Senior Technical Agricultural Finance Manager, VisionFund International

Job Description :Overview VisionFund is World Vision’s microfinance provider serving vulnerable clients through loans, savings, and insurance. We enable families to grow their livelihoods in hard to reach, rural locations in 28 countries so that caregivers can create secure futures for their children. We believe in brighter futures for children; empowering families to create incomes and jobs; unlocking economic potential for communities to thrive. Join VisionFund as we seek to end intergenerational poverty through microfinance.Job SummaryVisionFund primarily focuses on rural clients and 40% of its 466m portfolio is in Agriculture. This position is to provide technical support to agricultural finance provided by our MFI network. The position is a grant-funded position and will primarily focus on 10 countries but will also be able to provide support to the rest of the network. To date, much of VFIs agricultural finance has been simple “vanilla finance” and balloon loan as being often the only distinguishing component. This position will seek to provide more hands-on technical support in the assessment, design, pilot and roll out of new agricultural products that will allow VF MFIs to finance farmers that World Vision is facilitating through its local value chain work (LVCD) and as savings groups (S4T) continue to grow with the support of FAST.Additionally, as climate change increasingly impacts our rural clients the position will look to expand both our capacity and profile in developing climate appropriate products and services. The position will also seek to bring together all our learnings and practices to enable VFI to more competitively compete for grants and position us as more of a leader in the agricultural finance space.Preferred Location: Nairobi, KenyaAdditional Locations: Kigali, Rwanda; Kampala, Uganda; Lusaka, Zambia; Lilongwe, Malawi; and any other country where WVI is registered.Major ResponsibilitiesSupport World Vision in new or revised market assessments and building the capacity of the local MFI team to engage more effectively in these assessments. Contribute to the analysis and bring an agricultural finance lens to the assessmentsThis role should lead the documentation, monitoring, technical support to the agricultural and product technical teams (or person) in the MFI. Providing adviceMentor and coachSharing best practiceLinking with other potential agricultural partnersLinking with other colleagues in our networkEnsure credit risk is effectively understoodTechnical support for agricultural finance productsSupport in market assessment work and building capacity to better understand the needs of farmers and off farm agricultural enterprisesSupport in the actual design and piloting (including the documentation of the product)Support the business processes (Staffing, credit policies, digital processes etc) to ensure the product can work for the farmer and the MFIUndertake deep dives into key MFI products (that are not working) or into strategy focuses for MFIs seeking to expand their agricultural footprintAdvise and direction on how the impact of climate change can be mitigatedSupport in innovative agricultural finance products. This is a subset of the above section, but intentionally focused on new and innovative productsSupporting the local MFI teams in the piloting and testing of new productsProviding timely advice on minor changes and improvements in the product during the pilot stageTo actively pursue partnerships and opportunities particularly in the digital spaceTo actively engage and understand trends in the industry.Provide technical advice and support in the design and writing of new and existing agricultural grant applicationsReview grant applications for agricultural finance opportunitiesWrite sections as neededJoin grant calls and donor visits as neededReview and provide advice on grant implementation reportsWorking with the Partnerships Director, key support offices and the fundraising team to support how VisionFund can better engage with World Vision both in its existing network, but also outside of its network in developing funding applications for agricultural finance programsSupport in the design and assessmentSupport in the implementation as neededThis role should lead the learning and dissemination of VF work in agricultural financeProviding regular articles (blogs, reports etc) on our networks work in agricultural financeInternally within the network share best practices and better understanding of the risk and financial viability of agricultural lending based on dataProvide regular engagement with key support offices and the GC livelihoods team on the role of agricultureEngage around opportunities for agricultural finance to complement climate responsesKnowledge, Skills and Abilities10 years + working in agricultural finance field in Africa either for Banks, MFIs, Finance companies or NGOsAgricultural Economics or relevant agricultural degreePostgraduate level degreeAt least 5 years of this must be in providing financial services to farmers and not just in an advisory/ consulting mannerExperience across a range of countries (not limited to one or two places)Experience of Value chain finance or finance to agricultural cooperativesExperience of working with International organisations on projects (E.g World Bank, IFAD, FAO)Demonstrated experience of working on and or designing programs with a climate change component (e. FMNR)Experience of working with NGOs and agricultural partnersExperience in delivery of training in value chain developmentAny formal training courses/ certificates in agricultural financeDigital experienceSpanish or French spoken