Market System Development (MSD) Expert – Field Coordinator

GLOBAL WOMEN EMPOWERMENT DEVELOPMENT ETHIOPIA (GWEDE)

VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT

About GWEDE

Global Women Empowerment Development Ethiopia (GWEDE) is a national, women-led and community-rooted civil society organization established in 2022. GWEDE works to advance gender equality, women’s and girls’ empowerment, food and nutrition security, resilient livelihoods, inclusive economic empowerment, WASH, protection, peacebuilding, and sustainable community development in Ethiopia.

GWEDE envisions a future where gender equality, inclusion, and locally led leadership drive sustainable community progress. The organization works with women, youth, pastoralist and agro-pastoralist communities, local institutions, government, CSOs, and development and humanitarian partners to strengthen local capacities, amplify marginalized voices, expand opportunities, and promote resilient and inclusive solutions.

GWEDE is committed to localization, equal opportunity, diversity, safeguarding, and accountability. Qualified women, youth, persons with disabilities, and candidates from Borena Zone and surrounding pastoralist and agro-pastoralist communities are strongly encouraged to apply. Candidates with strong knowledge of the local context, communities, languages, culture, and development and humanitarian priorities are particularly encouraged.

GWEDE seeks competent, committed, and values-driven professionals who are passionate about community engagement and contributing to gender responsive, inclusive, locally led, and sustainable development outcomes.

About the Project

LEVEL UP is a three-year initiative designed to make Borena’s food system more inclusive, climate resilient, nutrition sensitive, and market oriented by strengthening the economic participation, leadership, resilience, and agency of pastoralist and agro pastoralist women and female youth.

The project uses Market Systems Development, Gender Transformative, climate resilient, nutrition-sensitive, and graduation approaches to strengthen women’s participation in three high-potential value chains: poultry, irrigation-based horticulture, and small ruminants.

LEVEL UP will work across Arero, Yabello, and Gomole woredas, strengthening women’s and female youth’s access to markets, services, productive assets, skills, leadership opportunities, and decision making, while supporting institutions to adopt more gender responsive and inclusive practices.

The project seeks to create sustainable economic opportunities, stronger agency and leadership, and more inclusive market and institutional systems that enable women and female youth to participate in and benefit equitably from Borena’s evolving food economy.

 Market System Development (MSD) Expert – Field Coordinator

Purpose of the Position

The MSD Expert-Field Coordinator is responsible for facilitating inclusive, competitive, and climate-resilient market systems for the poultry, irrigation-based horticulture, and small-ruminant value chains at field level. Applying a facilitative Market Systems Development (MSD / M4P) approach and working closely with the WHH MSD Expert, WE-Action, and private, public, and financial-sector actors the post-holder brokers commercially sustainable relationships that connect women- and female youth-led enterprises to inputs, finance, services, information, and higher-value markets. The role deliberately avoids direct delivery or the creation of parallel structures; instead, it strengthens the incentives, capacities, and relationships of existing market actors so that services and market opportunities for women continue beyond the project. The MSD Expert is central to 'crowding in' private-sector investment through co-investment, de-risking, and performance-based arrangements, and to ensuring that market facilitation is gender-responsive and reaches women concentrated in lower-value segments of the value chains. The position is also responsible for managing/leading the day to day GWEDE’s Yabello team and ensuring smooth running of the day-to-day activities of the office.

Key Responsibilities

Conduct and lead market systems assessments and gender and enterprise capacity assessments of women- and female youth-led enterprises (horticulture, poultry, small-ruminant, input-supply, and veterinary-service enterprises) to identify business needs, market constraints, skills gaps, and growth opportunities, and use findings to inform interventions across the three outcomes.

Facilitate tailored business development support (BDS) for women- and female youth-led enterprises through training, coaching, and linkages with TVETs, private trainers, buyers, and cooperatives to strengthen product quality, value addition, aggregation, pricing, and marketing.

Facilitate inclusive, gender-responsive market linkages between women producers/enterprises and buyers, traders, transporters, financial institutions, and other market actors through business-to-business (B2B) platforms and market information services.

Broker and support contractual agreements and long-term commercial partnerships between women producer groups, enterprises, buyers, cooperatives, and other market actors across the selected value chains.

Support enterprises, cooperatives, and market actors to establish or upgrade commercially viable collection centers, storage, and aggregation models through cost-sharing, technical assistance, and business planning under transparent co-investment and performance-based arrangements.

Support enterprises, cooperatives, and aggregation groups to establish and strengthen collective marketing systems joint sales planning, transparent price-setting, inventory management, and stronger commercial linkages with buyers.

Facilitate partnerships with TVET institutions to deliver practical, market-oriented training on value addition, processing, packaging, and quality standards for poultry, horticulture, and small-ruminant products.

Promote market-oriented production by helping enterprises meet buyer requirements on quality, quantity, timing, and food safety, and by de-risking commercially viable business models to crowd in private-sector investment.

Connect enterprises with certified suppliers of improved seeds, breeds, fodder, veterinary inputs, and irrigation technologies through supplier mapping, product demonstrations, and B2B meetings, and strengthen sustainable input-supply systems.

Facilitate input-finance partnerships with MFIs, SACCOs, and suppliers to expand access to climate-resilient technologies through credit, leasing, and installment-based financing models.

Map and assess available financial and insurance products (credit, savings, input finance, installment models, livestock and weather-index insurance), identify service gaps, and support the design of more inclusive financial solutions.

Support banks, MFIs, SACCOs, insurance providers, and input suppliers to expand outreach and uptake of tailored financial and insurance products through agent networks, cooperatives, community outreach, and simplified communication materials.

Support the delivery of financial and digital literacy and insurance awareness training, and help pilot smart subsidies for livestock and weather-index insurance that can transition toward commercially viable uptake.

Partner with digital market information and climate-information providers (including ATI) to improve enterprises' access to market intelligence, digital payment systems, localized weather forecasts, drought early warning, and climate advisory services, and support onboarding and digital literacy.

Provide overall coordination and day-to-day leadership of GWEDE's field office and field team (Animal Science Expert, Community Facilitators, Field Accountant, Cashier, and support staff), ensuring smooth, efficient, and compliant operations across Arero, Yabello, and Gomole.

Lead field-level annual and quarterly work planning, budgeting, procurement planning, and activity scheduling in line with the project document, and monitor progress against plans, budgets, and targets.

Serve as GWEDE's primary field representative and focal point for coordination with WHH, WE-Action, woreda and zonal government offices, cooperatives, private-sector actors, and multi-stakeholder platforms.

Line-manage, mentor, and supervise field staff; oversee field logistics, security, and asset management in coordination with Head Office; and foster a collaborative, accountable team culture.

Ensure interventions are gender-responsive and conflict-sensitive, safeguarding women's priorities, workloads, safety, access to productive assets, and control over enterprise income.

Coordinate closely with the Animal Science Expert, WE-Action's horticulture and GESI experts, and Community Facilitators so that production, gender, and market interventions are aligned and mutually reinforcing.

Develop and use evidence market analyses, business cases, investment briefs, policy notes, and learning studies to demonstrate the commercial and social value of investing in women- and female youth-led enterprises and to inform private-sector engagement and policy dialogue.

Conduct regular field supervision, identify systemic market and implementation challenges, recommend corrective actions, and document lessons and scalable models.

Contribute to MEAL activities, participant/enterprise databases, and timely, quality narrative and financial reporting to GWEDE Head Office and the consortium.