Overview
Provide subject matter expertise in enterprise development throughout the project implementation cycle, focusing on increasing agribusinesses/cooperatives' access to Business Development Services and providing coaching assistance.
Key Responsibilities
- Conduct enterprise and value chain diagnostics to identify constraints, opportunities and upgrading pathways.
- Design and implement enterprise upgrading interventions, including business development support, productivity improvement, quality compliance and market linkage facilitation.
- Provide technical guidance on sustainable production practices, resource efficiency, and climate-resilient business models.
- Support integration of businesses/cooperatives into inclusive and sustainable value chains.
- Facilitate partnerships between businesses/cooperatives, anchor firms, financial institutions and support institutions.
- Design and deliver training programmes, coaching sessions and workshops for MSMEs and business support organizations (BSOs).
- Develop or adapt training materials and tools relevant to enterprise competitiveness and sustainable production.
- Provide on-site technical advisory services and follow-up mentoring to beneficiary enterprises.
- Support strengthening of local institutions delivering enterprise support services.
- Work closely with the CTA, the Technical Specialist – Industrial Development, the TVET Specialist, the FAO technical team and MinDA focal points to ensure coherence of enterprise-related interventions.
- Participate in technical working groups, coordination meetings and field missions.
- Participate in commodity-specific Technical Working Groups (TWGs) jointly with FAO counterparts.
- Coordinate with OHCHR on Activity 2.2.4 and with LGUs on Activity 2.2.5.
- Support organization of stakeholder consultations, validation workshops and public–private dialogue processes.
- Collect and analyse enterprise-level data, including gender-disaggregated and inclusion/LNOB-sensitive indicators.
- Contribute technical inputs to quarterly and annual project reports, the inception report, mid-term and final evaluations.
- Contribute to the Action's learning and knowledge management function by documenting lessons learned, good practices and success stories related to enterprise development interventions, and providing data and case material to the M&E Specialist.
- Support the M&E Specialist in tracking project indicators under Output 2.2.
- Ensure integration of gender equality, social inclusion, environmental sustainability and conflict sensitivity into enterprise development activities.
- Ensure compliance with European Union visibility requirements and proper implementation of the project’s communication and visibility activities across actions.
- Identify opportunities for scaling up successful enterprise interventions and linking them to existing and/or follow-on programmes.
- Perform other ad-hoc duties as required by the project.
Required Experience
A minimum of seven (7) years of progressive professional experience in enterprise development, MSME and cooperative support, value chain development, business development services (BDS), or agro-industrial development, is required. Demonstrated experience in conducting enterprise diagnostics, value chain analyses, and designing and delivering business development services, is required. Experience working with MSMEs, cooperatives, or agribusinesses in the Philippines, particularly in Mindanao or in comparable contexts, is required. Experience in integrating gender equality, social inclusion, HRBA, FPIC, "do no harm" and rights-based approaches into industrial development interventions, is highly desirable. Experience in designing or implementing programmes within HDP Nexus, resilience-building, social cohesion, peacebuilding, or recovery contexts, is desirable. Experience in integrating gender equality, social inclusion, HRBA, FPIC, "do no harm" and rights-based approaches into enterprise development interventions, is desirable. Experience working with UN agencies, international organizations, or EU-funded projects, including the application of EU communication and visibility requirements, is desirable. Experience working in conflict-affected or fragile contexts, including in BARMM, is desirable.
Qualifications
Advanced university degree (Master's degree or equivalent) in business administration, agribusiness, economics, industrial engineering, value chain development, rural development, sustainable production, development studies, or another relevant discipline is required. Alternatively, a first level university degree or an advanced technical college diploma may be acceptable provided it is combined with additional 7 years of professional hand-on experience that is directly relevant to the expertise required by the specific assignment.
