Project Officers

Project Officer

Job Category: Grade 6 (Cordaid Rwanda Job Scale)

Duty Station: Field Position

Employment Type: Contractual

Salary Scale: Not Specified

Deadline: 20th April 2026

Number of Positions: 4

Background

Cordaid is an international humanitarian and development organisation that operates in the world’s most fragile and conflict-affected regions. In these places, millions of people strive for what everyone deserves: safety, peace, healthcare when needed, a livelihood, and food for tomorrow. Their quest is universal: to live in dignity. We drive lasting change by strengthening essential basic services and systems, with a focus on healthcare, agri-food, and justice & peace. Where disaster strikes, we join our partners in humanitarian action. 

Our approach is demand-driven, supporting local communities, civil society organisations, and the local private sector to take the lead in shaping their own future. Rooted in the Netherlands and backed by 250,000 private donors, Cordaid is globally connected through numerous thematic and faith-based networks, among others Caritas Internationalis, CIDSE, and the ACT Alliance.

Project Officer 

Cordaid is seeking dedicated Project Officers to support in implementing and coordinating field-based activities to enhance market access, promote sustainable business models, and strengthen financial inclusion. The Project Officer will work closely with dairy farmers and farmers’ organizations, cooperatives, MSMEs, financial institutions, and local authorities to enhance the dairy field and access to finance.

The incumbent is expected to dedicate approximately 90% of their time to financial and administrative management and 10% to acquisition and business development support in collaboration with the national team.

Key Duties & Responsibilities

Project planning: Translates the Cordaid project results into specific results in designated project areas and formulates an operational project plan within the country, keeping the budget propositions margin and eventual possibilities.

 Project management: Assist Program/project managers and Coordinators within Cordaid with respect to risks, stakeholders’ issues and the project team. Support the project actors and contributors for the project successful delivery within the intercultural sensitivity framework. Understands partners like including Milk collection centers (MCCs), Milk processing plants, SACCOs and other MFIs and matches desired results and contextual factors. Stimulates progress and makes necessary adjustments to realize the project within given boundary conditions: scope, time, budget, work quality and results.

Financial management: Assist Program/project managers and Coordinators in managing the project budget ensuring expenditures alignment with planned budgets. Reports regularly on budget realization and acts proactively to comply with activity’s budget boundary.

Field & Partner visits: Support program teams to monitor project achievements, conduct field visits with partners and stakeholders, review field reports, analyze field data and formulate conclusions, discussion points and recommendations for all project stakeholders.

Supported partners: Support program/project managers to recognize the need for support with partner organizations including Milk collection centers (MCCs), Milk processing plants, SACCOs and other MFIs as well as other value chain actors as needed and translate this into customized support, considering particular background and partner organizations’ situation.

Fund mobilization/BS develop: Contribute and support in the development and writing of successful funding proposals. Interacts with potential local/institutional donors, convincingly argument the added value of Cordaid as to acquire funds and ensure the future funding for the program (s) in Rwanda. This includes increasing revenues, growth in terms of business expansion, increasing profitability by building strategic partnerships and making strategic business decisions.

 Bid management: Support bid manager on calls for proposals and tenders related to the assigned specific donor portfolio. Support negotiations for specific assigned bids, especially Value chain development. The bid team provides donor specific advice on rules, regulations, and policy. Uses donor contacts to ensure the winning outcome of calls and proposals. Oversees the role division, planning and communication with donors and a consortium to achieve a positive outcome for Cordaid.

Network representation/ Communication: Striving to strengthen collaboration with potential stakeholders outside Cordaid and explore representation and potential areas for collaboration, considering the mission statement of Cordaid and the possibilities within existing projects. Ensure efficient communication with both internal and external partners.

Project reports: Collects information within the project and reports about the results, specifics, budget and expenditures and possible deviations following required reporting standards, providing solutions to minimize impact of deviations.

Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning (MERL): Work closely with the monitoring evaluation team to identify project learning opportunities, research and publications of the project results. Facilitates the dissemination of promising practices and lessons learned. In collaboration with the MERL team, ensure integration of innovations and best practices generated and implying stakeholders’ impact on stakeholders such as Milk collection centers (MCCs), Milk processing plants, SACCOs and other MFIs.

Integrity: Adheres to the code of conduct and integrity policies, reports of concern and follows regular integrity training. This is a medium-risk position, with direct contact with vulnerable communities and regular travel.

 Other: Any other duties assigned by the supervisor/manager

Application requirements

Knowledge, Skills, and Experiences

• A bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Sciences, Development studies, Economics, Business Administration, or related fields.
• At least 3-5 years of experience in agricultural value chain development, market systems, rural finance, or cooperative development.
• Experience working with donor-funded projects, particularly in climate resilience, agriculture, or economic development, is highly desirable.
• Prior experience working with cooperatives, SMEs, and financial institutions is required. 
• Strong knowledge of livestock value chains and rural livelihoods.
• Experience in developing inclusive business models and market linkages.
• Proficiency in facilitating access to finance for smallholder farmers and animal husbandry,
• Ability to conduct training and capacity-building for farmer organizations, MSMEs, and cooperatives.
• Strong project coordination and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Excellent communication and report-writing skills in English; knowledge of Kinyarwanda is required.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and data analysis tools.

Work Conditions

• The position is field based in the project intervention districts.
• Frequent travel to rural communities, cooperatives, and partner organizations will be required.
• The Project Officer will work closely with Cordaid, and other project partners and stakeholders.

Core Competencies

• Quality orientation
• Organizational awareness including planning
• Negotiation skills
• Dealing with details
• Problem analysis
• Conceptual thinking
• Social awareness
• Intercultural orientation
• Managing conflict

Key Result Area:

Access to finance:

• Financial education
• Product Development
• Linkage of Financial Institutions
• Communication

Value Chain Development

• Develop non-financial services
• Planning, implementation and monitoring of livestock value chain activities
• Linkage of dairy actors
• Partner Selection
• Capacity building 
• Communication

Others/Extra Details

Cordaid is fully committed to providing a safe and welcoming workplace to its employees, and to maintain the respect and dignity of everyone that comes into contact with Cordaid. Therefore, Cordaid participates in the Inter-Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. 

For more information about Cordaid’s work on integrity https://www.cordaid.org/en/who-we-are/integrity-and-code-of-conduct/. 

Applications including a motivation letter and extensive CV in English will be submitted online through this application link by 20th April 2026 at 23:59 PM.