Lefani Kachisuzi
Lilongwe
Summary
Lefani is a matured and confident development professional with highly developed capabilities to deal with big responsibilities and challenges. With over 13 years of experience working in international organizations across Africa, he has experience in implementing livelihood projects with donors like USAID, UNDP, Kinder-Not-Hilfe (KNH), and PEPFAR. He is well-disciplined and focused staff with experience in capacity buidling and management of big teams of staff. He is well placed for qualitative and quantitative research and analysis for data driven decision making.
Overview
14
14
years of professional experience
Work History
Agricultural Finance-Client Services Manager
Opportunity International
08.2022 - Current
- Supervising over 5 Project Officers across Africa and provide capacity building to staff.
- Overseeing the administration of existing Farmer Support Agent networks in Malawi, Rwanda, DRC, Uganda, Ghana, and Nigeria and any other country where Opportunity International scales up to.
- Identifying and onboarding value aligned partners with clear synergies across targeted countries.
- Leading on effective use of data, ensuring value addition for Agricultural Finance and all partners across Africa.
- Working with Financial Institution partner staff to pursue common goals in developing and growing business through the Agricultural finance program.
- Regular monitoring of data integrity, analytics, and output metrics; identifying data needs and produce monthly reports to share with relevant partners.
- Working with the Agricultural Finance team to develop effective management reporting systems & procedures in various countries.
- Facilitating and monitoring the regular payment of appropriate incentives to Farmer Support Agents(FSA) network.
- Assisting in the setup and implementation of additional FSA networks in targeted countries.
- Assessing the effectiveness of the training delivered through the FSA networks and suggesting improvements.
- Assisting in the development of appropriate digital training content for all training curricula offered to clients.
- Collaborating with financial institution partners to facilitate increased access to affordable finance for targeted client groups.
- Providing trouble shooting and systems support to the partners & FSAs utilizing the Farmer Management System.
Agricultural Extension Manager
Meridian Group Of Companies-Farm Services Unit Of Farmers World LTD.
07.2019 - 07.2022
- Supervised and mentored a team of 33 Farmers World Agricultural Extension Staff across 8 districts in Malawi.
- Implemented Projects with funding from USAID, UNDP, AgDiv and AgDevco.
- Applied project management skills: Project Planning, budgeting, implementation and developing sustainability strategy.
- Led in developing training manuals like group dynamics, Good Agricultural practices, Soil testing and reporting, etc.
- Building the capacity of 33 Extension officers for them to cascade the Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) training to 7,000 plus smallholder farmers
- Participating in writing winning project proposals and submitting them to potential donors
- Engaged donors, NGOs and private sector i.e., Banks via Virtual meetings and interface meetings
- Technical lead in finance and market linkages for smallholder farmers to achieve food security and sustainable family income.
- Developed standard operating procedures in project implementation, data collection, and analysis
- Managed 128 agricultural demonstration sites-fertilizer trial sites to try different types of fertilizer treatments and seed as part of marketing products for farmers adoption and increasing sales in Farmers World Retail Shops
- Developed tools for data collection for demonstration plots, savings groups, and other Company driven surveys from marketing department
- Led and supervised surveys on food security and income related surveys using KOBO tool, Smallholdr-App, COMCARE tool
- Making presentation to Board of Directors in the company for data driven kind of decision making
- Preparing weekly, monthly, and quarterly activity reports in a timely manner and contribute to production of articles and stories for internal and external consumption
- Developing marketing strategies for improved fertilizer blends and store products
- Conducting soil sampling and reporting on results to smallholder farmers
- Working with government especially ministry of Agriculture to cascade agriculture-technologies
Project Coordinator
Catholic Development Commision Of Malawi
10.2018 - 06.2019
- Supervising 4 project staff (field officers and a project accountant) and 30 lead farmers/Community based facilitators.
- Providing technical expertise to implement the food security project, reaching out to 3,000 clients. The project called “Strengthening of Small Holder Farmers Resilience and Self-Help Capacities against the Effects of Climate Change.”
- Applied project management skills: Project Planning, budgeting, implementation and developing sustainability strategy.
- Managing project stakeholders
- Developed training manuals and capacity building of staff and community volunteers.
- Linking farmers to better markets of their produce.
- Setting up of agricultural demonstration plots as a way of cascading technologies to farmers.
- Preparing and submitting accurate, quality, and timely progress reports of all activities.
