Banana

There are ten eligible countries  for BAM (Banana Accompanying Measures) programme:

  • Africa: Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana.
  • Caribbean: Belize, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname.

Banana is the fourth largest crop at global level (after rice, wheat, maize) in terms of volume of production. Its total annual production amounts to 117 million tonnes, half of which is constituted by the banana "dessert", by large the most exported banana (96%). Four multinational companies are dominating the banana trade.

The objective of the BAM is the fight against poverty. This instrument should have a clear impact on the living and working conditions of farmers and persons concerned and improve their social resilience. The BAM instrument is insisting also on the environmental issues that are at stake and on the need to correctly define - and afterwards measure - the impact. The BAM regulation together with the DCI regulation is the legal framework for the EU’s support.

The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the objectives of the BAM programme by providing the European Commission with support measures for the implementation and the follow-up of the programme.

Qualifications: 

The team leader will give strategic guidance and assume overall responsibility for the project.  This position is a part-time position with an equivalent to 400 working days during the overall length of the contract

Qualifications and skills

  • University degree in the areas of: agronomy, economics, social or environmental science or other relevant field.
  • Excellent working knowledge of English and French.

General professional experience

He/she should have a minimum of 15 years' professional experience including:

  • Work as project team leader in developing countries in the area of agriculture and rural development targeting smallholder’s activities and inclusive growth with special focus on cash crops.
  • Good management experience including activities like selection of experts, consolidation and validation of reports.
  • Well-developed ability and experience in projects providing monitoring, policy advice synthesizing information from different sources, identifying key themes and evaluations. This must include experience on analysis of quantitative and qualitative data as part of monitoring and reporting frameworks with activities like setting of baselines and follow up studies.

Specific professional experience.

  • Working in the areas of cash crops in tropical countries and agricultural products value chain as part of private and/or public finances programmes in developing countries.
  • Working experience in the area of sustainability including: social, environmental and economic approaches.
  • Sound experience in negotiations and ability to work within a multi-stakeholder environment (including civil society, governments and private sector).
  • Good computer skills and familiarity with databases and statistical packages

The following points will be considered as advantages:

  • Good context knowledge and experience in the area of international trade of agricultural commodities.
  • Previous experience within European Union procedures (administrative, project management and financial ones) which include close relationships with different services of the European Commission, mostly EU Delegations.
  • He/she must be independent and free from conflicts of interest in the responsibilities they take on.
Start / Duration: 

The intended start date is the 1st of January 2014 and the period of implementation of the contract will be 48 months from this date.

If you are interested to cooperte with AFC Consultants International, please send you most recent CV to:

Barbara.Braun [at] afci.de