National Senior Value Chain Development Specialist

Workplace Circumstances

• Environment: Government
• Languages: English, Khmer
• Location: Phnom Penh

Position Summary

Ref. AIMS/C1/C/2025/108

The National Senior Value Chain Development Specialist (the Consultant) will assist the Project Team Leader and National Provincial Coordinators in the overall technical leadership in planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting of activities under Component 1 and ensure effective coordination, management and capacity building of project staff for effective planning and timely implementation of activities within the project. The Consultant is also responsible for the professional development and coaching of the project team such that they can run all project activities without external support by MTR. The Consultant will also act as an advisor to the Project Director in the overall direction of the project.

Department of International Relationship and Cooperation (D/IRC) is the Project Management Office (PMO) to recruit National Senior Value Chain Development Specialist (SVC) that will be stationed in PMO and is expected to work on a full-time basis for the period of 12 months that can be extended based on satisfactory performance and availability of fund.

The services will be provided by an individual consultant, who will be recruited in accordance with the Procurement Management Manual of the Updated Standard Operating Procedure issued by RGC’ Sub Decree No. 181, dated 02 December 2019, For All Externally Financed Projects/Programs in Cambodia and IFAD Procurement Handbook.

Duties & Responsibilities

• The Consultant is expected to undertake, but not limited to, the following duties:
• Coordinate, Coach and Mentor Value Chain Investment Specialists, Provincial Coordinators, PDoC Focal points and other project staff on value chain development (VCD) practices and processes: identifying constraints/ opportunities, developing upgrading vision and strategies, critical interventions for investments, relationships enhancement, development of enabling institutions / services and stimulating actual scaling as part of a focused and actor driven project facilitation for specific value chains in continuous multi-stakeholder consultation process (MSP) and Producer Public Private Partnerships (4P)
• Familiarize themselves with the specific approaches to commodity cluster/POs development, multi-stakeholder platforms (MSP) and other aspects of the AIMS approach based on current best practices in the region,
• Support staff to identify specific potential investment area within specific value chain during MSP, 4Ps and facilitate farmers, farmer’s organization, agribusiness, service provider in jointly developing concept notes and investment/business plans addressing critical VC constraints / opportunities for assessing matching grants /loans for specific value chains,
• Strengthen capacities of project staff in enhancing service capacities of agribusiness/traders, producer group and service providers and their relationships, within informal and formal contracting arrangements,
• Support staff for Brokering “win-win” and trust based business or service relationships among value chain actors including improvement in business enabling environment;
• Support Project Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) team in providing relevant technical data and maintain the project MIS,
• Provide strategic support to Provincial Team for inclusion of poor households in developing respective value chains investment proposals
• Contribute to the knowledge development by generating lessons /cases in respective value chain, facilitate knowledge exchanges on VCD and others.
• Responsible for the overall content and the links with other external knowledge on VCD;
• Specific Task:
• Support identification and documentation of lessons learned and best practices at sub-national level;
• Advise the VC team at national and provincial levels;
• Explore Strategic Partners (SP) at national level;
• Screen the proposals of SDF, VCIF and MOU submitted to PMO;
• Guidelines development under the Project Team Leader.
• Inclusion aspects:
• Develop the results chain for each value chain and advice on early indications and implications for inclusion objectives.
• Take responsibility for developing a results chain and exploring intervention strategies for the ‘pilot’ value chains in the design, as well as local VCs that emerge from Provincials.
• Work closely with Project Team Leader to consolidate all reports as required
• Perform other tasks as required by Project Management
• Cross Cutting Issue:
• Inclusion, Gender, Indigenous People (IP), People with Disability, Youth and Vulnerability.

Languages

• English - Good

Qualifications

• Master's Degree in Business Administration, Agribusiness Development, Marketing or equivalent and other related fields.

Work History

• Development sectors and/or private sector for 10 years as a minimum
• Experience in promotion of value chain and private sector development with demonstrable evidence of the results achieved and experience with IFAD supported project for 7 years is preferred

General & Technical Skills

• Knowledge and experience in building capacity of stakeholders through advisory skills and facilitate multi-stakeholder consultation processes, value chain upgrading workshops and training.
• Experiences with matching grant fund proposal/plan development, appraisal, monitoring and evaluation, and feasibility analysis.
• Experiences that demonstrate creativeness, innovativeness and entrepreneurial skills;
• Possesses high quality attributes on leadership, facilitations and coaching.
• Good spoken and written in English.
• Proven skills in staff and budget management, networking and external communication.
• Experience in agriculture value chains, public private partnership and service market development

Soft Skills

• Good interpersonal skills and capacity to work effectively as part of a team.