AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center is a nonprofit, autonomous international agricultural research center with headquarters in Taiwan and regional offices around the globe.
AVRDC conducts research and development programs that contribute to improved incomes and diets in the developing world through increased production and consumption of nutritious and health- promoting vegetables. For more information on AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center, please visit our website: www.avrdc.org.
AVRDC seeks a Post Doctoral Scientist in Agricultural Economics to be a member of the Center’s socio-economics research group. The position will be based at its Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) in Arusha, Tanzania.
The Job: The Post Doctoral Scientist will participate in applied research projects in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in collaboration with a team of bio-physical scientists, postharvest specialists, agribusiness and marketing experts, nutritionists among others. The position will entail working on issues related to farm management economics, input market analysis, and project monitoring and evaluation, as well as examining how to achieve larger development gains from vegetable-based farming system research projects in the region.
Key Responsibilities: The Post Doctoral Scientist will work closely with the Center’s Agricultural Economist and Global Theme Leader – Consumption as well as other scientists to perform the following tasks: x Assist in developing analytical tools for implementing, monitoring, and evaluating the Center’s on-going research and developing projects; x Conduct field research to characterize vegetables and integrated food production systems including vegetable-based gardening; x Assist in training, supervising and backstopping the Center’s Research Assistants and contracted Enumerators in procedures and templates for data collection and reporting; x Lead and supervise baseline, socio-economic data, ex-ante and ex-post impact assessment studies, data encoding, editing and cleaning; x Conduct quantitative data analysis using spreadsheets, statistical, econometric and mathematical programming models; x Assist in drafting project reports to donors and liaise with experts and collaborators; x Publish research results in high impact peer-reviewed journals and influence change among policy makers and stakeholders to support vegetable production, marketing and consumption; x Develop a system for internal documentation of the Center’s past and on-going socio- economic research and development program activities by setting up and maintaining a regional database for vegetable production and consumption; x Analyze supply, demand, trade, and market situation and related consumption economics of vegetables in different locations of the regions; x Contribute to capacity building programs for researchers from partner institutions, farmers and extension agents in the region to promote horticulture technologies through training; x Participate in team proposal-writing activities related to emerging vegetable sector research and development issues; x Facilitate field visits by visitors as needed and represent the Agricultural Economist and Global Theme Leader – Consumption and the Center in meetings as needed; x Assist and/or provide expertise as a resource person for socio-economic issues in AVRDC’s research and development work; x Performing other duties as assigned by the Agricultural Economist and Global Theme Leader – Consumption. The Person: Candidates with a recent PhD degree in agricultural economics, development economics, or horticulture with an economics background, or a related discipline with some experience in farm management economics and project monitoring and evaluation. Experience in guiding surveys to collect and analyze primary data and experience with participatory research approaches. Hands-on experience in statistical and econometrics analysis of survey data using STATA and other appropriate econometric software packages, and an understanding of farming systems in the sub-Saharan Africa region will be an advantage. She/he must have strong communication skills in spoken and written English. The candidate must be able to work with multidisciplinary teams in a multicultural and multinational environment, and be willing to travel extensively in the SSA region. The Reward: This is an Internationally Recruited Staff (IRS) position with competitive pay and benefits. The appointment is for three years.
The position will be available from 1 st January 2016
How to Apply: Submit application with curriculum vitae, a recent passport size photograph, and the names and addresses (including telephone/fax/e-mail) of three referees by e-mail to human.resources@worldveg.org before 15 th September 2015.