Young International Professional, jointly appointed by ECDPM
and IFPRI
ECDPM - European Centre for Development Policy Management
Maastricht/Dakar
VACANCY NOTICE
Deadline for applications: 9 September 2015
The European Centre for Development Policy Management
(ECDPM) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) are
partnering to jointly recruit a young African professional for one year. The
selected candidate will join our joint analysis and dialogue facilitation
activities around food security policy and investment processes in West Africa,
working for 6 months at the ECDPM’s Food Security programme in Maastricht and 6
months at the IFPRI Office in Dakar.
The position at ECDPM
The overall aim of the ECDPM’s Food Security programme [www.ecdpm.org/foodsecurity] is to strengthen the capacity
of public and private actors in Africa to manage and contribute to regional
agricultural and food security policy processes, and to assist development
partners to adopt coherent and effective approaches that foster thriving
agricultural markets and promote food security. The Programme supports the
development of efficient and inclusive regional markets that are conducive to
improved food security conditions, through policy-oriented research,
facilitation of policy dialogue and partnership with African stakeholders. Our
activities build on existing initiatives for supporting regional integration
and are undertaken in collaboration with African partners at the different
levels involved in regional agricultural market development, such as
intermediary private sector organisations, the African Union Commission (AUC),
the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and Regional Farmers
Organizations. The Food Security programme focuses on topics linked to:
Regional and local markets for agriculture transformation
and food security in Africa;
Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme
(CAADP) implementation;
Policy coherence for Food Security;
The role of local and foreign investors in PPPs for regional
value chain development.
The posting of the selected candidate at ECDPM for 6 months
(in Maastricht, Netherlands) will be in the context of the recently launched
ECDPM’s Young International Professionals Programme (YIPP), a scheme for the
‘circulation of talent’ at ECDPM to be implemented in collaboration with
partner institutes and peer organisations.
The specific objectives of the YIPP are the following:
To build capacity among talented young professionals from
Africa in the area of policy and practice in international cooperation;
To create and expand an ECDPM alumni network;
To stimulate longer-term exposure to ECDPM’s activities for
staff members of partner institutes and peer organisations in Africa, and
beyond;
To stimulate joint activities with partner and peer
institutes.
ECDPM is a think-and-do-tank specialised on policy processes
in Europe and Africa and EU-African relations. It has long-standing experience
with different types of partnerships in Europe and African countries. These
include governmental as well as non-governmental organisations at the local,
national, regional and global levels. The objectives of ECDPM’s partnership
approach include the sharing of experiences among partners, the strengthening
of capacities and improvement of quality and impact of the work of partners, in
a long-term relationship. ECDPM is a European institute committed to work with
African countries and aims to reflect this in its staff establishment. The YIPP
aims to contribute to this in a practical and effective manner, with long-term
impact, including on our own sensitivity and cultural awareness vis-á-vis our
stakeholders in Africa and beyond.
The position at IFPRI
IFPRI has a long history of strong engagement in Africa and
today it invests about 50 percent of its programmatic budget in work on Africa.
To better meet research needs and achieve greater impact on the ground, IFPRI launched
country project offices and regional offices for Eastern and Southern
Africa (ESAO) and West and Central Africa (WCAO).
The WCAO [http://www.ifpri.org/division/west-and-central-africa-office-wcao],
headquartered in Dakar, Senegal, helps to strengthen IFPRI’s position as a
major contributor to food policy research, capacity strengthening and policy
dialogue within West and Central Africa. The Office supports countries with the
implementation of the CAADP and actively works with the AUC, ECOWAS and the
Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), and individual countries
to provide evidence-based agricultural policy solutions.
