CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
Job title: Knowledge Management Officer
Type of Contract : Local consultancy
Reference : 07/CGC-CRF/2022
Location : Dakar, Senegal
Duration of contract: One (01) year
Opening date: 04/08/2022
Closing date: 16/08/2022
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Context and Justification
The West and Central Africa Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF) is a not-for-profit international association of National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) from 23 countries in West and Central Africa (WCA). CORAF harnesses partnerships to drive agricultural innovation toward achieving prosperity and food and nutrition security in WCA. For more information about CORAF, please visit www.coraf.org.
In 2020, CORAF embarked on a challenge to strengthen data management and information held at its Secretariat in Dakar, Senegal as well as the National Agricultural Research Institutions (NARIs) and establish effective linkages with the CORAF Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning hub. Since then, the organization has taken various steps to build a tailored knowledge management system that responds to the organization’s needs and contributes towards CORAF’s knowledge management and foresight-related interventions. Currently, the Secretariat is in the process of finalizing the accompanying Knowledge Management architecture to support CORAF’s Second Strategic Plan (2018-2027) which seeks to strengthen research for development and stakeholder capacities, build and coordinate communities of practice and provide foresight to address the prevalent, emerging, and anticipated challenges. Within that architecture, CORAF is emphasizing producing and sharing knowledge products that meet the knowledge needs of the organization’s stakeholders. By delivering on this, the Knowledge Management (KM) strategy is meant to enhance CORAF’s thought leadership in agriculture research, human capacity development, and innovation.
CORAF, through its programs and projects, generates a wealth of information and knowledge, intellectual capital that, without sufficient mechanisms to capture and redirect to areas of need, may remain underutilized. CORAF believes that it is pertinent to have a solid knowledge management system to simultaneously meet the diverse knowledge needs of stakeholders and nudge toward the organization’s strategic goals. The production and dissemination of lessons learned, good practices, and other knowledge products as well as knowledge sharing related to the analysis of food security, nutrition, and resilience are key in building capacities at the regional level and generating up-scalable learning across the NARIs.
CORAF’s integrated approach to KM, which integrates communications, MEL services, and knowledge communications, seeks to entrench an inclusive structure that advances KM as a cross-cutting service within the organization. As a result, CORAF is seeking a senior qualified individual for the position of Knowledge Management Officer to lead the knowledge management and capacity development activities across the organization. We are looking for a dynamic individual with strong project management experience, knowledge management background, and some understanding of communication or monitoring, evaluation, and learning.
JOB DESCRIPTION
Scope and Responsibilities
Under the supervision of the Director of Research and Innovation, the individual will coordinate CORAF’s cross-team integrated knowledge management service responsible for keeping in motion the different parts of the knowledge management system involved in identifying, capturing, processing, packaging, and promoting knowledge utilization across key CORAF stakeholders. This is a catalytic role entailing coordinating the organizational processing of information and delivery of knowledge in a way that responds to knowledge gaps and goals outlined in CORAF’s Strategic Plan. The Officer will work with the executive leadership on ongoing KM priorities.
Main responsibilities
The successful candidate shall inter alia undertake the following roles and responsibilities:
Strategic Leadership and Operations Management
- Lead the operationalization of CORAF’s KM strategy and position the organization’s knowledge management in a way that contributes to the agriculture technology and innovation scaling as well as research capacity development in the region.
- Oversee the planning and implementation of an integrated knowledge management system serving CORAF’s stakeholders across WCA.
- Provide leadership for the generation of knowledge, learning, and the development of conceptual frameworks that strengthen regional and national agricultural research and development systems.
- Establish and ensure that periodic knowledge management goals are met and continuously evaluate and adjust CORAF’s knowledge management system to ensure emergent challenges are addressed.
- Maintain a repository of organizational knowledge and facilitate easy retrieval, sharing and peer-to-peer learning; strengthen knowledge management structures, tools, and culture.
- Operationalize and continuously improve processes and guidelines for intranet content management, for all the content lifecycle stages – create, publish, maintain and archive.
Cross-Team Coordination: Coordination constitutes the bulk of this role’s responsibilities. It entails understanding the roles of different people in the production, coordination, processing, distribution, and application of knowledge.
- Coordinate the knowledge production process from data collection to information processing, marketing, and utilization of knowledge generated by CORAF and its NARIs.
- Coordinate the timely preparation, design, and dissemination of routine and periodic knowledge products (e., factsheets, policy briefs, backgrounders, articles, reports, briefing notes, etc.) that inform CORAF’s key internal and external audiences with specific messages.
- Work closely with the Communications team to ensure effective packaging and marketing of knowledge products in their various forms and to promote CORAF’s expertise and ensure that online knowledge platforms are up to date and of good quality.
- Work closely with the Department of Research and Innovation (DRI)/programs and field teams to ensure uptake and utilization of knowledge in ways that equip target end-users, implementing partners, and stakeholders with relevant knowledge and skills.
- Work closely with the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) and ICT teams to ensure effective identification, collection, and conversion of information into knowledge, and that internal information tools are well-maintained.
- Overall, ensure that KM is well-linked with other internal functions for ongoing, effective, and efficient identification, capturing, processing, dissemination, and utilization of CORAF’s knowledge outputs to the relevant end-users [………].
How to apply
- Application file: the file must include a cover letter addressed to the Executive Director, Dakar, Senegal and a detailed CV, with the names and contacts of three mandatory references (e-mail, address, and telephone).
- You can submit your application online via the link:www.youmann-recruit.com no later than August 16th, 2022.
Female candidates are strongly encouraged