We are hiring a Cocoa and Coffee Programme Manager for Ghana

A sustainable income for farmers, and nutritious, affordable food for everyone: this is what Rikolto works for.

Rikolto (formerly VECO) is an international network organisation with more than 40 years of experience in partnering with farmer organisations and food chain stakeholders across Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Our work is structured around three global programmes: our global Rice, Cocoa and Coffee, and Food Smart Cities programmes. Inclusive business is at the core of each of these programmes. In every aspect of our work, we pay special attention to the empowerment of women and young people, as well as to climate change and biodiversity.

Annually, Rikolto works with 207 farmer organisations, reaching 109,156 farming families across 17 countries, to change the recipe of our food system. This means that food systems should become more inclusive and offer value to all parties in the food chain.

The cocoa and coffee sector involves some 30 million smallholder farmers and provides livelihoods to over 50 million people. The sector wields considerable economic clout of its tremendous value and appeal. Yet, this iconic global commodity is beset by numerous problems – such as low incomes, prevalent child labour, declining productivity, and deforestation– which undercut its potential contribution to food systems change.

The key to realising the true potential is to make both sectors more sustainable, inclusive and competitive. We do not only consider cocoa or coffee production by itself, but thanks to agroforestry we can transform the entire market by changing the production landscape.

Rikolto recently launched a five-year programme funded by the Belgian Directorate-General Development Cooperation to work on sustainable cocoa production in Ghana, specifically focusing on a living income for cocoa farmers in the country.

The Programme Manager will be responsible for organising programme activities, coordinating with internal and external staff, leading project delivery and managing small teams, and providing overall leadership in the design of Rikolto cocoa and coffee programmes in Ghana. The Programme Manager’s overarching focus is to position Rikolto to achieve its mandate of delivering living income to cocoa and coffee farmers in Ghana.

The specific areas of focus include strategy, grant management & fundraising, networking, stakeholder engagement and leading the design and implementation of programmes in Ghana.

• Overall monitoring of grants/programmes for both external/donor requirements and Rikolto internal policies and requirements.
• Provide ongoing monitoring of the status of programmes and complete regular check-ins on grant requirements.
• Rationalise the delivery of programmes through new and existing partnerships,
• Ensure appropriate measurement of financial, programmatic, and impact performance against stated milestones and goals
• Support team’s adherence to internal policies and programme management standards.
• Overall responsibility for networking and stakeholder engagement for successful programme development and implementation.
• Lead coordination for grant identification, grant matrix population and proposal writing, monitor the timeline, status of proposal and communicate to the relevant parties as appropriate.
• Oversee the financial status of the organization including developing long and short-range financial plans, monitoring the budget and ensuring sound financial controls are in place; set financial priorities accurately to ensure the organization is operating in a manner that supports the needs of the programme and staff.
• Coordinate partnership negotiation & development, ensuring necessary teams are engaged to help further programme, country and regional interests.
• Exercise collaborative efforts with other social service organizations, NGOs, companies, institutions and governments to develop and expand services that benefit our clients, beneficiaries and the community.
• Facilitate learning across projects including codifying lessons learned and knowledge of resources/tools/best practices, etc.
• Lead, coach, develop, manage and retain Rikolto's high-performing staff in Ghana.
• Create and promote a positive, multicultural work environment that supports consistency throughout the organization’s strategy, operational methods, data collection needs and impact evaluation.
• Ensure timely delivery of quality reports to donors,

• Reports to the regional cocoa and coffee programme director of Rikolto, based in Cote d’Ivoire.
• Job size: 100 %
• Contract: 2 years contract with a possibility of renewal,
• Location: Accra, Ghana
• Start date: 1 August 2022

• Has a minimum qualification of a Masters's degree in a relevant discipline such as agriculture, development studies, community development, agribusiness or agricultural extension.
• Has working experience and extensive knowledge of the cocoa sector in Ghana.
• Feels comfortable and can excel in international contexts,
• Experience in designing and implementing projects or programmes on living income within the cocoa sector in Ghana.
• Demonstrable experience in project management, fundraising, networking, access to finance for smallholder farmers (VSLA), monitoring and evaluation.
• Knowledge in regenerative agriculture, living income, gender and youth inclusion.
• Proficiency in MS Office applications (Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint).
• Has strong networking and relationship-building skills,
• Likes to work with teams in a complex environment.
• Has strong analytical, and project management skills.
• Must be highly motivating, show leadership and be able to handle stress and changing environment.
• Is a team player, loves to collaborate with respect to others’ opinions and contributions
• Willing to learn and share lessons learnt.