Position specifics:
ECP's Rural Institutions & People's (RI) Unit: Within ECP, the specific role of the Rural Institutions (RI) desk is to provide authoritative technical support and guidance on how to analyse, develop, strengthen, or partner with rural institutions in a perspective of inclusive and sustainable rural transformation.
The RI desk also manages directly several Farmers- Organisations (FOs) capacity building programmes (FO4 programmes,
GAFSP PO window pipeline) and coordinates the Farmers` Forum process (FAFO) at
IFAD.
The FO4Programmes: Since 2005,
IFAD Farmers- Forum (FAFO) has been the largest and most inclusive bottom-up process for engaging Farmers' Organizations (FOs) within the multilateral system.
Over the past two decades, this initiative has significantly strengthened the
IFAD-FO partnership, fostering decentralization and progressively enhancing FOs- involvement in IFAD's country-level operations.
This collaboration, co-financed by the European Union (EU) and IFAD, will strengthen FOs' capacity and services across various regions.
Since 2009, three generations of programmes have been implemented.
The latest cycle, the FO4 Programmes (2019 to 2025), focused on increasing income and improving the livelihoods, food, and nutrition security, safety, and sovereignty of smallholder and family farmers across approximately 95 countries on four continents.
This cycle comprised three distinct programmes - FO4A (Asia),
FO4ACP (Africa, Caribbean, Pacific), and
FO4LA (Latin America) - each with unique implementation arrangements but shared strategic objectives.
These included improving technical and economic services to FOs' members, influencing policies and business environments for family farming development, and strengthening FOs' institutional capacities.
Additionally, the programmes incorporated coordination, knowledge management (KM), and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) components.
A comprehensive evaluation of the FO4 programmes, conducted by
IFAD at the EU's request, highlighted significant achievements leading to a commitment from the EU to continue supporting the new generation of FO4programmes.
The overall objective of the new phase of the FO4Programmes (in Africa and Asia) also called
FO4IMPACT programme is to promote inclusive, sustainable and climate resilient agricultural value chains and improve farmers income through strengthened services and linkages with markets and agribusiness, policy support and empowerment of farmers- organizations and their members, and stronger adoption of agroecological principles across regions.
A complementary
IFAD grant has been mobilised to support FO4Impact operations in LAC and NEN ensuring a global coverage of the whole initiative.
IFAD signed with EU a Delegation agreement for the implementation of the programme, globally amplifying peasant strategies and organisational processes for increased access to land and a transition to agroecology.
The overall objective of this programme funded by EU and implemented by
ECVC -LVC is to expand agroecological production, including local processing and marketing systems, led by farmers and their organizations, benefiting from more supportive public policies and programmes, and contributing to improved livelihoods and climate resilience.
The Assistant performs standardized work, categorized as process-oriented, requiring full knowledge and understanding of a body of formal rules, practices and procedures;
the work may require on-the-job training in support work to specialized activities of the unit to which assigned.
Administrative Assistants work with moderately complex systems, such as dedicated travel systems or standalone databases, or components of complex systems, such as PeopleSoft.
Work involves a variety of transaction processing that requires the selection, interpretation and assembly of information and data for the execution of recurring patterns of work, based on knowledge of standard practice and requiring a choice of methods to use or courses of action to take.
Assistants are expected to resolve routine and non-complex questions and problems, referring only the most complex to higher-level staff.
The incumbent also requires thorough knowledge of the related work in their own office and general knowledge of similar work in other offices.
The incumbent may work under a Senior Specialist/Officer or Director for the completion of standard tasks and participates in all phases of the work process;
they may receive specialized training and learning opportunities in support of workforce planning and career development.
The Administrative Assistant is accountable for communications, operational and secretarial support services to enhance the smooth running of the team and its workflow and management of information.
Position specifics:
The Administrative Assistant (FO4Programmes) provides comprehensive administrative support across FO4Programmes -related activities such as grant management, procurement, travel arrangements, knowledge management, and donor reporting.
The role focuses on providing administrative support to ensure tasks are completed on time, maintaining accurate documentation, assisting with basic financial tracking, and helping coordinate logistical arrangements.
The incumbent also keeps records well organized and supports communication among regional teams, contributing to the smooth and efficient implementation of programme activities.
The Administrative Assistant (FO4Programmes) is also accountable for liaison services to programme recipients and internal partnership officers.
1.COMMUNICATIONS AND WORKFLOW: The Administrative Assistant facilitates the communications and workflow of the organizational unit to enhance the efficiency and timeliness of operations and outputs.
Accountabilities typically include: • Managing incoming and outgoing correspondence, e-mails and telephone calls;
• Researching background documentation;
• Communicating routine and some non-routine information pertaining to the work of the team;
• Maintaining the supervisor`s calendar;
• Establishing/maintaining the office filing and reference systems, both traditional and digital;
• Ensuring the inter/intra-net websites are up to date and accurate.
2.
OPERATIONAL SUPPORT:The Administrative Assistant facilitates the work of the team to ensure integrity in the use of resources and adherence to established rules and procedures.
Accountabilities typically include:
• ERP data entry and reporting activities as originator;
• Applying internal procedures and tracking systems for correspondence and documents;
• Verifying work is completed in accordance with
IFAD standards and within established deadlines;
• Monitoring work progress and priority cases;
• Organizing meetings and workshops;
• Organizing official travel;
• Administering staff attendance and leave and identifying and extracting information from various sources and preparing briefing notes.
3.
SECRETARIAL SUPPORT:Administrative Assistants at this level provide the full range of clerical support to the office staff.
Accountabilities typically include: • Typing and/or formatting a variety of material in draft or final form including correspondence, reports and official documents;
• Drafting standard format correspondence;
• Preparing briefing materials for official trips or meetings as requested;
• Proofreading all outgoing correspondence and official documents for grammatical accuracy and formatting and assuring all attachments are included;
• Reviewing supporting documents for processing a variety of administration actions/requests and may make informal translations of correspondence.
4.
MANAGERIAL FUNCTIONS:The Administrative Assistant is accountable for integrity, transparency, and equity in the personal use of assigned
IFAD resources, including equipment, and supplies.
Position specifics:
Specifically, accountabilities of the Administrative Assistant (FO4Programmes) include but are not limited to:
5.
OPERATIONAL AND OFFICE SUPPORT:Provides the full range of operational/office support to all staff in the team in the context of FO4Programmes, including: • Preparing and processing administrative requests and documents for FO4 programme-related travel arrangements, including requests for visas and l