Overview
Provide strategic, technical, and operational leadership for the Market-led Inclusive Value Chain Development Programme, ensuring effective implementation and coordination with government and private sector stakeholders.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the design, coordination, and delivery of all TSU-supported programme outputs.
- Provide high-level technical and strategic advisory support to MoRD, NRLM, and SRLMs.
- Oversee integration of women SHGs, producer collectives, and women-led FPOs into inclusive, climate-resilient, and commercially viable value chains.
- Ensure effective convergence with relevant national missions, state schemes, financial institutions, and private sector partners.
- Provide leadership and quality assurance across innovation challenges, capacity building initiatives, DRE technology adoption, and evidence-based learning systems.
- Represent the programme at national and state levels, strengthening partnerships with government, private sector, development partners, and civil society.
- Lead engagement with private sector, including buyers, processors, agri-businesses, agri-tech firms, and financial actors.
- Serve as the principal interface between MoRD, NRLM, SRLMs, UNDP, private sector partners, financial institutions, and other ecosystem actors.
- Facilitate coordination across central and state government departments, national missions, and implementing partners.
- Support development of institutional mechanisms for sustained engagement between women’s collectives and market actors.
- Lead the development and operationalization of gender-transformative value chain development frameworks, guidelines, and toolkits.
- Support mainstreaming of gender and climate considerations within NRLM value chain strategies and implementation processes.
- Provide technical inputs to policy dialogues, advisories, and strategy documents at national and state levels.
- Lead, supervise, and mentor TSU technical staff and consultants across thematic areas.
- Represent the programme in national and international forums, conferences, and high-level meetings.
- Support engagement with development partners, donors, and multilateral institutions.
- Contribute to UNDP and Government of India strategic processes related to inclusive growth, women’s economic empowerment, climate resilience, and rural transformation.
- Support documentation of programme reports, best practices, scalable models, and policy-relevant lessons.
Required Experience
- Minimum of 5 years (with Master’s degree) or 7 years (with Bachelor’s degree) of relevant experience in building and scaling agricultural or rural value chains, inclusive market systems, agri-businesses and relevant areas is required.
- Demonstrated leadership and programme management capabilities in complex, multi-stakeholder environments, with strong stakeholder engagement, negotiation, and coordination skills.
- Strong and proven expertise in value chain development, gender integration, and institutional strengthening.
- Strong analytical, strategic thinking, and problem-solving abilities and experience.
- Experience in private sector engagement especially agri-businesses, food business, retail, blended finance, or market systems development (desired).
- Proven expertise with climate-resilient livelihoods and DRE-based livelihood solutions (desired).
- Demonstrated experience of working with the departments / agencies/ missions of state and central government of India (preferably NRLM/SRLM/Department of Agriculture or comparable national/state missions) (desired).
Qualifications
- Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in Development Studies, Economics, Agriculture, Rural Management, Public Policy, Business Administration, or a related field is required.
- A first-level university degree (bachelor’s degree) in the above fields in combination with an additional 2 years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of the advanced university degree.
