Senior Lead, Agriculture Development.

Job Title:

Senior Lead, Agriculture Development.

Department/Group:

Technical

Reporting To:

Head of Technical and Special Projects

Years of Experience

5 Years

Location:

Mbale

Travel Required:

50–60% (regional/cross-country)

Job description

About Raising The Village

At Raising The Village (RTV), we are dedicated to eradicating ultra-poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a dynamic, rapidly growing international development organization, we’ve assembled a team of over 350+ passionate individuals in Uganda, Rwanda, DRC and Tanzania, alongside an additional 15+ professionals in North America. Together, we are committed to elevating communities out of ultra-poverty by implementing innovative solutions and leveraging advanced data analytics to drive impact.

To date, our holistic approach has positively impacted over 1,000,000 lives since 2012, and we’re poised to achieve even greater milestones, aiming to assist 1 million individuals annually by 2027. Our growth and success are fueled by the invaluable support of global partners who share our vision of sustainable change. Learn more about our impactful programs at www.raisingthevillage.org

Job Summary

The Senior Lead Agriculture Development will play a critical leadership role in ensuring high-quality, scalable, and sustainable agricultural programming across multiple countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The role will provide strategic direction, technical leadership, and quality assurance for RTV’s agriculture interventions, ensuring strong results through both direct implementation teams and implementing partners.
The position requires a mix of program design, partnership management, team capacity-building, and cross-country coordination. The Lead Agriculture Development will be responsible for ensuring consistency of RTV’s agriculture methodology, knowledge transfer, innovation in climate-smart agriculture, and achievement of program outcomes that increase household incomes and food security. The Lead is also required to constantly develop and pilot innovative models that lead to increased levels of production and incomes for ultra-poor households.

Key Responsibilities

Agriculture Program Leadership

• Provide cross-country strategic direction and leadership for agriculture program design and implementation.
• Lead/support assessing specific new context in the country and provide strategic directions for specific region.
• lead/contribute to the development/revisions of RTV methodology on a regular basis to ensure it cutting edge and world class in delivering program outcomes.
• Oversee integration of RTV’s agriculture methodology across different contexts while ensuring adaptability to local conditions.
• Lead adoption of climate-smart and sustainable farming practices, crop diversification, and value chain development.
• Ensure quality control and consistency of agricultural interventions in both direct implementation and partner-led projects.

Partner Support and Capacity Building

• Guide and support implementing partners to effectively apply RTV’s agriculture methodology.
• Provide technical backstopping, training, and mentorship to partner organizations and their field teams.
• Assess overall performance of the agricultural designs quarterly, semi-annually, and annually to constantly adapt and improve.
• Establish systems for regular partner reviews, learning exchanges, and joint accountability mechanisms.

Program Design and Innovation

• Collaborate with the VENN team on program design, needs assessments, and evidence-based interventions.
• Integrate new insights, technologies, and innovations into agricultural interventions.
• Ensure project designs are realistic, feasible, and aligned with soil, water, and climate conditions across different regions of project implementation.
• Ensure project designs are adaptive to unique environmental, climatic, and contextual variations, with evidence of significant and continuous design improvements that strengthen project outcomes.
• Procurement and Quality Assurance
• Provide technical guidance on agricultural input procurement, seed verification, and quality control.
• Review and approve partner and vendor reports to ensure compliance with standards.
• Support transparent procurement processes and contract management for agriculture-related services.

Coordination and Partnerships

• Represent RTV in regional and international forums on agriculture and rural development.
• Strengthen linkages with governments, research institutions, NGOs, and private sector actors in agriculture value chains.
• Build regional knowledge-sharing platforms for continuous improvement and scaling of agriculture interventions.

Monitoring, Evaluation, and Reporting

• Ensure collection and analysis of agriculture program data to measure outcomes across countries.
• Provide regular cross-country reports on progress, challenges, and lessons learned.
• Support development of learning briefs, case studies, and technical documentation for knowledge management.

Team Management & Leadership

• Provide direct supervision to agriculture leads across countries.
• Support team capacity building, mentorship, and performance management.
• Foster a culture of learning, innovation, and accountability within the agriculture team and with partners.

Qualifications, Skills & Experience.

• Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture, Agronomy, Agricultural Economics, Agriculture Extension, Rural Development, or related field.
• Masters/Postgraduate degree in one of the above fields is required.
• Minimum 5 years’ experience in agricultural program leadership, with at least 1 year in a senior management role.
• Strong technical expertise in smallholder farming systems, soil health, pest/disease management, and climate-smart agriculture.
• Proven experience managing agriculture programs across multiple countries or regions.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with implementing partners, government stakeholders, and private sector actors.
• Strong project management skills including planning, budgeting, and reporting.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and negotiation skills in multicultural settings.
• Willingness to travel frequently across countries of operation.
• High levels of integrity, professionalism, and alignment with RTV’s mission and values.

We encourage women, people with disabilities and minority groups to apply for this position. RTV is committed to equal opportunities and diversity of perspective at the workplace. 

Disclaimer: Raising the Village DOES NOT charge any kind of FEE(s) at whichever stage of the recruitment process.