Team Leader Green Innovation Centers for the agriculture and food sector Vietnam

GIZ is tendering under the Vietnam country package (GIC) of the global project "Green Innovation Centres in the Agricultural and Food Sector" of the BMZ special initiative "ONE WORLD without Hunger an assignment titled ‘Support to Mekong Delta rice cooperative’s business capacities’ and covering the six central provinces of the Mekong Delta, the so called “core rice belt”.

The overall objective of the assignment is to enable small-scale farmers and up- and downstream enterprises of the rice value chain to successfully implement identified innovative business models. To achieve this, the assignment focuses on rice producer groups and cooperatives, and the specifics of the rice value chain. The support rendered should focus on consolidated producer groups and formalized cooperatives, and is to primarily contribute to the improved competitiveness and profitability along the rice value chain through enabling producer groups and cooperatives to improve and extend their services. The identified innovations are expected to increase farmers` income, improve quality of production and create additional employment opportunities.

Given the specific context of farmer groups’ and cooperative development in Vietnam, the assignment also contributes to farmers’ capability to act as responsible members and protagonists of change through increased awareness of strategic economic aspects at farm, group and cooperative level. Farmers’ and cooperative management staff’s increased ability to assess performance at different scales objectively contributes to conscious decision making and collective action, and will be fostered through the Farmer Business School (FBS) approach.

Three main work packages are to be implemented under the assignment:

1. Strategies and tools for collective and cooperative development, to be implemented through collaborating with and supporting local structures (intermediaries) that have a mandate to support cooperative development.
2. Business development through training and coaching, strengthening entrepreneurial and service-oriented capacities of rice producer groups and cooperatives through strengthening their organizational and management structures and personnel.
3. Members involvement, competences and strategic farm business planning through training and communication by fostering the development of awareness of the target group and cooperative members for aspects of strategic choices to be made collectively, and in conjuncture with the relevant local and national institutions.

Tasks of the team leader:

• Overall responsibility for the advisory packages of the contractor
• Ensuring the coherence and complementarity of the contractor’s services with other services delivered by the project at local and national level
• Design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of capacity development measures for local partners in the following areas: strengthening organizational and management capacities of cooperatives; development and implementation of business plans for cooperatives; proposals for an enabling legal framework to establish a training system for the cooperative sector in Vietnam
• Taking cross-cutting themes into consideration
• Staff management, in particular identifying the need for short-term assignments within the available budget, planning and managing the assignments and supporting local and international experts
• Ensuring that monitoring procedures are carried out
• Regular reporting in accordance with deadlines
• Responsibility for checking the use of funds and financial planning in consultation with the officer responsible for the commission at GIZ
• Supporting the officer responsible for the commission in updating and/or adapting the project strategy, in evaluations and in preparing a follow-on phase
• Maintaining contact with other donors and the German embassy if and where required and in coordination with the officer responsible for the commission