Senior Associate, Nutritious Foods Financing
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The post holder will play a key role in identifying technical assessment needs of SMEs, as well as being responsible for designing technical assistance support packages tailored to the individual SME's.
To be successful in this role the post holder will play a key role in the scaling up process in order to consolidate the chances of the project making a real impact and its ability to grow and succeed. They will work on innovative financing, impact investing and coordinate activities under the Nourishing Food Pathways(NFP) work package focused on innovative finance for nutrition.
The Senior Associate will work closely with the Programme Lead, other project colleagues and the other GAIN Country Offices.
The Nutritious Foods Financing Facility (N3F): Pioneering Nutrition Financing
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are a critical engine of transformation: in Africa, for example, they produce over half of calories and over 80% of animal-source foods, fruits, and vegetables, while processing or handling about 65% of food in later stages of the value chain. For low-income consumers in particular, SMEs are essential for ensuring access to nutritious, safe foods.
Even though SMEs play such an essential role in food systems, they struggle to access the financing necessary to scale up their offerings to increase the availability and accessibility of nutritious, safe foods.
The N3F aims to address these problems through a blended finance approach that focuses on improving nutrition by supporting SMEs in Sub-Saharan Africa. The N3F will provide targeted funding to SMEs based on their financial needs and their ability to absorb and use the funds. With consumer nutrition at its core, N3F will have an integrated approach to impact and assess how SMEs support gender equity, environmental sustainability, engagement of consumers and suppliers, and employment.
To ensure the power of SMEs to deliver nutritious, safe foods is fully unleashed, N3F will also provide support beyond financing, through a technical assistance and impact monitoring component. These components are both led by GAIN, drawing on several years’ prior experience of providing technical assistance to SMEs.
- Identify technical assessment needs of SMEs operating in the food value chain that are potential pipeline for the Nutritious Food Financing Facility (N3F) Fund, working together with the investment officers at our partner asset manager Incofin Investment Management.
- Develop technical assistance support packages tailored to individual SMEs and group training according to common needs in the portfolio.
- Perform matchmaking between Technical Assistance(TA) requirements and service providers, manage engagements between GAIN, service providers, and our beneficiaries.
- Oversee the implementation of project workplans and ensure that all assignments deliver maximum value for money.
- Review and refine procedures, monitoring mechanisms, and feedback forms for the provision of TA to SMEs.
- Represent GAIN at national and regional technical meetings and workshops and assist in coordinating the organization of national and international events, technical meetings, and workshops.
About You
The ideal candidate for this position should have professional experience and technical understanding related to impact investment and/or development finance, business development, due diligence, food supply chains and SMEs.
You will have the ability to operate within the private and public sectors to effectively liaise diverse stakeholders and multi-cultural settings. You have experience working in accelerator or business incubator settings and constantly assessing impact investing.
The position holder should possess excellent coordination, communication, research, and writing skills with a strong analytical ability. They will build key relationships will SME’s, internal teams and implementing partners. The candidate should have an educational background in a relevant field such as finance, business, food value chain, economics, or other relevant field. Master’s level highly desired.
The starting salary for each office location is as follows, depending on experience:
Kenya: From KES 3,019,680– KES 3,454,680 (gross) per annum
The Netherlands: From EUR 52,896 – EUR 56,664 (gross) per annum
GAIN has a fair and competitive salary structure that allows for annual progression subject to good performance. In addition, GAIN offers a total of 37 days holiday per year (including annual leave, public holidays and additional office closure days), an attractive pension scheme and competitive insurance cover including health, travel and life assurance. We are committed to the health of our staff, especially in these challenging times, and have developed a programme of wellbeing that includes flexible and hybrid working, additional leave allowances, wellbeing days, mindfulness coaching and access to independent and confidential counselling.
GAIN also has a strong commitment to professional development. We will support you to grow in your career through both formal and informal training, and are committed to providing opportunities through internal recruitment, secondments, and promotion. All of this is delivered in a supportive and collaborative environment.
GAIN is a Swiss-based foundation that was launched in 2002 to tackle the human suffering caused by malnutrition. Working with both governments and businesses, we aim to transform food systems so that they deliver more nutritious food for all people. In particular, we aim to make healthier food choices more desirable, more available, and more affordable. GAIN’s mission is to advance nutrition outcomes by improving consumption of nutritious and safe food for all people, especially those most vulnerable to malnutrition.
We provide a flexible working environment that includes a combination of home and office working opportunities through our global hybrid working policy. This encourages our staff to have a healthy work-life balance and increases staff motivation, enriches employee wellbeing, and improves performance and productivity.
All of our positions are based in one or more of GAIN’s designated offices as stated on our job advertisements. Successful candidates will be based in one of GAIN’s country offices and must have the existing right to live and work within a reasonably commutable distance of the relevant city / cities in which the role is advertised. Please note, that GAIN does not sponsor working visas and relocations.
GAIN reserves the right to withdraw an offer of employment for candidates who are considered to ineligible under the above conditions during or after the recruitment process.
For more detailed information please see the attached job description. To apply, follow the "Apply Now" link.
Applicants must have the right to work and be currently based in either of the advertised locations to be eligible to apply.
This advert closes on 24th May 2023. Early applications are encouraged. GAIN reserves the right to close this advert early should we receive suitable candidates ahead of the closing date.
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition is committed to equality of opportunity and creating an inclusive environment where diversity is valued. We are keen to reflect the diversity of our society at every level within our organisation and therefore welcome applications from talented and committed people from all backgrounds, representing the diverse societies we operate in.