Associate Programme Officer – Youth Employment in Agrifood Value Chains

Young people aged 15–34 years make up more than a third of Zambia’s population, yet many rural young women and men are unemployed, underemployed or in low-paid informal work. FAO Zambia supports the Government to make agrifood systems a source of decent jobs for youth, in line with the National Agricultural Policy and the Comprehensive Agriculture Transformation Support Programme (CATSP).

A flagship of this work is the Sida-funded Integrated Country Approach for boosting decent jobs for youth in the agrifood system (ICA-4), which applies a market systems development approach to the soybean value chain in Central and Eastern Provinces. Working with seed companies, the Seed Control and Certification Institute (SCCI), the Ministry of Agriculture, insurers and youth organizations, ICA-4 has piloted youth-inclusive seed multiplication through contract farming, index-based crop insurance for young farmers and youth-led mechanization and local soybean processing businesses, while strengthening youth networks and addressing gender norms.

The assignment begins as ICA-4 pilot closes and FAO moves to consolidate and scale up what has worked. The UN Volunteer will help capture results and lessons, support national partners to own and expand proven models, and feed evidence into policy dialogue and new programmes on youth employment in agrifood systems.

Based at the FAO Representation in Lusaka, the Volunteer will join the project team and work with national specialists, FAO technical officers at headquarters and in the region, government counterparts, private-sector partners and youth organizations, with field missions to Central and Eastern Provinces.

The assignment offers hands-on experience of market systems development, youth employment and agrifood value chains in a UN country office.

Under the direct supervision of the Assistant FAO Representative (Programme), with day-to-day technical guidance from the national coordinator for youth employment in agrifood systems, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:

• Youth-inclusive seed multiplication and contract farming: Support monitoring of youth seed grower groups working with partner seed companies in Central and Eastern Provinces; assist in documenting contract terms, grower performance and lessons learned; and contribute inputs to multi-stakeholder dialogue with SCCI, the Ministry of Agriculture and seed companies on scaling youth participation in certified seed production.

• Access to finance and risk management: Assist in following up the index-based crop insurance pilot for young farmers and linkages with savings groups, SACCOs and other financial service providers; contribute to compiling data on uptake, payouts and farmer feedback.

• Youth enterprise development: Contribute to market analysis and business-model pro-filing for youth-led mechanization service providers and small-scale soybean processors, and support their linkages with equipment suppliers, buyers and business development services.

• Youth agency, gender and inclusion: Support engagement with youth networks and organizations and help integrate gender-transformative and disability-inclusive approaches into activities, tools and reporting.

• Enabling environment and policy dialogue: Assist in preparing background notes, briefs and presentations for policy dialogue with the Ministry of Agriculture and other ministries, including on youth inclusion in CATSP, value chain development plans and national technical guidelines such as the soybean seed multiplication SOP.

• Monitoring, evaluation and learning: Support data collection, analysis and results re-porting using market systems monitoring and the Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) approach; contribute to documenting ICA-4 results and lessons at close-out and to organizing learning and validation events.

• Knowledge management and communications: Contribute to case studies, human-interest stories, policy briefs and social media content that present youth results through a systems-change lens, in line with FAO corporate communication standards.

• Scaling and resource mobilization: Assist in mapping partners and funding opportunities and contribute to concept notes and proposals for scaling tested youth-inclusive models under FAO’s country programme.

• Coordination and events: Support the organization of meetings, workshops, field missions and partner consultations, including preparing agendas, minutes and follow-up action trackers.

• Volunteerism: Contribute to promoting volunteerism for development, including through engagement with youth volunteers, youth organizations and the UNV community in Zambia.

• Perform other related tasks as required.