Position title: Vice President, Agriculture, Human and Social Development, AHVP

Grade: EL3

Position N°: 50092138

Reference: ADB/20/100

Publication date: 14-Jul-2020

Closing date: 13-Aug-2020

Duty station: Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

Objectives

THE BANK GROUP:

Established in 1964, the African Development Bank (AfDB) is the premier pan-African development institution, promoting economic growth and social progress across the continent. There are 81 member states, including 54 in Africa (Regional Member Countries).  The African Development Fund (ADF) was established in 1974 to complement the Bank by providing grants and concessional loans to low income countries. The Bank and the Fund together form the African Development Bank Group.  The Bank Group’s development agenda is delivering the financial and technical support for transformative projects that will significantly reduce poverty through inclusive and sustainable economic growth. In order to focus the objectives of the Ten Year Strategy (2013 – 2022) and ensure greater developmental impact, five major areas (High 5s) have been identified for scaling up and namely: Light Up and Power Africa, Feed Africa, Industrialize Africa, Integrate Africa, and Improve the quality of life for the people of Africa. The Bank Group is building a management team to lead the successful implementation of this vision.

THE COMPLEX:

The Vice Presidency for ‘Agriculture, Human, and Social Development’ is a Sector Complex focusing on the Bank’s Ten-Year Strategy High 5s priority of “Feed Africa” and “Improve Quality of Life for the People of Africa”.

THE POSITION:

Reporting directly to the President, the Vice President will provide leadership on strategy, policy-making, execution  and delivery of the overall work program and budget of the Vice Presidency Complex, driving significant impacts and value for money through effective management of staff and resources to deliver quality sovereign and non-sovereign operations.

The Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development will lead a team of experts across different regions of Africa organized in five departments, including: (1) agriculture and agribusiness; (2) agricultural finance and rural development; (3) gender, youth and women development; (4) human capital and skills development; and (5) water and sanitation.

Duties and responsibilities

The Vice President, AHVP will:

1. Drive a strong culture of performance to deliver impactful results on the ground within and across African countries from the Agriculture, Human and Social Development Complex of the Bank. This will include spearheading strategic orientation, setting clear targets for delivery, providing leadership for the Directors, Managers and Staff, recruiting top-notch sector experts for the Bank and providing leadership to execute on the strategy to achieve food security, reduce malnutrition and stunting, create wealth and transform rural economies.
2. Develop effective collaboration with the Regional Development and Business Delivery Vice Presidency and other Vice Presidency complexes, to deploy sector-level staff to the five regional integration and business delivery offices in West, East, Central, North and Southern Africa, and drive the successful development of agriculture, human and social development portfolios.
3. Support countries to achieve rapid agricultural productivity growth, revamp research, extension and innovation systems to boost domestic food production and reduce dependency on food imports.
4. Support development of private sector agribusinesses to process and add value to agricultural products and commodities across agricultural value chains, that take social and environmental and climate change dimensions into consideration, while cultivating multi-stakeholder partnerships between the private sector, civil society and communities to accomplish complex objectives.
5. Spearhead support to countries and the private sector to achieve agricultural industrialization, through development of agro-industrial zones with smart integrated infrastructure, upgrading agricultural value chains, while developing the requisite skills and human capabilities, building on existing social structures and organizations.
6. Provide leadership to ensure that all programs and interventions of the Bank pay close attention to gender impacts and accelerate the delivery of finance to women through the Bank’s Affirmative Finance Action for Women (AFAWA) initiative.
7. Develop and significantly grow the size and quality of the Bank’s portfolio in the agriculture, human and social development sectors by forging strong strategic partnerships with multilateral, bilateral and regional organizations, the private sector and philanthropic organizations.
8. Lead the execution of the Bank’s Jobs for Africa’s Youth strategy to build skills and entrepreneurship; implement strategic, systemic and scalable innovative financing systems to support entrepreneurship of young people; and deliver quality job creation for the youth across regional member countries.
9. Develop and implement action plans to reduce malnutrition and stunting across regional member countries, including building political support and strategic partnerships for the implementation of the African Leaders for Nutrition, to drive accountability for malnutrition.
10. Develop and implement innovative programs to accelerate access to water and sanitation across regional member countries, including through public-private partnerships, and improvement of the overall governance of these sectors.
11. Foster an environment that stimulates teamwork, innovation, creativity and accountability for results, and motivate staff to deliver significant developmental impacts on the ground in the countries.
12. As a member of the Senior Management Team, must be able to exercise and model good professional conduct, be an effective team player, be loyal to the code of conduct of the Bank and be able to work effectively with and under the guidance and direction of the President.

Selection Criteria

1. Hold a Masters’ or Ph.D degree in Agricultural Economics, Agriculture, Economics, Finance, Business Administration or relevant field in human and social development. Must have at least 15 years of international experience, of which at least 10 years must be at a senior management level.
2. Have extensive experience in leading major agricultural, social and human transformations.
3. Extensive experience working in multilateral financial institutions will be a distinct advantage.
4. Must have extensive ability to develop strategic partnerships and build coalitions for achieving impacts.
5. A proven leader that is able to translate vision into impact; with superior ability to motivate, inspire, support and hold teams accountable for results.
6. Must have extensive experience in running large operations to deliver programs at scale.
7. Familiarity with the work of multilateral and bilateral development finance institutions and the private sector will be an advantage.
8. Experience of working in large, multicultural organizations in the public or private sector with a diverse workforce and sensitivity to diversity concerns of staff and Boards of Directors.
9. Excellent people management skills, experience working with Boards of Directors or Trustees of corporate institutions and ability to effectively build support and coalition around agendas.
10. Excellent written and oral communication skills in English and/or French, and good practical knowledge of the other language.

THIS POSITION IS CLASSIFIED INTERNATIONAL STATUS AND ATTRACTS INTERNATIONAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

Should you encounter technical difficulties in submitting your application, please send an email with a precise description of the issue and/or a screenshot showing the problem to: HR Direct HRDirect@AFDB.ORG(link sends e-mail)

Apply for this position(link is external)

To apply for this position, you need to be national of one of AfDB member countries.

Applicants who fully meet the Bank’s requirements and are considered for interview will be contacted. Only online applications submitted with a comprehensive Curriculum Vitae (CV) and copies of the required degrees will be considered. The President, AfDB, reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level. The African Development Bank is an equal opportunities employer. Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) does not ask for payments of any kind from applicants throughout the recruitment process (job application, CV review, interview meeting, and final processing of applications). In addition, the Bank does not request information on applicants’ bank accounts. The African Development Bank Group declines all responsibility for the fraudulent publications of job offers in its name or, in general, for the fraudulent use of its name in any way whatsoever.