Job Announcement
Program Director – HERS Program
Thies, Senegal
The World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg) is a non-profit, autonomous international agricultural research center with headquarters in Taiwan and five regional offices around the globe. WorldVeg conducts research and development programs that contribute to realizing the potential of vegetables for healthier lives and more resilient livelihoods.
WorldVeg holds the world’s largest public collection of vegetable genetic resources. The Center’s vegetable breeding programs in Africa and Asia turn these resources into improved breeding lines and work with the public and private sectors to develop and scale new vegetable varieties for the benefit of smallholder farmers and consumers in lower-income countries. The Center also develops and promotes safer and more sustainable production and postharvest practices to make vegetable value chains more efficient with the ultimate aim of making vegetables more available, affordable, and accessible. For more information, please visit our website: worldveg.org
About the HERS Program
The WorldVeg Center intends to implement a program known as Her Entrepreneurial Road to Success (HERS). HERS is a four-year rural economic transformation program designed to support and facilitate the transition of young rural women aged 18–35 from low-return, fragmented income-generating activities to viable, market-oriented enterprises within horticultural value chains.
The model integrates three mutually reinforcing pillars: (i) community governance and social transformation; (ii) enhancement of horticultural value chains and market linkages; and (iii) business development and access to finance. The program combines community-level enabling conditions, practical horticultural capacity building and enterprise development, market integration, and sequenced access to finance.
Working in partnership with Cross Boundary and Tostan as Implementing Partners (IP), the program will cover 730 communities in Senegal and The Gambia. This is the first WorldVeg grant from this Partner. WorldVeg will lead and coordinate the partnership and will bear full accountability for program integration, implementation excellence, and reporting. The implementation of HERS requires strong project management, coordination, oversight, and cross-team collaboration.
As the Primary Grantee (PG), WorldVeg is fully accountable for the implementation of the HERS program in accordance with the contract signed between WorldVeg and the partner. The primary guarantee serves as the formal link to the partner’s Executive Committee, overseeing overall results delivery, coordination of the Program Steering Committee, financial management, environmental and social safeguards, gender inclusion, and outcome monitoring. In addition to its role as the PG, WorldVeg leads the program’s horticulture component (Pillar 2). This dual role as PG and IP means WorldVeg must oversee the implementation of the entire program and coordinate the work of the Implementing Partners, while also delivering its own area of work, Pillar 2 (horticultural value chains).
Position overview
The Program Director holds overall accountability for the HERS Program, ensuring it delivers the results committed to the partner, within the approved budget and in line with agreed policies and procedures. The SPC safeguards WorldVeg’s institutional accountability as the Primary Grantee ensuring quality results as per agreed workplan and budget as well as compliance with the partner’s fiduciary, safeguard, and reporting obligations.
The PD will also oversee the contractual partnership arrangements with the Implementing Partners and provide direction to the Pillar Leads in Senegal and The Gambia to ensure program alignment, coordination, stakeholder engagement, technical quality and results delivery, compliance, and reporting obligations. The PD will be the principal focal point in WorldVeg’s relationship with the partner specifically in relation to matters pertaining to the HERS Program. Within WorldVeg, the PD will report to the Regional Director, West and Central Africa office. They will also engage with WorldVeg’s Technical Program Directorates and Action Area Leads, as relevant on plans and budgets relating to the WorldVeg component (Pillar 2). In collaboration with WorldVeg’s Impact Evaluation Team, the Program Director will ensure that the results, lessons, and impacts are robustly monitored, documented, and shared as required.
Specific responsibilities
The PD will be accountable for ensuring the following:
Strategic and Technical Leadership
• Strategic and technical thought leadership: Position WorldVeg as a recognized authority on women, horticulture and entrepreneurship, ensuring the program draws on, contributes to and advances the latest research, evidence, knowledge and innovation across these interconnected areas.
• Provide strategic and technical oversight of program implementation across all three pillars, ensuring high-quality delivery by WorldVeg teams and implementing partners, effective coordination and coherence, and the consistent application of the latest relevant evidence, knowledge and good practice.
• Ensure that gender equality and youth empowerment are systematically integrated across all aspects of program design, implementation and monitoring, addressing structural barriers to participation, access to resources, opportunities and decision-making, and advancing meaningful economic empowerment for women and young people.
Program Management and Oversight
• Maintain oversight for all processes relating to program implementation from inception to close-out ensuring that Implementing Partners are held to account for delivery and programmatic commitments in line with contractual agreements and the approved results framework.
