Agricultural Retainer Expert

Job Summary

The Agricultural Retainer Expert provides remote, on-demand technical validation across the entire lifecycle of CAMCO’s agricultural portfolio. Core duties include drafting technical specifications for inputs and irrigation machinery, conducting objective technical evaluations of international commercial bids, mitigating project sequence risks, and ensuring that sustainable, climate-smart agronomic practices are systematically integrated into donor-funded infrastructure and extension lines.

Qualification

Academic Foundations (Mandatory)

• Educational Background: A validated Bachelor’s degree or Master’s degree (or equivalent professional diploma) in Agronomy, Agricultural Sciences, Crop Production, Agricultural Economics, Rural Development, Irrigation Engineering, Soil Science, or Agro-Processing.

Language Profiles

• French Fluency: Absolute Fluency (Written and Verbal) is strictly required to review regional tenders and communicate with central African government counterparts.
• English Fluency: Professional Fluency (Written and Verbal) is highly desirable for drafting donor reports and reviewing multilateral banking templates.

Core United Nations Competencies

• Ethical Leadership & Diversity: Demonstrates absolute integrity, treats all individuals with respect, champions inclusion, and models the ethical norms of the United Nations.
• Partner-Oriented Delivery: Prioritizes the needs of the end beneficiary, ensuring all procurement actions maximize sustainable local impact.
• Pragmatic Analytical Judgment: Evaluates complex data dispassionately to make calculated, calculated risk assessments and logical technical choices.

Experience

Core Agronomic & Value Chain Expertise

• Field Tenure Alignment: Requires a minimum of seven (7) years of relevant professional experience when applying with a Bachelor’s degree, or five (5) years of experience when supported by a Master’s degree.
• Sectoral Coverage: Direct experience implementing or advising on agricultural development programs, food security metrics, agricultural inputs distribution, irrigation deployments, post-harvest storage systems, or rural livelihood programs.

Purchasing Systems & Procurement Governance (Mandatory)

• Sourcing Specification Design: At least five (5) years of direct experience authoring, revising, and finalizing technical specifications, terms of reference (ToRs), and statement of works (SoWs) for formal purchasing and tendering workflows.

Geographic & Multilateral Contexts (Preferred)

• Donor-Funded System Exposure: Five (5) years of active experience supporting projects funded by international donors, multilateral development banks (e.g., World Bank, AfDB), or UN entities is highly desirable.
• Fragile Settings Footprint: Five (5) years of direct experience operating within Central Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), or logistically constrained and fragile environments is an asset.

Key Responsibilities

1. Technical Advisory & Risk Mitigation (35%)

• Assess Project Feasibility: Evaluate the technical feasibility, sequencing risks, and local suitability of proposed agricultural initiatives across CAMCO target zones.
• Review Service Deliverables: Audit operational work plans, diagnostic study papers, and agronomic reports submitted by field service providers to ensure alignment with international best practices.
• Embed Climate-Smart Mechanics: Infuse climate-smart agriculture parameters, soil preservation rules, and sustainable natural resource management methods into field activities.

2. Specification Engineering & Terms of Reference Design (35%)

• Draft Procurement Specifications: Author and refine highly specialized technical requirements for agricultural goods, including elite seeds, balanced fertilizers, diagnostic tools, irrigation components, and post-harvest storage or agro-processing machinery.
• Structure Training Deliverables: Author comprehensive Terms of Reference (ToRs) for external agricultural extension providers, capability-building workshops, and targeted producer cooperatives training.

3. Procurement Lifecycle Support & Project Development (30%)

• Lead Technical Bid Evaluations: Analyze incoming commercial bids for complex agricultural contracts, formulating clear, evidence-based technical evaluation scoring files.
• Resolve Technical Inquiries: Formulate accurate, transparent responses to technical clarifications raised by international suppliers during live bidding windows.
• Co-Author Donor Proposals: Support project engineering teams by contributing data, logical frameworks, and itemized cost estimates to concept notes and project descriptions targeted at international financial institutions.

Expected Outputs & Deliverables

• Legally defensible, clear technical specifications for agricultural inputs, irrigation machinery, and processing equipment.
• Highly structured, objective technical evaluation reports analyzing commercial supplier tenders.
• Rigorously vetted Terms of Reference for training consultants and regional extension contracts.
• Written advisory memos mapping implementation risks and quality control frameworks for CAMCO project leads.
• Technical inputs embedded within new project proposals, logical frameworks, and budgets.

Skills Required:

• Agricultural / Studies