: Mozambique and Zambia
•   Agribusiness entrepreneurs and innovators produced by improving BSc and MSc agribusiness teaching and training
•   Innovation outputs, experiences and practices shared and up-scaled through improved networking and channels of communication.Implementation of UniBRAIN is facilitated by a team of institutions in which each member has, by virtue of its mandate and accomplishments, responsibilities for facilitating the involvement of particular categories of collaborating institutions and guiding the development of particular components.

Vacancy Announcement -Temporary Position

E-Capacities Support Personnel: Ref: FARA/adv./e-capacity/2013
An online decision support system for strategic human capital formation and a platform for matching demand to supply of capacities

Background
The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) recognizes that for the success and sustainability of CAADP, radically new approaches are needed to produce effective change agents.

To do this African universities will have to revise their curricula and pedagogy and CAADP related national agricultural investment programs must help them improve their facilities and faculty conditions of service. Investment in agricultural capacity strengthening must be treated as an agricultural investment of equal, if not more, importance than, for example, developing new varieties and constructing irrigation systems because the success of all investments is determined by the quality of human and institutional capacity available to implement and sustain them.

In line with FARA’s mandate, the eCapacities facility is aimed at reducing fragmentation and value-adding integration to build critical mass, reduce wasteful duplication and avoid leaving critical gaps. However, FARA cannot be effective in helping the Forum’s stakeholders unless it has a well-developed means of identifying the human capacity requirements, the on-going actions that are addressing those needs, and the gaps that are not being addressed and for prioritizing future investments in strengthening capacity to build capacity

The framework and interactive database, dubbed eCapacities, will be used by the FARA Secretariat to build its capacity to receive, collate, analyse and provide access to information to the Forum’s stakeholders on what is being done, by which institution, where, and in what way, to strengthen Africa’s capacity to build capacity. It will similarly provide the FARA Secretariat with a means of receiving information from stakeholders on capacity that are identified in the process of developing and implementing agricultural research, extension and research projects and the national agriculture and food security investment programmmes (NAFSIPs).

The eCapacities facility will therefore provide tools for overlaying the two databases; a supply database and a demand database that together will enable the identification of the disconnects between what African tertiary training institutions are, or are planning to produce and what is needed by way of the types and qualities of their graduates and postgraduates. The database will contain institutional-level data coupled to a capacity to aggregate it at it at country, sub-regional and a continental scales.

The e-Capacities facility provides a web-based decision support system for strategic human capital formation in agricultural research and extension organizations, tertiary agricultural education institutes, government farmer-support entities and agro-based private sector organizations. The framework and database will be developed in five phases:

•   Phase 1: determining the stakeholders most likely to be interested in presenting their demands and potentials for improving their graduates match with the demands of the industry they are being trained for and learning about the range, format and quality of data and information that they could submit
•   Phase 2: developing the framework, databases and tools
•   Phase 3: engaging stakeholders in populating the databases.
•   Phase 4: validating the collection, collation and retrieval capacities of the framework and databases and validation the analyses and report writing tools
•   Phase 5: training key stakeholders who can train other stakeholders and institutionalize the framework and databases for routine use

Phases 1 and 2 have been done and a validated prototype is being piloted.

Reporting to the Director NSF4, the intern will

1. Assist Capacity Strengthening Program Officer to

establish the data collection network for eCapacities (based on the eCapacities SoP)
Monitor quarterly targets at Country Level, including:

•   Number of participating organisations
•   Satisfaction levels of participating organisations
•   Number of Graduates being tracked
•   Number of Job Opportunities Posted
•   Requests for Capacity upgrades by the Providers based on the Demand Profiles
•   Investments in Capacity upgrades
•   Provider Curriculum updates based on Demand profiles
•   Workplace problems assisted
•   Innovations / Technologies promoted by the Provider
•   Innovations / Technologies used by Workplaces
•   Meeting on a quarterly basis with the country coordinators to review their performance
•   Assist FARA IT to perform site Data Validity Checks
•   Facilitate site administrators to undertake
•   on-site training sessions and follow-up progress review meetings
•   Lead the collection and capturing of relevant data
•   Promote the platform within the organization
•   Assists other users in their organization with eCapacities to escalate the queries to FARA IT Required

Qualification Required & Experience

•   The successful candidate will have at least one year practical experience in an IT or data management role
•   S/he will have a graduate or equivalent qualification in agriculture, or a technical equivalent in IT or data management. Fluency in English is essential and fluency in French would be an advantage.

Location: Accra

How To Apply For The Job

Applications should be submitted with the names and contact details of three referees to:-

Dr Yemi Akinbamijo,
Executive Director,
FARA,
PMB CT 173 / 12 Anmeda Street,
Roman Ridge,
Accra, Ghana.

Tel: +233 302 772823
Fax: +233 302 773676,

email: recruitment@fara-africa.org

Closing Date: 17 October, 2013

•   NB: Please quote the vacancy reference code in your application to this job. Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.