The posting of the selected candidate at WCAO for 6 months
will be in the context of:
IFPRI’s Technical Support to ECOWAS. To inform the
implementation of ECOWAS’ Regional Agricultural Policy (ECOWAP), WCAO is
conducting research centered on five strategic policy areas: i) simulating
the economy-wide impacts of ECOWAS’ policy on increasing rice production and
achieving rice self-sufficiency by 2025; ii) analyzing the economic impacts of
implementing the ECOWAS common external tariff (CET), iii) examining the
economic impacts of removing non-tariff barriers to cross border trade, iv)
analyzing best practices for implementing ECOWAS’ Food Reserve Policy; and v)
and piloting the first ever regional agriculture joint sector review to foster
mutual accountability at the regional level;
IFPRI’s African Growth and Development Policy (AGRODEP)
Modeling Consortium. In collaboration with the Markets, Trade and Institutions
Division, the WCAO is operationalizing the AGRODEP Modeling Consortium,
launched in 2011. AGRODEP seeks to enable African experts to take a leading
role in the study of strategic development issues facing Africa. It does so by
providing its more than 140 African members with free access to cutting-edge
economic modeling and research tools, data, mentoring, and training as well as
opportunities to apply for competitive research grants.
The objectives and advantages of this Young Professional
position:
The selected candidate will work with ECDPM and IFPRI as
junior researcher, will participate in writing papers, reports and other
publications, and will be involved in policy dialogue and partnership building
activities. His/her areas of focus are expected to be:
in the context of the regional CAADP processes in Western
Africa and the initiatives to remove barriers to intra-regional agricultural
trade and investment, our efforts to strengthen awareness, knowledge and
dialogue around the political economy of trade policy, trade corridors and
regional food value chains. With the aim of increasing evidence on the benefits
(or lack thereof) of regional agricultural markets integration and on the distribution
of corridor development impacts, our objective is in particular to 'bridge' the
policy processes (and key stakeholders) around corridor development plans,
implementation of the CET and of ECOWAP, and to improve the coordination of
regional-level donors’ assistance;
(if time allows) the assessment of Policy Coherence for
Development for Food Security in Burkina Faso, focusing on the effects of
European policies on the performance of the agricultural sector and agro-food
value chains and on their derived effects on food security conditions in
Burkina.
We believe this programme will provide the young
professional from Africa with the possibility to develop specialist knowledge, expertise
and experience he/she cannot acquire otherwise. In particular, by working both
at ECDPM and IFPRI, it is expected that the young professional will complement
the policy-oriented research and dialogue facilitation training and exposure to
key policy processes in Africa and Europe while at ECDPM, with the technical
training and exposure to key dataset and quantitative research methods gained
within AGRODEP while at WCAO. Moreover, he/she will follow the same stream of
work for 6 months at ECDPM and then 6 months at IFPRI, thus making this
experience a solid and coherent professional milestone, while contributing to
the enhancement of the partnership between ECPDM and IFPRI.
The Young Professional profile:
We are looking for candidates with at least one year’s
relevant work experience and recent postgraduate qualification in agricultural
economics, international economics, development studies or other related social
science and a keen interest in the area of food security in developing countries,
rural economic development, regional integration processes in Africa and the
political economy of economic reforms and agricultural development. The
candidate will be a diligent researcher, an excellent and proven writer in
English and have the ability to work in French (fluency in French would be
considered a distinct advantage).
ECDPM and IFPRI offer lively and attractive working
environments, space for autonomy and personal growth, and ample
opportunity for participating in exciting emerging areas of policy development
for international cooperation.
Since the position is regarded as an extended traineeship
aimed at providing initial working experience in the international arena for
development policy, the gross monthly salary will be based on the research
assistant wage scale. The appointment also provides a generous package of leave
and other benefits such as pension scheme and training budget.
Applicants should fill in the application-form that can be
found on www.ecdpm.org, under “Vacancies”. Applications should
be submitted electronically to the email address kg@ecdpm.org, to the attention of Mrs. Karen Gielen,
Corporate Officer Human Resources as soon as possible (deadline 9 September
2015). Please enter: “Application for Young International Professional:
ECDPM/IFPRI” in the subject line. Late applications and applications without an
application-form (i.e. just a CV) will not be taken into consideration.
