Analyst, Ukraine Grain and Dairy Policy Dialogue
Role Overview
The EBRD's involvement in the agribusiness sector focuses on investing throughout the production chain from farming, processing and trading to food distribution, packaging and retail. The Bank strives to help the agribusiness sector in the region recover from the financial crisis and move further towards fulfilling its potential as the world's bread basket. In 2012 the EBRD committed €874 million to 62 agribusiness projects across 24 countries. Total commitments in the sector, including commercial co-financing, amounted to €1.25 billion and represented around 10 per cent of the Bank's annual commitments.
The Office of the Chief Economist contributes to the operational, policy and strategy work of the Bank and provides intellectual leadership on the economic aspects of transition in the region. OCE works with alongside Agribusiness Department in structuring, appraising and monitoring investment projects that advance the transition to a market economy. OCE also initiates and participates in Bank policy initiatives, contributes to the development of country and sector strategies, and supports the Bank's operations by monitoring macroeconomic developments and risks.
Since the global food crises in 2008 and the recent food price volatility the Agribusiness Department, together with the Office of the Chief Economist, has launched in 2011 a Private Sector for Food Security Initiative. This includes playing a constructive role in leveraging the EBRD's investor position to engage in policy dialogue inducing regulatory and institutional change to tackle supply side bottlenecks in food production as well as constraints to food trade. The initiative specifically focuses on international coordination with other international and local institutions in areas such as collateralisation of soft commodities, improving commodity trading, risk management and quality standards and innovative agribusiness climate change financing mechanisms.
In Ukraine, the Private Sector for Food Security Initiative encompasses two sub-sectors, grain and dairy. The outcome of the policy dialogue is to enable sector-specific policy reforms and private sector investments in the grain and dairy sub-sectors through targeted policy dialogue. In the grain sector the project will (i) facilitate improvements in grain market transparency, building on the success of the Ukrainian Grain Working Group established by EBRD-FAO in 2011; and (ii) support a wider grain sector dialogue in Ukraine in order to enable investments. This will likely contribute to realize Ukraine's grain production potential, export predictability and to foster private sector growth.
In the dairy sector the EBRD's involvement seeks to contribute to sector upgrade and development to reverse milk supply contraction capitalize on private sector efforts. This will be achieved through participation in a working group involving Government/MAPFU and representative of all segments of the value chain including for the (ii) development of market milk indicators that would serve as a basis for policy discussions. In the last two years, public-private dialogue improved policy transparency and predictability, resulting in an increasing investor confidence in Ukraine.
- The Agribusiness Department is seeking an analysts based in Kyiv -Ukraine- to support the Agribusiness Team through:
Monitor and undertake economic analysis of grain and dairy subsectors in collaboration with the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO);
- Coordinate with other International Organisations (i.e. other Multilateral Development Banks, UN-Organizations);
- Coordinate with both public and private sector actors participating in the Grain and Dairy Working Groups;
- Support the work of the two Working Groups including being involved in the organization of working group meetings;
- Support the Agribusiness team in ad-hoc activities related to the policy dialogue in these two sectors.
Key Responsibilities and Deliverables
Responsibilities and deliverables may include:
- Support the compilation and maintenance of relevant datasets (i.e. balance sheet) related to grain and dairy subsectors (in partnership with FAO).
- Support the Working Groups through targeted research in the grain and dairy subsectors (in partnership with FAO).
- Assistance in the preparation of regular publications, reports, and ad-hoc briefings, including drafting of specific sections when needed.
- Support the coordination activities with International Organizations and outreach efforts to public and private sector actors willing to participate in the Grain and Dairy Working Groups.
- Support and coordinate external consultants/technical advisors hired for specific working group sessions
- Assisting with procurement and donor relations, when needed.
- Active coordination between different teams in the EBRD, especially Agribusiness and OCE.
- Ad hoc assignments as requested.
Essential Skills, Experience Qualifications
Required qualifications and skills include:
- A Master's degree in economics or a related field from a leading university;
- Strong analytical skills;
- Excellent written and oral communication skills in Ukrainian or Russian and English;
- In-depth knowledge of Ukraine agriculture sector (especially grain and dairy);
- Knowledge of food security issues and knowledge of one or more languages of the region would be an advantage;
- Knowledge of other international organisations in particular other multilateral development banks and their efforts in food security.
- A minimum of two years of relevant experience
Competencies Personal Attributes
Competencies and Personal Attributes
- Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to work effectively in teams;
- Ability to plan and organise work unsupervised;
- Ability to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines;
- Ability to operate sensitively in multi-cultural environments and build effective working relations with clients and colleagues.
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