• Provide strategic direction and oversight of planning, management, and performance monitoring, ensuring annual workplans, budgets and progress reports are of high quality, within the approved budget and submitted on time.
• Oversee the program inception phase ensuring that all planned activities are executed in a timely manner.
• Ensure the Program Implementation Manual (PIM) is developed, approved by the program steering committee, disseminated and applied as an operational reference guide that ensures all stakeholders share a unified understanding of a project's goals, procedures, and compliance requirements.
• Ensure synergies between the HERS Program and similar initiatives are identified and pursued where they add value.
Coordination and Partnership Management
• Ensure the effective functioning of the Program Steering Committee, including planned and ad hoc meetings, and follow-through on its decisions.
• Ensure that there is efficient and effective coordination support provided to the established program governance structures including the steering committee, advisory committees, and youth platforms.
• Serve as the Program’s senior representative to the Governments of Senegal and the Gambia. Communicating regularly back to the World Vegetable Center. Provide strategic advice to Pillar Leads and country teams to ensure that the approaches and processes they have established support effective and efficient interaction with local communities, government partners, and other stakeholders and align with the results framework of the program, and the partner’s program delivery guidelines.
• Maintain continuous engagement with Implementing Partners and lead periodic reviews of delivery capacity, compliance, and challenges, taking decisions, escalating where required and distilling learnings.
Financial and Administrative Management
• Oversee the work planning and budget formulation process in collaboration with Pillar Leads and IPs’ Finance Officers. Ensure it meets requirements and standards…
• Ensure an integrated workplan and budget, consolidated from Pillar Lead and IP inputs, is quality-assured and submitted for approval by the Steering Committee.
• Hold overall accountability for financial management and financial reporting to the partner, ensuring, through WorldVeg and Implementing Partners’ Finance Officers, that expenditure is monitored, approved budgets and procurement rules are complied with, and financial transparency is maintained.
• Ensure expenditure is tracked in approved financial systems, with budget lines aligned to the partner’s commitments and reporting requirements.
• Oversee the preparation of disbursement requests and financial justifications and ensure early warning of potential disbursement delays and burn-rate risks.
• Ensure internal and external audits are facilitated and recommendations are followed up on time, driving continuous improvement in financial management practices.
• Oversee the consolidation of integrated financial reports for submission and approval by the Steering Committee.
Human Resources Management and institutional collaboration
• Oversee recruitment, onboarding and professional development of staff in the Program Management Unit (PMU).
• In collaboration with IPs, provide leadership of the pillar 2 team and line and matrix management of staff, including finance officers, MEL specialists, Safeguarding officers, Communications focal point, ensuring clear roles and responsibilities.
• Ensure continued learning and development across the three pillars, enabling collaborative and adaptive team culture that promotes trust and effective implementation.
• Manage the performance of direct reports through regular reviews, addressing key weaknesses and challenges.
• Ensure a Program-wide Grievance Redress Mechanism is established and operational, with unresolved issues or compliance gaps escalated to WorldVeg as PG for timely decision-making.
Capacity building, knowledge sharing and Communication
• Ensure training needs are identified and targeted capacity-building is delivered for the staff across the Program.
• Ensure lessons learned are captured, disseminated and integrated into WorldVeg’s institutional knowledge base and future project design and shared back with the partner.
• Ensure results, learning, and innovation are communicated to stakeholders through knowledge products, strategic outreach, and knowledge management systems of IPs.
• Safeguard and enhance the visibility and credibility of the Program by positioning results and lessons within IPs, the partner, and international community.
Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning, and Reporting
• Ensure a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) plan is developed and implemented across IPs, and that reporting is timely, high-quality and in line with partner’s requirements and the Program’s results framework and indicators.
• In close coordination with Pillar-level MEL Leads ensure consistent monitoring of planned activities and integration of data into a real-time digital platform.
• Oversee all M&E systems, dashboards, and field data tools ensuring data quality and consistency across Pillars.
• Ensure Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) missions occur as required, validating and escalating data quality or performance issues when necessary.
• Oversee the preparation and submission of quarterly and annual technical and financial reports and ensure mid-term and terminal evaluations are completed in coordination with the relevant unit at WorldVeg.
• Oversee the lessons-learned process, ensuring lessons feed into project adaptation, institutional learning and WorldVeg reporting.
Compliance and Quality Assurance
• Ensure Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) aligned with the PIM and the partner’s contractual obligations are in place and enforced, and that a compliance tracker is maintained to monitor adherence across fiduciary, safeguard, and gender standards.
