Agriculture, Market Systems and Climate Finance Senior Advisor, VisionFund International at World Vision in Lusaka

Job description

VisionFund's work seeks to end intergenerational poverty through financial products and services. We're about the long-term change that ensures children can break free of the poverty cycle, for good. By supporting people and communities living in poverty to develop and grow their livelihoods, VisionFund is catalysing sustainable economic growth to break the cycle of poverty, so that children can reach their potential as communities thrive. Learn more about us: visionfund.org 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. VisionFund primarily focuses on rural clients and 40% of its 466m portfolio is in Agriculture. This new 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 Job Purpose The Agriculture, Market Systems and Climate Finance Senior Advisor will be the technical lead and focal point internally and externally for these three important connected and strategic areas of intervention for VisionFund. This role will provide technical advice on best current practice, support the development of related products, guide strategy and organisational positioning whilst supporting Resource Development for and programme management of related Agricultural, Climate and Market systems initiatives and grants. In particular the role will manage the CrediEnterprise (a credit product supporting Agri, Climate and Market systems interventions) pilot project in nine countries in Africa and Central America as part of the THRIVE 2030 programme and ensure it delivers on its targets, while coordinating with and reporting to World Vision partners. This includes grant reporting, project management, operational delivery, capacity building of national staff and integrating this component with other interventions within the THRIVE 2030 programme. This role will provide technical leadership positioning VisionFund for obtaining institutional funding to support its growing Agri, Climate and Market systems interventions globally. This will involve pre-positioning with appropriate donors, grant writing and supporting the Resource Development team in VisionFund with technical content in proposal development processes. Major Responsibilities Technical Advisory The role will be the technical, communications and resource mobilisation lead on Agri, market systems and climate financing and the focal point internally and externally for the VisionFund network, using their industry knowledge to advise on best practice for the VFI network. Provide technical advic