Working as Agriculture Business Adviser abroad

Role overview

As a VSO volunteer, you will immerse yourself in a new culture, face fresh challenges and develop your educational expertise while doing something truly fulfilling. The local partner’s need will decide your exact job description.

Assess the needs and build the technical and institutional capacity of staff within the partner (vocational) training institutes to deliver market-relevant agri-business and entrepreneurial related training and services to youth including post-training support. Therefore increase the employability of people in agricultural markets, value chains and businesses.  

Skills, qualifications and experience 

• A degree in the field of agriculture, business, other related field or equivalent experience  
• Minimum of 5 years of relevant work experience.  
• Experience and knowledge in the agri-business sector, agricultural markets, value chains, and marketing.
• Experience in supporting organizations to develop and implement strategic and business plans.  
• Experience of working with/training low capacity teams.  
• Proven coaching and mentoring skills.  
• Effective communication skills (report writing, verbal).  
• A self-starter.  
• Cultural sensitivity.  
• Motorbike skills or a willingness to learn.  

Desirable  

• Vocational training skills and experience in a related field  
• Lesson planning and course development skills  
• Monitoring and evaluation; documentation and information sharing skills  
• Prior experience of working in developing countries (in Africa, in an NGO)  
• Experience in supporting market-linkages and value addition in agricultural markets  
• Experience in one or more of the following is an 
  advantage: life skills; adult literacy; guidance and counseling for youth employment; gender and/or disability equality; organizational development. 

Besides these skills, you need to be open-minded, respectful, resilient and adaptive to new situations. It is important that you can facilitate positive change, build sustainable working relationships and are willing to seek and share knowledge.

Terms & conditions

VSO will cover and support you in all preparations: training, visa, work permit, registration in-country, flights, vaccinations, anti-malarial treatment, PEP treatment, medical and security clearance. In-country VSO will provide induction and support in placement, arrange secure accommodation (often shared with another VSO professional), full medical insurance (including repatriation cover), medical indemnity insurance, work-related travel costs and a living allowance which will enable you to live a basic but healthy lifestyle, but which is not sufficient to cover ongoing commitments at home.

What we do at VSO

Our programs focus on the areas of health, education and livelihoods, with an increasing emphasis on resilience building, social accountability, gender and social inclusion. We believe progress is only possible when we work together and that strong partnerships are crucial to delivering positive change. That’s why we work with over 500 partner organizations, from local and national governments to businesses, NGOs, funders, charities and community groups. Currently, over 30% of our people are recruited from within the country in which they work, and we continue to grow the share of community and national volunteers involved in our programs. We also send increasing numbers of volunteers from one developing country to another. However, our vision has remained the same; to build a world without poverty.

The experience of a placement is a one-of-a-life-time experience and will benefit you in multiple ways. You will have the chance to learn to work with people from different cultural backgrounds. There is often the opportunity to develop your teamwork-, leadership- and management skills. This can be helpful for career opportunities after your placement.

The environment of development work is changing continuously. Our recruiter knows the actual vacancies abroad. If you have any questions about our current programs and where we currently operate, don’t hesitate to contact Heidi.