• Hold accountability for the project risk management plan, ensuring it is applied and periodically reviewed, and that significant risks are escalated to the Steering Committee.
• Ensure adherence to the partner’s requirements including fiduciary standards, gender policy, and environmental and social safeguards, working in close coordination with finance, MELI, and GESI staff to ensure consistency and institutional accountability.
• Provide overall leadership and accountability for safeguarding across HERS, ensuring compliance with WorldVeg policies, PSEAH standards, anti-retaliation measures, and donor requirements.
• Identify and mitigate safeguarding risks throughout program implementation, particularly those affecting young women and vulnerable participants.
• Establish accessible, confidential, survivor-centered reporting and referral mechanisms, ensuring timely escalation of safeguarding concerns through approved procedures and protection against retaliation.
• Ensure safeguarding training, awareness, compliance monitoring, and timely corrective actions across the program.
• Ensure overall program participants’ safeguarding responsibility and lead partners to set up the necessary systems to ensure participants’ safeguarding is preserved along the participant journey
Representation, Institutional Alignment and Engagement
• Represent WorldVeg in engagements with national authorities, government ministries, development partners and other local partners, strengthening the Center’s profile, credibility and partnerships
• Ensure that the program is fully aligned with WorldVeg’s institutional results framework, fostering collaboration with other relevant WorldVeg programs, within HERS countries and beyond.
• Facilitate time access by national stakeholders to WorldVeg’s knowledge products, technologies, scientific expertise and other relevant technical resources.
• Identify opportunities to strengthen WorldVeg partnerships, resource mobilisation and future investment beyond the current program, contributing to the Center’s long-term presence and impact.
• Contribute to wider WorldVeg institutional priorities and undertake other responsibilities as assigned, consistent with the scope and seniority of the role.
Qualifications and experience
Essential
• A postgraduate degree, preferably in Business Management, Environmental Sciences, Agribusiness, Gender or Development Studies, Natural Resource Management, Sustainable Development, or a related field.
• At least 10 years of experience leading and managing complex, large-scale, multi-partner development or entrepreneurship programs, including multidisciplinary team leadership, partnership management, multi-country and cross-sectoral coordination, financial oversight, performance monitoring, reporting, and engagement with program governance structures.
• Proven experience engaging with government agencies, civil society organizations, local enterprises, and other stakeholders in designing and implementing inclusive rural agribusiness and enterprise development programs.
• Strong understanding of policy frameworks relating to gender equality and inclusion, youth employment, enterprise development, agribusiness, and agricultural value chain development.
• Demonstrated leadership and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to coordinate across institutions, lead diverse and high-performing teams, and communicate effectively at all organizational levels.
• Proven experience leading programs that strengthen entrepreneurial skills, capacities, and economic opportunities for young rural women in developing countries.
• Sound technical knowledge and practical experience in horticulture, including good agricultural practices (GAP) and horticultural value chains.
• Excellent analytical, report-writing, and written and verbal communication skills.
• Fluency in both English and French.
• Willingness and ability to travel extensively to program sites, including rural communities in Senegal and The Gambia.
Preferred
• Experience managing multilateral and/or philanthropic funding, including grants from organizations such as the Mastercard Foundation, Gates Foundation, Green Climate Fund (GCF), Global Environment Facility (GEF), and Adaptation Fund.
• Strong understanding of agribusiness, entrepreneurship and enterprise development, results-based management, and environmental and social safeguards, with demonstrated ability to apply these principles in program implementation and reporting.
• Demonstrated understanding of approaches to women's economic empowerment, youth employment, and social inclusion.
• Proven experience integrating safeguarding and Prevention of Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment (PSEAH) requirements into multi-partner development programs, including risk assessment, partner oversight, confidential reporting and escalation, and survivor-centered responses.
• Good understanding of access to finance and financial inclusion approaches and frameworks, particularly those designed to reach participants on a scale.
• Familiarity with Senegal, The Gambia, and the broader West African region.
Duration
Three-year fixed term project contract with a probation period of 11 months; possibility of extension subject to performance, the need for position and availability of funds.
The Reward
This is an Internationally Recruited Staff (IRS) position with competitive pay in US dollars and attractive benefits. The appointment for this position is for three years initially. The position is available as soon as possible.
How to Apply:
Applicants should submit a letter of application by 16 November explaining their suitability for and interest in the position along with a curriculum vitae, names, and addresses (including telephone/fax/email) of three referees, and date of availability to
recruitment.wca-ch@worldveg.org. Please mention the position title in the subject line.
The World Vegetable Center is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion and provides equal employment opportunities without discrimination.