Regional Data Management Officer 129 views

Vacancy Announcement

ETHIOPIAN AGRICULTURAL TRANSFORMATION AGENCY

Position:                             Regional Data Management Officer

Term of Employment:    Project-based – One year

Duty Station(s):                ATA Regional Office (Bahir Dar)

Required Number:          one

Salary & Benefits:            Competitive

Application Deadline:  June 17,2021 

BACKGROUND:

The Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) is a strategy and delivery oriented government agency created to help accelerate the growth and transformation of the country’s agriculture sector. The ATA envisions that, by 2025, smallholder farmers are commercialized with greater incomes, inclusiveness, resilience and sustainability, contributing to Ethiopia’s achievement of middle-income country status.

The agency focuses on two primary national approaches to catalyze agricultural transformation. First, we support the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), its affiliate institutions, and other partners to identify and address systemic bottlenecks within an Agricultural Transformation Agenda. Second, we support Regional Governments to accelerate development of high-priority commodity value chains in clearly defined geographic clusters, through the Agricultural Commercialization Clusters (ACC) Initiative.

Our major activities include conducting strategic and analytical studies, providing technical implementation support, coordinating platforms to better integrate partners and projects, and designing and directly leading a number of implementation projects. Our headquarters are in Addis Ababa, and we have regional offices in Amhara, Oromia, SNNP, and Tigray regional offices, allowing us to work closely with a wide range of public, private and development sector partners across the country.

Our Culture

We have an exceptional team of highly competent employees with a proven track record of success in managing complex activities and achieving transformational results.  Our culture is one where talented, dedicated and adaptable individuals are committed to doing their best and exhibit great team work to achieve excellent results.

At ATA, we provide an exceptional platform for people who want to achieve their highest potential and make a meaningful contribution in changing the country’s agricultural sector.  We offer rewarding work in a young, fast-paced growing organization with passionate, committed, motivated colleagues and excellent career development and training.  We recognize our most valuable assets are our staff and are committed to providing our employees with the tools, training and mentorships necessary to achieve their career goals.

POSITION SUMMARY:

ATA provides evidence-based project performance reports to key stakeholders which involves large-scale data collection and analysis. However, so far the data collection, storage and analysis effort lacks systems that harmonize the data collection, storage and analysis work across the agency.

To this end the ATA will develop and pilot a new solution to collect, store and visualize project data. The Data Management Officers will be responsible for working closely with end-users of the solution at the Regional, Zonal, Woreda and Kebele level and ensure the successful implementation. In particular, Regional Data Management Officers will provide training sessions on the solutions and tools, observe and communicate user feedback to the Federal team and then provide the required field support and troubleshooting, as the Federal team manages new iterations of the software.

Additionally, Data Management Officers will work closely with Development Agents (DAs) at the Kebele level to identify and investigate issues around data quality, suggest additional recommendations and enhancements and then implement these through trainings.

The Regional Data Management Officer  is regionally based data management project team members who works very working closely with the Data Analysts and reporting to the team leader of the data management project at the federal Office and Regional SS/IS Director

ESSENTIAL DUTIES:

Roll out of Data solution and training to users

• Support the successful implementation of the Data Enhancement software in pilot Woredas

• Work with Regional ATA leadership to engage with Regional, Zonal and Woreda Government stakeholders, building strong working relationships to encourage buy-in and participation

•  Articulate Agile development approaches and methodologies to end-users

• Provide training and user guidance on use of the webform software and added functionality.

•  Encourage user feedback, make own independent observations on user experience and communicate clear recommendations to the Federal core team

• Supports team members in identifying, structuring, and prioritizing problems along with developing appropriate recommendations based on field-based insight

• Synthesize implementation lessons learned for future refinement / best practice sharing

Data Quality Issue Identification and Remediation

•  Work with existing Government structures to identify and investigate risks to data quality at the Kebele and Woreda level, conducting Development Agent meetings & ground-truthing as required.

•  Identify appropriate recommendations to the Federal team and implement as required

 User Support and Troubleshooting

•  Monitor effective usage of the software and provide ongoing support to Woreda / Zonal / Regional Officials and other users of the Data Enhancement Webform such as MFIs, and cooperatives

• Proactively identify risks and issues affecting work stream delivery, support problem solving to overcome implementation obstacles

• Respond to ad-hoc support issues from users and effectively prioritize in order to manage own timelines. Promptly communicate upward with different options and solutions

• Deliver high-quality analyses, documents and presentations and communicate key insights

•  Present ideas and respond to queries clearly and concisely in team meetings and externally

•  Prepare and engage in regular briefings and updates with internal & external stakeholders

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree with focus on Computer Science, Information Systems, Economics, Agriculture, Rural Development, and other relevant subject areas

• At least 3 years (for Bachelor’s) and 5 years (for Masters) relevant work experience related to project management and data and/or software in public, private or development sector organizations

• Genuine intellectual curiosity and desire to innovate and bring large-scale change

•  Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and data gathering skills

• Experience with project and stakeholder management preferred (Ideally Agile methodologies)

• Highly collaborative working style, drive for learning, and receptiveness to coaching and feedback

• Fluency in English and Amharic required

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Experience training end-users and conducting small to medium scale training sessions

•  Basic understanding of Ethiopia’s agricultural system

• Experience/familiarity with digital data collection (i.e. web/ mobile technology)