The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is a not-for-profit organizations formed in 2006 to work with African governments, farmers, donors, NGOs and the private sector to reduce hunger and poverty in Africa through Agricultural development targeted at resource poor farmers. AGRA has its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya and an office in Accra, Ghana.

Description Of Job

The government of Ghana believes that comprehensive support to rebuild local policy institutions, support to evidence-based policies analysis, connecting policy analysts to policy markets, engaging agricultural parliamentary committees to interact with policy analysts, and promoting policy advocacy platforms that can transform policies into implementation are critical in achieving a green resolution in Ghana. With technical and financial support from AGRA, the Ghana Ministry of Food and Agricultural engaged with senior policy makers, national, regional and international policy research centres, farmers, regional economic communities and bilateral and multilateral donors to form policy action nodes along seeds, soil health, markets, land/property rights and environment/climate change policy thrusts. Together they constitute the Ghana policy hub. to strengthen the evidence-based policy action nodes, AGRA is seeking to recruit and send three (3) highly competent individuals to fill Policy Fellows positions in the coordinating institutions of CSIR-Soil Research Institute; Department of Agricultural Economics and Business Management, University of Ghana; and Department of Land Economy. Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, respectively. This is a consultancy position and is tenable for a maximum of three years.

Reporting directly to the coordinator or designate in the relevant institution, the Fellow will be responsible for carrying out thematic research on ONE of the following topics to provide evidence for advocacy by the respective policy action node for policy reforms:

•  Soil Health Policy:
a) Analyse the economic, social and institutional factors that hinder the procurement and distribution of fertilisers in Ghana or
b) Assess the impacts of tariffs and non-tariff barriers on fertiliser procurement, price, demand and supply in Ghana
•  Markets Policy:
a) Assess the potential commercial viabilities of selected agricultural value chains in northern Ghana, or
b) Develop an incentive structure necessary to promote public-private sector investment in agriculture and agro processing; and
•  Land Policy:
a) Assess the gap between women's land rights (access, control, and ownership) and the existing provisions to secure women's rights to land, or
b) Devise strategies to improve, enforce and protect women's rights to land ownership under existing ownership regimes

Specific responsibilities are in the detailed Terms of Reference on AGRA'S website

Qualification Required & Experience

•  Candidates should have a Ph.D in Agricultural Economics, Economics, Development Economics or a closely related discipline with less than five (5) years of post-qualification experience
•  Candidates should be conversant with current development debates and policies and should have experience of primary research in developing countries,. Experience of coordinating research projects and managing collaborative teams is also essential
•  Since Fellows are required to present research findings at seminars and conferences, strong presentation skills are needed
•  A demonstrated capacity to work in a multi-disciplinary team and with overseas partners, and practical experience in the field, will also be valued, as will language abilities beyond English

How To Apply For The Job

Application procedures and deadline:
Applicants are invited to send a cover letter illustrating their suitability for any one of the Fellows position with detailed curriculum vitae, including names and addresses of three referees knowledgeable about the candidate's professional qualifications and work experience. Please indicate the suggested title of the research that interests you and justify that appropriately in the cover letter.

All correspondence should be addressed to: Dr Augustine Langyintuo (ALangyintuo@agra.org) with copy to: Dr Konan N'dri (KNdri@agra.org)

Closing Date: 20 October, 2012

See details at: www.agra-alliance.org

AGRA reserves the right at any time in the process to terminate this request without entering into a contract and to accept or reject any or all applications and is not bound to give reasons for its decision. Canvassing in any form will lead to automatic disqualification.