Rural Economic Development – Value chain development support services and service delivery capacity of local government in the Highlands Region

PNG is well-endowed with natural resources and has an open economy with substantial exports and imports. In this framework, the agriculture sector plays a significant role by providing broad based income and employment to the vast majority of the population in the country, most of which still lives in the rural areas and engaged in subsistence and semi-commercial and commercial farming.

In recent years, PNG agriculture sector has faced many financial difficulties

The main problem areas identified for the second phase of RED2 are:

1) Unproductive agriculture value chain and restricted market access

The poor state and high costs of transport, infrastructure and communication are major impediments to agricultural development in PNG and specifically in the Highlands region. These factors together with the lack of proper agricultural business planning impede the establishment of a strong value chain and therefore undermine the development of business opportunities in the agriculture sector. 

 

2) Weak governance on the agriculture sector

Limited public management system and capacity constraints have hindered sound governance in PNG resulting in an unsteady economic growth and therefore poverty levels remain high. These factors have a direct effect on the rural sector where the main agriculture institutions face capacity and resources constraints. Inadequate internal coordination between national, provincial, district and local authorities hinders a coordinated implementation of policies including service delivery and consequently undermines the entrepreneurial and business capacity of rural local producers and businesses.

The purpose of this contract is to ensure the establishment of effective value chain development support services and service delivery capacity of local government in the Highland Regions.　

Main results to be achieved are as follow:

Result 1: Farmers, farmers' association and rural communities have access to appropriate information and training tailored to their needs through Farmers Resource Centres.

Result 2: Farmers and local authorities are benefiting from an improved capacity in the agro-rural sector.

Qualifications: 

Qualifications and skills

  • The Expert must hold a university degree or equivalent in a relevant, directly related discipline (e.g. agriculture, rural development and/or development economics or a similar field). Alternatively, a relevant professional experience of at least 4 years in projects pertinent to this contract could replace and advanced degree.
  • The Expert must be fully proficient in written and spoken English

General professional experience

  • Preferably 8 years of professional experience, but a minimum of 5, in the management and implementation of aid programmes.

Specific professional experience

  • A minimum of 1 year of professional experience with rural communities in developing countries
  • A minimum of 2 years of professional experience in local institutional capacity development
  • A minimum of 1 year of professional experience in the areas of agricultural production, value chain development and rural markets access.
Start / Duration: 
The intended start date is January 2017 and the period of implementation of the contract will be 15 months from this date

Please send your most recent CV to

Barbara.Braun [at] afci.de

Thank you!

Please note that only shortlisted experts will be contacted