Digital Agriculture and Innovation Specialist

Organizational Setting

The Sub-Regional Office for the Caribbean (SLC) is responsible for developing, promoting, overseeing and implementing agreed strategies for addressing sub-regional food, agriculture and rural development priorities. SLC in collaboration with the Office of the Chief Innovation (OIN) will be implementing a new strategic area to help drive and coordinate digitization and innovation across the work of the Organization, i.e., to consolidate and strengthen FAO’s innovative spirit, including innovation of approaches and cooperation models and capacity development. FAO is working to mainstream innovation in its programmes; facilitating cross-collaboration between the various FAO units; and aiding in forging and reinforcing transformative partnerships.

Background on the sub-programme:

The Global Network of Digital Agriculture Innovation Hubs will be a network of in-country innovation hubs established by FAO in conjunction with country institutions to accelerate the development and uptake of digital innovations and support farmers and value chain actors, especially youth and women, to be more competitive. The sub-programme seeks to support countries designing respective national digital agriculture innovation hub models meeting national agriculture, forestry, and fisheries priorities while involving local partners, including public-private partnerships.

The sub-programme will:

1. Create national digital agriculture innovation hub models to spearhead digital innovation programs in agriculture that meet local needs;
2. Develop digital agriculture solutions at the national or regional level to support the agri-food systems transformation;
3. Facilitate the creation of sustainable business models to support innovation projects through Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) that allow for leveraging resources and maximizing impacts through multi-stakeholders engagements;
4. Support the capacity development of government institutions to formulate digital agriculture strategies, policies, or programmes to mainstream digital innovation in agri-food systems and establish sustainable national digital agriculture innovation hubs;
5. Facilitate knowledge exchange and sharing within the national Hub and across the global network through organizing joint events and platforms.

Reporting Lines:

Under the direct supervision of the Sub-regional Coordination SLC and the guidance of the Chief Innovation Officer, the incumbent will support Digital Agriculture and Innovation activities of the FMM project FMM/GLO/159/MUL in Grenada and Dominica. He/she will work closely with the SLC and OIN teams.

Technical Focus

The digitalization and innovation of agricultural sectors (including forestry and fisheries) in one or several of the following categories:

• Digital agriculture capacity needs assessment; Development of digital agriculture national frameworks, policies and strategies;
• Organizing innovation activities (such as design thinking workshops, bootcamps, hackathons/innovation challenges, etc);
• Design and development of digital services / mobile applications in rural areas (e-payment, e-government, e-learning);

Tasks and responsibilities:

The incumbent will:

• Support to identify, accelerate and scale-up innovative and digital solutions and business models in countries.
• Contribute to the establishment of partnerships with academia, civil society and private sector to support joint initiatives related to digital agriculture and innovation.
• Collect and analyse data on digitalization status and trends, policies and strategies, challenges for rural and urban areas, understanding different forms of digital divide; as well as assist in monitoring indicators on digitalization and other information in support of programme of work;
• Appraise capacity development needs relating to digitalization in countries, including assessment of relevant national policies and strategies, identification of digital skills gaps, existing e-learning and other digital resources;
• Support the enhancement of digital capabilities and innovation awareness to assist FAO in digital initiatives, programmes and activities in developing digital policies, strategies and action plans in agri-food systems in alignment with and support of FAO’s priorities, such as Hand-in-Hand, digital villages, FAO response to COVID-19 crisis, national responses to COVID-19, etc.;
• Contribute to innovation challenges, fora and workshops to identify and share knowledge, good practices and lessons learned in digital agriculture and innovation.
• Organize and coordinate innovation challenges/hackathons in the countries (Grenada and Dominica).
• Contribute to the development and formalization of a hackathon methodology for agriculture.
• Develop draft slides or draft speech text for presentations by senior FAO management related to the innovation domain.
• Lead or support the ideation, set-up and running of events from online webinars through to workshops and conferences.
• Perform other duties as required

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• University degree in agriculture (economics, statistics, extension), development studies, environmental sciences, computer science and engineering, communications, or related studies;
• At least five years of work experience in innovation and digital agriculture;
• Working knowledge of English and limited knowledge of Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish for Consultants; Working knowledge of English for PSA Subscribers)

FAO Core Competencies

• Results Focus
• Teamwork
• Communication
• Building Effective Relationships
• Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

• Work experience in more than one location or area of work
• Extensive and relevant experience in the Caribbean
• Experience working in the agricultural sector, including fisheries will be an asset.
• Familiarity with FAO gender mainstreaming policies and guidelines will be an asset.