USAID/Rwanda Modernizing Agriculture Activity
Access to Finance Advisor
CNFA
CNFA is a not-for-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., dedicated to stimulating economic growth in the agricultural sector by nurturing entrepreneurship, private enterprise, and market linkages. CNFA specializes in fostering private sector investments in training, new technologies and marketing as a means to increase the overall competitiveness of agricultural value chains and rural development, to increase people’s incomes, to develop skills in the rural workforce, and to facilitate exports.
Program Description USAID/Rwanda Modernizing Agriculture Activity
The purpose of the Modernizing Agriculture Activity is to support increased agriculture productivity and income, access to finance and markets, and access and consumption of nutritious food products in Rwanda, while increasing the resilience of the agriculture and food systems to the changing climate. To achieve this goal, the Activity will sustainably increase agricultural productivity, increase access to finance for farmers and agribusinesses, improve producers’ market outcomes, and strengthen the enabling environment to foster market-driven outcomes in agriculture.
Position Description
Reporting to the Finance & Investment Director, the Access to Finance Advisor is responsible for leading, designing, and facilitating implementation of project activities aimed at increasing access to finance for farmers (so they can increase the productivity of nutritious products) and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) working in the agriculture sector (so they are better equipped to deliver services, goods, and value-addition to farmers producing nutritious products). The Access to Finance Advisor is based in Kigali.
Duties and Responsibilities
The main duties of the Access to Finance Advisor include, but are not limited to:
- Facilitate capacity building for banks and other financial institutions to increase their understanding of the agriculture sector, improve their products and services; and enhance inclusion of women, youth, and other marginalized groups
- Facilitate MSME access to BDS providers to increase borrowers’ ability to access financing and investment with bankable business plans and coherent financial projections
- Ensure agribusinesses are “investment ready” and prepared to participate in ModAg pitch fairs
- Collaborate with the Financial Literacy Advisor to improve farmers’ and agribusinesses’ financial literacy skills in a socially inclusive manner, including but not limited to use of the CAES approach
- Collaborate across program components, especially technical advisors, to identify and facilitate access to appropriate financial products for market actors
- Support the development of input-financing models for Farm Service Centers and contract farming approaches
- Support the design and implementation of activities to improve and increase awareness of financial products and services and increase their availability to the agriculture sector (including farmers, cooperatives, and SMEs)
- Support the design of and implement activities that address liquidity shortages experienced by MSMEs and provide technical assistance for financial institutions on products that meet these needs such as index-based weather insurance, warehouse financing, and cash-flow-based lending;
- Engage with the private sector to increase value chain financing using approaches including but not limited to second tier lending
- Identify opportunities to increase access to finance through digital financial tools
- Support borrowers to better define and present their financing needs to lenders and investors
- Identify opportunities for blended finance to reduce the risk of financing in the agriculture sector
- Coordinate and collaborate with other access-to-finance development programs and other relevant market actors to co-create solutions to identified market constraints and harmonize approaches
- Collaborate with the with the Gender & Social Inclusion Advisor to ensure vulnerable groups have access to finance
- Support the completion of initial assessments to inform and guide activities over the life of project, including the Market Systems Baseline
- Coordinate with the MEL unit to participate in M&E, learning, and programmatic reporting activities, including the development of annual work plans, quarterly and annual reports
- Undertake other assignments or tasks at the request of the Chief of Party or designee.
Qualifications
- Advanced degree in Finance, Business Administration or a related field;
- At least 8 years of professional experience in banking, micro-finance, rural and agriculture investment finance; business development services, and private sector development for donor-funded projects, non-profit organizations, and private sector banking for donor-funded projects.
- Technical experience with INGOs (non-governmental organizations) and INGO procedures, knowledge of USAID procedures a plus;
- Significant experience and competence in drafting and advising on agri-business and SME/MSME business plans, forecasting profit/loss, etc. with strong ability to understand and address financing needed of entrepreneurs and businesses.
- Demonstrated ability to interact and communicate with wide range of stakeholders both verbally and in writing;
- Effective at collaboration; willingness to innovate and ability to think systematically;
- Proven experience in managing multiple and competing tasks while maintaining quality of deliverables within deadlines;
- Fluent speaker of English, Kinyarwanda, also French is an advantage.
Application Instructions
All interested and qualified Candidate can send their application (motivation letter, updated CV, certificates and references) documents to: ModAg@cnfarwanda.org not later than 21st February 2023 at 6:00 PM. Please quote the job title in the subject. Only candidates selected for interview will be notified.
