Project Lead / Program Manager – Karnataka Programs and Learning – IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative

IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative helps to accelerate the sustainable production and trade of agricultural commodities produced in Asia, Africa and South America and traded globally. We build ambitious public private coalitions of companies, civil society organizations and governments and high-impact programs in order to benefit people, planet and profit. With co-funding from the Dutch, Swiss, Danish and Norwegian Governments, and from business partners, IDH organizes scoping,development and implementation of public private partnerships in 11 sectors such as coffee, tea,spices, aquaculture, apparel and 11 landscapes across 7 countries. IDH is a dynamic organization of 60 staff members based in Utrecht, The Netherlands, with hubs in Asia, Africa and Latin-America. In the last year IDH has expanded its activities and now runs around 600 projects in 50 countries,
together with a wide range of private and public partners.

Our growing presence and scope of work in India is growing rapidly, so the role has potential that allows the individual to grow their capabilities and knowledge in a short period of time, in line with the fast-paced and dynamic nature of the organization.

Position overview

The Project Lead / Managers’ role will be to lead IDH strategic interventions and projects in the state of Karnataka. The following are the key objectives of this role:

• Lead the development and mainstreaming of sustainable landscape model in the select coffee and spice production regions in Karnataka and linking this with IDH strategic objectives on global sustainability indicators and targets
• Working with the local partner on development of the formal farmer aggregation models: Farmer Producer Organizations, Agri Entrepreneurs etc in the target locations in Karnataka focusing on spices and coffee value chains
• Lead interventions on unlocking and securing private sector partnerships to meet the project indicator targets and KPIs, under jurisdictional Compacts or partnerships
• Support the development and transformation of the commodity market into sustainable supply chain in the target geographies and value chains
• The Manager will lead on the process of alignment for quality outcomes that will inform decision making for program development, (re)design or evaluation.

Key Responsibilities ,

Karnataka Program Support: Responsibilities will be to the programs in the state of Karnataka, including the sustainable landscape development support:
• Creating concept notes and proposals through stakeholder consultations and research
• Responsible for working with the field-level partners to ensure the effective implementation of the work on the ground, and achievement of deliverables according to IDH reporting guidelines and set KPI
• Maintain connections with existing program stakeholders and supporting outreach to drive the adoption of more sustainable practices in the industry and supporting the multi-stakeholder process in enhancing program governance and partnerships between IDH and other stakeholders for joint interventions and co-funding
• Contract management, budget management on a project level and monitoring & evaluation activities, as well as gathering, collating and analysis of required information
• Support the planning, organization and coordination of stakeholder events and workshops as required.

Project Related

• Lead the project implementation activities and manage the local implementation teams to deliver research, such as impact evaluations, to gather insights including finalization of the assignment ‘asks’ or terms of reference, as well as managing the selection process with program team of the consultants
• Lead on the development of a learning and M&E framework in relation to the program oriented assignments. Support programs on thinking through their overall intervention logic, defining appropriate & actionable quantitative and qualitative key performance indicators.
• Engage and empanel suitable private sector organizations that fit the landscape model especially on market scoping, strategy development, baselining/ data collection

Mandatory Requirements

• At least 10 years of relevant working experience in international organizations/settings specifically on managing agri value chain development or implementation projects
• Knowledge of sustainability issue in the landscape and commodities sector in Spices and Coffee
• Have extensive field experience working in the Agri Value chain assignments in India and especially in Southern states including Karnataka
• Excellent spoken communication skills in Kannada and spoken and written skills in English
• Open to field travel in different rural settings of Karnataka depending on the project need

Next to these criteria, the following competencies are expected of applicants:

▪ Strong knowledge of financial administration and budgets
▪ Good experience in project and stakeholder management
▪ A very good working knowledge of Excel and PowerPoint
▪ A team player and able to adapt and thrive in a fast-paced environment.
▪ Outstanding analytical capabilities.
▪ Excellent presentation and communication skills, in writing and verbally.
▪ Pro-active-, service- and detail-oriented, analytical, structured and business minded.
▪ Ability and willingness to travel to rural locations within Karnataka

Conditions

IDH offers a challenging position within an enthusiastic and passionate team. As an IDH team member you can contribute to positive global change. The position is a full-time position. The successful applicant will initially be offered a one-year contract but with the possibility to extend it in case of satisfactory performance.

For more information about IDH, please visit www.idhtrade.org.

How to apply

Interested candidates are invited to send their CV and application to sinha@idhtrade.org mentioning “Project Lead – Karnataka” in the subject line.