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Market Development Adviser

In Sri Lanka, MDF focuses on strengthening the tourism, agriculture, renewable energy and fisheries sectors. Key areas of support include promoting high-value sustainable tourism, high-value agriculture products and services, agriculture technology, and export-oriented fisheries.

The Market Development Adviser will be responsible for providing technical advice to the Sri Lanka country team and support overall management of the program’s in-country presence. The position will play a pivotal role in building the capacity of the country team to deliver against MDF’s core objectives. The Market Development Adviser will be responsible for helping build a portfolio of investments and partnerships that align with the program’s objectives. He/She will also be involved in communications and maintaining relationships with program stakeholders. The Market Development Adviser reports to the Country Director and will be an integral part of the Sri Lanka management team.

Responsibilities

The primary responsibility of this position is to lead a technical team of local staff, to drive economic development, and thereby achieve income increases, in line with MDF’s stated Market Systems Development approach.
The selected applicant will also be assigned additional management responsibilities, subject to their experience and expertise.

Technical direction and strategy

• Meeting with a wide variety of public and private stakeholders to understand how sectors, markets and businesses in Sri Lanka function.

• Leading a wide variety of socioeconomic analysis, including assessing the country context, business environment, roles of market actors, poverty, climate vulnerability, gender, industry competitiveness, etc. This will include a focus on identifying constraints to, and opportunities to promote economic growth and climate change resilience.

• Identify new commercial opportunities for assigned portfolio (s), negotiate with, and develop partnerships with a large variety of strategic private and public players to introduce innovation and unlock the pro-poor growth potential. Utilising analysis to draft country, sector and market strategies that will allow MDF to achieve its pro-poor economic development and climate change objectives.

• Driving the creation of a portfolio of innovative interventions in line with written strategies, and the MSD approach. This will include working with a wide mix of organisations to plan market system changes and devise new business models, negotiating with prospective partners, and drafting concept notes and intervention agreements.

• Working with Quality and Inclusion team to create, monitor and update quality and inclusion documentation, including results chains, results measurement plans, field surveys, etc.

• Overseeing the technical quality of interventions, including monitoring progress, making adjusting based on lessons, identifying opportunities to scale interventions, and other aspects of performance improvement.

Team management and capacity development

• Leading and managing a technical team of local staff, including all aspects of human resources management and technical oversight.

• Building the capacity of staff, especially to improve their ability to implement the MSD approach, apply climate change concepts practice.

• Supporting the Country Director and MDF shared resources to foster a culture of learning and continuous improvement.

The deadline for application is Wednesday 29th November 2023.

This position is open to Sri Lankan nationals and permanent residents with authority to live and work in Sri Lanka.

Short Term Adviser for Coffee

MDF is seeking the services of an expert to understand the viability of cultivating coffee in plantations via tenures/contract farming model.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

• Understanding MDF’s strategy in specialty coffee and proposed model of working with plantations.

• Finalizing the research plan based on discussions with the MDF team to evaluate the model’s viability.

• Conducting interviews with plantation management, government representatives, union members, and plantation workers to evaluate the model. The consultant will ensure that MDF members are also engaged in those discussions and facilitate introductions.

• The consultant will review existing literature to evaluate whether similar models have been tried in the past, assess their performance, and identify any lessons learned from those models.

• Understanding in detail the opportunities that the model poses for tenured farmers who are estate workers in terms of potential impact on their existing earnings and facilities obtained from estate.

• Understanding the stakeholder response to the model and evaluating the socio and political economy aspects of the model. Expectation is that consultant will investigate and report the views of various stakeholders about the model.

• Analysing the incentive for plantations to plant coffee via the tenured farming model. The consultant is also expected to investigate and report on long-term vision of the plantations.

• Developing a detailed risk mitigation strategy including identifying market actors that can conduct periodic risk assessments and provide guidance on mitigation measures after completing the research.

Please submit your CV and brief cover letter (no more than one page) outlining your suitability in line with the requirements of the position.

Please also send your daily fee in a separate word document.

The deadline for application is 20th October 2023.

This position is open to Sri Lankan nationals and permanent residents with authority to live and work in Sri Lanka. Rates of pay are based on local labour standards.

Market Development Advisor

MDF Sri Lanka is seeking an MDA who will provide technical advice to the Sri Lanka country team and support the overall management of the program’s in-country presence. This position will play a pivotal role in building the capacity of the country team to develop a portfolio of investments and partnerships aligned with MDF objectives. Don’t miss this opportunity—apply now!