Project Coordinator
Family Health International 360
12.2017 - 09.2018
- Supervising one Village Savings and Loan officer and 80 Community Volunteers/Agents
- Implemented a PEPFAR funded project
- Project management -planning, implementation, resource management and development of exit strategy
- Community mobilization for group formation and project stakeholders’ management
- Formed and managed 574 savings groups with 10, 456 members
- Capacity building of staff and project beneficiaries around group dynamics, financial literacy and business and entrepreneurship
- Helped savings groups to achieve a 67% return on savings and 82% loan fund utilization rate
- Developed training manuals for VSL record keeping Business modules (EASPM) and financial literacy
- Mobilized communities to take action for girls’ education by removing barriers to girls’ education in their communities by empowering parents economically
- Collected data of Savings groups using ODK tool
- Conducting monthly and quarterly monitoring visits to all project targeted areas and preparing monitoring reports and data collection tools
- Conducted data quality assessment with M&E Team
- Preparing and submitting accurate, quality, and timely progress reports of all activities
Project Coordinator
Global Communities Formerly Known As Project Concern International
04.2016 - 11.2017
- Implemented a USAID donor funded project-Sustainable pathways to food security and development
- Supervising and building the capacity of 8 agribusiness/VSL Facilitators and 90 Community Volunteers
- We managed to form 583 Village Savings and Loans groups and reaching out to 13, 349 beneficiaries (2,985M & 10,364F)
- Managing the Online VSL.SAVIX.MIS containing the information of Savings groups
- Achieved a return on savings of up to 65% and a loan fund utilization rate of 80%
- Used COMCARE to collect data on Life Changed Indices Survey and VSL groups data collection
- Applied analytical skills in excel to interpret data collected and make decisions
- Collaborated with M&E staff to ensure high quality data is being collected
- Lead facilitators and data entry clerks in Data Quality Assessment to triangulate data
- Documenting success stories
- Prepared and submitted accurate, quality, and timely progress reports of all activities
- Ensure linkages between Savings groups and microfinance institutions for business financing
- lead in community mobilization for group formation and project stakeholders’ management.
Project Officer & National Trainer
World Relief International-Malawi
03.2010 - 04.2015
- Supervised 15 volunteers.
- Managed to establish agriculture demonstration plots as farmer field schools to cascade agriculture technologies
- Managed producer groups in the value chains of soya beans, Irish-potatoes, ground nuts and livestock.
- Reached to 2,500 women through Self Help Groups Approach aimed at Social and economic empowerment of women.
- Developed training materials and conducted capacity building for volunteers and savings groups
- Identified and resolved project issues and mitigated risks, reducing challenges and improving project results.
- Planning and conducting national trainings in Malawi in Self-Help Group Approach and Cluster level Association formation and management to 12 Non-Governmental Organizations
- Monitoring the trained NGOs in Malawi if they are implementing the Self-Help Group Approach per set operating guidelines
- Developed and deepened relationships with project key stakeholders.
- Monitored deadlines and milestones to keep team on track with project schedule.
- Kept senior management well-informed by preparing and presenting project status reports.
Education
Bachelor of Science - Degree in Managing Rural & Community Development
Share-World Open University
Malawi12.2019
Skills
Project management skills, strategic planning, research skills, data analysis and presentation skills, team building and mentorship, facilitation skills, resource mobilization, and communication skills
Additional Information
REFEREES:
- Luke Coulson (Director of Client Services) at Opportunity International, P.O. Box 464, Cell: +265 993 465 565. Email: LCoulson@opportunity.org
- Caitlin Shaw (National FSU Manager) at Farm Services Unit under Farmers World Ltd,), P.O. Box 1631, Cell: +265 991 694 452. Email: caitssvt@gmail.com
- Innocent Hauya (Former Livelihoods and Gender Specialist) at Family Health International 360, Cell: 0888590505, Email: spyhauya@yahoo.co.uk
- Jennie Vader (Former WE/VSL Technical Advisor at Project Concern International), Cell: +1(970) 209-9699, Email: jennie.vader@gmail.com
Languages
Chichewa
Native language
English
Proficient
C2
chichewa
Proficient
C2
Timeline
Agricultural Finance-Client Services Manager
Opportunity International
08.2022 - Current
Agricultural Extension Manager
Meridian Group Of Companies-Farm Services Unit Of Farmers World LTD.
07.2019 - 07.2022
Project Coordinator
Catholic Development Commision Of Malawi
10.2018 - 06.2019
Project Coordinator
Family Health International 360
12.2017 - 09.2018
Project Coordinator
Global Communities Formerly Known As Project Concern International
04.2016 - 11.2017
Project Officer & National Trainer
World Relief International-Malawi
03.2010 - 04.2015
Bachelor of Science - Degree in Managing Rural & Community Development
Share-World Open University
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