Peace Corps Bénin recrute 01 Agriculture Extension Volunteer
Peace Corps Bénin
Madagascar
Agriculture Extension Volunteer
Project Description
Madagascar continues to be ranked 164th on the United Nations Human Development Index. Agriculture contributes only 25% to Madagascar’s GDP but employs 80% of the workforce. Malnutrition and stunting among children are common. The Government of Madagascar (GoM) has limited agricultural extension capacity, leaving an important gap in the GoM’s ability to empower small-holder famers and households with important skills for ensuring sustainable and diverse food production. Notably, there is limited capacity in bio-intensive production and low-cost, asset-based soil management to maximize food production on limited land. Additionally, capacity is limited in low-cost, asset-based, climate-smart agriculture techniques essential for managing erratic rain events or periods of prolonged drought or rainfall.
Food insecurity, malnutrition, and stunting among children are common in Madagascar. To address food production and household nutrition needs, Volunteers in Peace Corps Madagascar’s Food Security Project work collaboratively to support the priorities of household decision makers, gardeners, and farmers to create and maintain bio-intensive, daily-access, climate-smart growing spaces that produce nutrient-dense food for family consumption.
The purpose of Peace Corps Madagascar’s agriculture project is to support improved food and nutrition security for Malagasy households through two main objectives:
1. Farmers and other stakeholders develop improved capacity in small, local, bio-intensive, climate-smart food production to increase daily availability of and access to nutrient-dense food for household consumption.
2. Women of reproductive age and/or key household decision makers develop their capacity to consume a more diverse and nutritious diet.
Agricultural Extension Volunteers can work with lead farmers, NGOs, community-based organizations, schools, and key community members to promote a variety of sustainable agricultural practices including bio-intensive gardens, agroforestry, and climate-smart agriculture. To promote healthy nutrition, Volunteers work with household decision makers (e.g., mothers) and co-conduct nutrition trainings and cooking demonstrations. Peace Corps Madagascar provides training on these activities to ensure that enthusiastic generalists with a limited agriculture and nutrition background are equipped to support their community.
Peace Corps Madagascar promotes gender awareness and girls’ education and empowerment. Volunteers will receive training on gender challenges in Madagascar and will have the opportunity to co-implement gender-related activities that are contextually appropriate. During service, Volunteers will partner with community members to promote gender-equitable norms and increase girls’ sense of agency. As part of their work, Volunteers will also report on these efforts and their impact.
In the past three years, the world has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a Volunteer, you will be trained in how to best protect yourself from COVID-19 exposure and understand the impact of and steps to reduce stigma related to COVID-19. You may also have the opportunity to engage with your community in implementing or enhancing COVID-19 mitigation activities, such as COVID-19 prevention and risk reduction strategies including social distancing, hand washing, mask wearing, addressing myths and misconceptions related to these practices, and vaccine hesitancy. Activities will be tailored to address the COVID-19 circumstances in the communities where you will serve.
Climate Change Activities
As the impacts of climate change become ever more evident, the social, economic, and environmental context within which smallholder farmers seek to maintain and improve their livelihood and support their families will continue to change. This will add significantly to the challenges of smallholder farming, particularly for the most disadvantaged communities. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, you will be trained to use a participatory approach and tools to identify locally determined priorities and conditions, including those related to the impacts of climate change. As an Agriculture Volunteer, you will be trained to use this local knowledge in engaging smallholder farmers in a climate-smart approach that:
• promotes the adoption of improved, appropriate, and adaptive agricultural practices and technologies that sustainably increase productivity;
• builds and strengthens household resilience by integrating and diversifying existing and new agriculture-related income-generating opportunities; and
• reduces greenhouse gas emissions attributable to ineffective and carbon intensive farming practices and encourages adoption of agricultural practices and activities that sequester carbon.
COVID-19 Volunteer Activities
As a Volunteer, you will be trained in how to best protect yourself from COVID-19 exposure and understand the impact of and steps to reduce stigma related to COVID-19. You may also have the opportunity to engage with your community on implementing or enhancing COVID-19 mitigation activities, such as COVID-19 prevention and risk reduction strategies including social distancing, hand washing, mask wearing, addressing myths and misconceptions related to these practices, and vaccine hesitancy. Activities will be tailored to address the COVID-19 circumstances in the communities where you will serve.
Required Skills
Qualified candidates will have an expressed interest in working in agriculture and one or more of the following criteria:
• Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science degree in any field
OR
• 5 years’ professional work experience
Desired Skills
Highly competitive candidates have extensive experience in one or more of the following:
• Agronomy, Horticulture, Agribusiness, Agroforestry, Food Security, Climate Smart Agriculture or crop production fields
• Experience in a variety of farming techniques
• Experience in nutrition education and promotion
• School garden experience is highly desirable
Required Language Skills
There are no pre-requisite language requirements for this position.
Volunteers will be required to learn Malagasy language. It is essential for successful Volunteer service. Trainees who do not reach minimum language skills by the close of Pre-Service Training may not be sworn-in as Volunteers.
