Research Associate - IITA Ghana

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

  • Accra
  • Permanent
  • Full-time
  • 2 months ago
The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is a not-for-profit institution that generates agricultural innovations to meet Africa’s most pressing challenges of hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and natural resource degradation. Working with various partners across sub-Saharan Africa, we improve livelihoods, enhance food and nutrition security, increase employment, and preserve natural resource integrity. IITA is a member of CGIAR, a global agriculture research partnership for a food secure future. Please visit for more information on IITA.Job DescriptionThe “Strengthening Rural Livelihoods and Resilience to Climate Change in Africa: Innovative Agroforestry Integrating People, Trees, Crops, and Livestock” (GALILEO) project has an objective that relies on Multi-Actor Approaches (MAA) to co-develop context-specific, people-centred agroforestry innovations in representative agro-pastoral (AP), agroforestry (AF), and agro-silvo-pastoral (ASP) systems (simply all called AFSPs) from Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).[ad]The aim is to promote agroforestry as leverage to significantly improve agricultural, household, and climate change adaptation and mitigation performances and to enhance biodiversity in SSA. The project builds upon 8 agroforestry Living Labs (LLs: local scale and actors), in Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon and Kenya and a regional Innovation Platforms (IPs), set up across these 4 AU SSA countries.The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) therefore seeks to recruit a Research Associate under the GALILEO Project.The PositionThe Research Associate will Work with teams of research and development partners, community-based organizations and farmers towards the achievement of project goals and objectivesPrimary Responsibilities
  • Provide support and technical backstopping for IITA and its partners in the identification, validation and establishment of living labs.
  • Support design of data collection tools, review data sources, data collection, etc.
  • Assist in the translation of results from the Living Labs on cocoa agroforestry and adapted technologies that can be used by the cocoa sector.
  • Support the design, organize and undertake survey activities gaps identified in cocoa agroforestry.
  • Undertake surveys, data analysis and reporting.
  • Provide technical support for on-farm cocoa agroforestry research activities.
  • Identify, define roles and build multistakeholder partnership (MSP) of key stakeholders and partners on agroforestry.
  • Participate in key stakeholder meetings, and field-based missions as and when needed.
  • Support IITA and its partners on training on adaptation practices for cocoa agroforestry
  • Produce reports on workshops and meetings conducted under the current cocoa project portfolios.
  • Contribute to stakeholder mobilization and coordinate communication between consortium partners.
  • Work closely with the project partners to identify results and field stories that should be highlighted in communication materials.
  • Undertake regular visits to the field to support implementation of ME&L and to identify where adaptation might be needed.
  • Contribute to project annual reporting by providing required ME&L data.
  • Any other tasks that may be assigned by the supervisors.
[ad2]Required Skills or ExperienceQualification Required & ExperienceThe candidate is expected to meet the following qualifications and experience level:
  • An advanced degree in any of the Agricultural Science disciplines, especially Agronomy, Soil Science or Extension.
  • Minimum of 4 years of relevant work experience in Agricultural research, project management, or related fields.
  • In-depth knowledge of statistical tools for data analysis.
  • Experience in participatory research with focus on sustainable agricultural production, conservation agriculture, natural resources management and gender inclusion.
  • Experience working with development partners as well as the private sector.
  • Strong communication and analytical skills, with ability to convey complex information to stakeholders of varying levels of experience or ability.
  • Excellent IT skills (Word, Excel, Power Point).
Duty StationsThe successful candidate will be based in Accra, Ghana at IITA office with travel to projects sites.Terms of appointment:This is Nationally Recruited Staff (NRS) position. Initial appointment is for Two years with the possibility of renewal, contingent upon individual performance and the availability of funding.

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