INTERNAL CALL (RFP301218) POSTDOCTORATE FELLOW- FECB

THE ORGANIZATION

The Alliance of Bioversity International & CIAT delivers research-based solutions that harness agricultural biodiversity and sustainably transform food systems to improve people’s lives. Alliance solutions address the global crisis of malnutrition, climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation.

The Alliance works with local, national, and multinational partners across Sub Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and Asia, and with public and private sectors. The Alliance is part of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future, dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources and ecosystem services.

About the position

The Postdoctoral fellow will support the Food Environment and Consumer Behavior team in Africa in the design, implementation, and publication of food system research especially on diets, consumer behavior, global and domestic food markets, value chains, market system, and circular economy. This will be part of a regional team working on a diverse portfolio of research and development processes in Kenya, and across Africa seeking to improve the performance of food systems to deliver healthy diets to everyone. Cross cutting issues to be addressed included, economic inclusion, women and youth empowerment, and environmental sustainability. The position is full-time, office-based, and located in Nairobi, Kenya.

Key duties & responsibilities

• Support the Food Environment and Consumer Behavior (FECB) team in Africa by designing, implementing, publishing research and fundraising on food systems, with a focus on diets, consumer behavior, food markets, and circular economy.

• Contribute to regional research and development initiatives in Kenya and across Africa aimed at improving food systems to deliver healthy diets while promoting inclusion, women and youth empowerment, and environmental sustainability.

• Monitor the programs’ funding pipeline, ongoing portfolio, and Lever staff time coverage, in coordination with the regional Finance and HR teams and the Program Associates, providing feedback to the project leaders on the status of their projects advising them on action to be taken with regard to project extensions, budget reallocations and any other action.

• Work closely with Alliance communications team to plan and execute an internal and external communications strategy for the Bean program in Africa.

• Coordinate institutional representation, partnership building; supports capacity building schemes for research teams and partners.

• Collaborate closely with researchers, project leaders, and Alliance colleagues, and engages with a wide range of external stakeholders including research partners, policymakers, donors, private sector actors, and food system stakeholders across Africa.

• Facilitate workshops, coordinates fieldwork teams, and builds collaborative networks to support research, policy engagement, and fundraising activities.

• Deliver high-quality research outputs, including data collection and analysis, technical reports, peer-reviewed publications, and policy-relevant recommendations.

• Contribute to successful project implementation, stakeholder engagement activities, and proposal development to support the FECB research portfolio in Africa.

• A doctoral degree (or almost completing a doctoral degree) in agricultural economics, applied economics, behavioral economics, health economics, economic/human geography,  political science, consumer science or a related social science discipline with an interest in cross-disciplinary research

• Topical experience in food environment, circular economy, gender, private sector engagement, inclusive business models, market systems, or food systems

• Experience facilitating workshops with food system stakeholder

• Successful participation in project implementation with diverse teams

• Substantial experience working in Africa

• Experience publishing scientific peer reviewed articles and on-peer reviewed outputs

• Desirable: Experience with non-traditional data collection and visualization methods and tools including web-based, satellite images, phone surveys, data mining, textual analysis, use of AI, Tableau or similar

• Desirable: Experience in fundraising

• Experience designing and using mixed methods for data collection and employing diverse analytical tools such as “Stata”, “R”, “Nvivo”, etc.

• Strong skills in data visualization, presentation tools and writing for communicating research results to both academic and non-academic audiences

• Creative problem-solver who asks good questions and can set up approaches to answer them

• Good communication skills both written and oral. Evidence of previous written work showing strong writing skills (i.e. journal articles, reports, blog series, etc.)

• Organized self-starter capable of delivering high quality results on time with limited day-today oversight

• Comfortable working in English

Terms of employment

This is a nationally recruited position based in Nairobi, Kenya. The initial contract will be for one year, subject to a probation period of three months and is renewable depending on performance and availability of resources.

This position is graded at BG08 level, with a minimum basic salary of KES 307,706 in a scale of BG01 to BG14 (BG14 being the highest level according to the Alliance job classification framework policy). We offer a competitive salary and excellent benefits including but not limited to insurance, retirement plan, staff training and development, paid time off and flexible working arrangements.

The Alliance Bioversity-CIAT is committed to fair, safe, and inclusive workplaces. We believe that diversity powers our innovation, contributes to our excellence, and is critical for our mission. Recruiting and mentoring staff to create an inclusive organization that reflects our global character is a priority. We encourage applicants from all cultures, races, colors, religions, sexes, national or regional origins, ages, disability statuses, sexual orientations, marital status, and gender identities. Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

Applications

Applicants are invited to visit https://alliancebioversityciat.org/careers to get full details of the position and to submit their applications. Applications MUST include reference number RFP301218- Post Doctorate Fellow as the position applied for. Cover letter and CV should be saved as one document using the candidate’s last name, first name for ease of sorting. The Alliance collects and process personal data in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

Applications closing date: 8th May 2026

Please note that email applications will not be considered.

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

We invite you to learn more about us at: 

http://alliancebioversityciat.org