Microinsurance & Climate Resilience Associate

About One Acre Fund

Founded in 2006, One Acre Fund supplies 1 million smallholder farmers with the agricultural services they need to make their farms vastly more productive. Our 8,000+ team is drawn from diverse backgrounds and professions. With operations across six core countries in Africa, we make farmers more prosperous by providing quality farm supplies on credit, delivered within walking distance of farmers’ homes, and agricultural training to improve harvests. On average, the farmers we serve harvest 50 per cent more food after working with One Acre Fund. 

To learn more about our work, take a look at our Why Work Here blog for more information.

About the Role

The role of the Microinsurance & Climate Resilience Associate is to help lead our efforts to develop climate safety nets for smallholder farmers. This includes support in coordinating all of our insurance work, assessing and improving our insurance offerings, and developing and maintaining relationships with important actors in the insurance space (brokers, primary insurers, re-insurance companies, donors, banks, governments, and other interested third parties). The focus of your work will be to support the design and management of One Acre Fundʼs farmer insurance portfolio to provide a reliable safety net if climatic conditions or personal tragedy lead to major shocks in farmer households. Currently, such products include area yield index insurance, satellite-based soil moisture index products and funeral and hospital cash insurance. But you will also touch on future field-facing insurance products such as livestock or flood insurance; and high-level insurance policies against OAF organizational risks. You will also have the scope to work on other interventions that support farmers' and OAF's resilience to climate risks.

Responsibilities

You will report to One Acre Fund's Risk and Resilience Manager and support One Acre Fund leadership to understand the full landscape of insurance products that are relevant to us. Specific responsibilities include: 

• Support product design to help different country programs decide what insurance policies may be best for their clients. This work includes designing and testing different options, developing policies and terms, contracting with 3rd party providers and supporting field teams to operationalize these products by collaborating on procedures, training, and marketing. 
• Manage project work streams of the insurance team and keep our daily work going for us to hit project targets and milestones.
• Work with teams around the organization to explore radical models of insurance or other “safety net” mechanisms, potentially including policy work or partnerships with governments. 
• Collaborate with field teams to set up insurance or safety net pilots and understand farmersʼ perceptions of climate-related risk, levels of resilience, and basic needs corresponding to different levels of shock. 
• Stay up to date with programs around the world and use this information to influence best practices in One Acre Fundʼs strategy. 
• Evaluate risks related to, and insurance against, global organizational risks like assets, currency, repayment

Career Growth and Development

We have a strong culture of constant learning and we invest in developing our people. You’ll have weekly check-ins with your manager, access to mentorship and training programs, and regular feedback on your performance. We hold career reviews every six months and set aside time to discuss your aspirations and career goals. You’ll have the opportunity to shape a growing organization and build a rewarding long-term career.

Qualifications

Across all roles, these are the general qualifications we look for. For this role specifically, you will have:

• 2+ years of work experience in insurance, finance, management consulting, or similar. 
• Experience with project management, insurance and actuarial or data science.
• Experience in project management with a range of different partners.
• Advanced Excel (can perform complex functions). Experience with other professional programs (e.g. R, STATA) or programming languages such as Python.
• Leadership experience at work, or outside of work.

Preferred Start Date

As soon as possible

Job Location

Nairobi, Kenya

Benefits

Health insurance, housing, and comprehensive benefits

Eligibility

This role is only open to citizens or permanent residents of (or those with a professional background and work history in) our countries of operation. " Women are encouraged to apply".

Application Deadline

08 June 2023

One Acre Fund never asks candidates to pay any money or pay for tests at any stage of the interview process. Official One Acre Fund emails will always arrive from an @oneacrefund.org address. Please report any suspicious communication here (globalhotline@oneacrefund.org), but do not send applications or application materials to this email address.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), and anti-racism are deeply connected to our organization’s mission and purpose. One Acre Fund aspires to build a culture where all staff feel consistently valued, represented, and connected – so that our team can thrive as professionals, and achieve exceptional impact for the farmers we serve.

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, colour, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression. We are proud to be an equal-opportunity workplace.