In limited ways, French language skills can be useful in some areas of the country. Volunteers will not use French in their daily lives and work, but French is often a transactional and technical language. For example, newspapers, restaurants, tourist activities, or technical reports by partner organizations may utilize French. Peace Corps Madagascar does not provide French language training, and the ability to speak French will not affect the requirement to achieve the minimum required language skills.
Living Conditions
Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world and one of 17 megadiverse countries. Its terrain is diverse, and the climate can change drastically from the coast to the highlands. Volunteers are placed throughout the east coast, the highlands, northwest, the southeast, and the deep south, and living conditions can vary greatly from one Volunteer site to another. Volunteers should be flexible, resilient, and willing to live in very modest conditions – likely without electricity or running water. Agriculture Volunteers typically live in small villages, often with a population less than 2,000.
• Housing: During service, Volunteers live in private one-room or two-room housing. House material often depends on the region, with walls made out of local wooden material on the coast and bricks in the highlands. Volunteers have individual outdoor bath houses and shared or individual latrines, but often no running water or electricity. Some communities may have access to generators or solar chargers that can provide electricity or battery recharge, but that is not standard.
• Communication: Almost all communication is conducted by cell phone. You will have an opportunity to buy your phone during Pre-Service Training if you did not bring an unlocked phone from the States. Call costs are based on the number of minutes used and texts sent and are deducted immediately. Incoming calls and texts, even from the US, are free. It is possible for many to access very slow Internet or messaging apps through the purchase of local data plans for smartphones.
• Transportation: On a case by case basis, Peace Corps may provide a bike, helmet, and basic bicycle maintenance training to assist you in daily routines such as biking to nearby markets or visiting sites around your village if needed. You may also be required to walk or bike between 3 to 10 kilometers to reach a main road, a weekly market, or an outlying village where community partners live and work.
• Food: In Madagascar, rice is the staple. Other foods include cassava, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and corn. Meat and fish could be expensive or difficult to find depending on the region where you serve. Fish is more present on the coast and beef and chicken in the highlands. A variety of beans and peanuts can be used as sources of protein. Vegetables vary by region but most of them are produced in the highlands.
Madagascar is graced with wonderful, though seasonal, fruits such as pineapples, peaches, plums, bananas, mangoes, papayas, etc. But during the off-season, specific fruits may be unavailable and unevenly distributed across country. You will do your shopping at the local market, but some items might have to be purchased at a larger town. Usually your banking town located a few hours away by public transportation
Strict vegetarians and vegans may be challenged and will need to remain flexible, including during Pre-Service Training. Volunteers should be mindful of food customs in Madagascar: turning down a plate because it has meat may be seen as rejecting a gift. Volunteers have found it possible but difficult to maintain a vegetarian diet in Madagascar.
• Culture: The cultural environment of Madagascar is known as social and welcoming. Volunteers are generally welcomed, but Volunteers of diverse backgrounds may experience challenges. There are support networks and trainings in place for navigating these challenges.
• Malaria is highly endemic and Volunteers must be prepared to take chemoprophylaxis without exception during their 2 years of service, including when going abroad for vacation.
Learn more about the Volunteer experience in Madagascar at https://www.peacecorps.gov/madagascar/. Use the menu options on the left to review information about training, health, safety, security, and more.
Serving in Madagascar
Learn more about the Volunteer experience in Madagascar: Get detailed information on culture, communications, housing, health, and safety — including health and crime statistics — in order to make a well-informed decision about serving.
Couples Information
Couples wishing to apply to Madagascar must both apply to the Agriculture Extension Volunteer position.
While people in Madagascar may be generally tolerant, values concerning sexual orientation and gender identity may be different than some parts of the U.S. Same-sex marriages are not permitted under Malagasy law. Volunteers will need to be mindful of cultural norms, and use their judgment to determine the best way to approach sexual orientation and gender identity in their communities and host countries. Staff and currently serving Volunteers will address this topic during pre-service training, and identify support mechanisms for incoming trainees.
Madagascar is a patriarchal society, so the male is often times seen as the head of the family. Some couples will often face situations where the community seeks to first listen to the husband. Couples have to find their own culturally appropriate strategies to challenge their coworkers about their views on gender roles and gender equality. As in many patriarchal societies, Malagasy people tend to believe that men are more capable to conduct intensive manual labor compared to women (such as agriculture, for example). Therefore, couples are supported by staff, peer-support network, and community partners on effectively supporting each other when navigating these different gender roles expectations.
The Peace Corps works to foster safe and productive assignments for same-sex couples, and same-sex couples are not placed in countries where homosexual acts are criminalized. Same-sex couple placements are more limited than heterosexual couple placements. During the application process Recruiters and Placement Officers work closely with same-sex couple applicants to understand current placement opportunities. For more information please visit: https://www.peacecorps.gov/faqs/lgbtq/.
Medical Considerations
Before you apply, please review Medical Information for Applicants to learn about the medical clearance process.
COUNTRY
Madagascar
REGION
Africa
SECTOR
Agriculture
LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT
None
ACCEPTS COUPLES
Yes
APPLY BY
February 1, 2023
KNOW BY
March 1, 2023
DEPART BY
September 2, 2023POSTULER