TROPICAL AGRICULTURE ASSOCIATION FUND
SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON JOB OPPORTUNITIES IN
RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
INTRODUCTION:

   Be clear about your reasons for looking for work overseas before reviewing the sources of information
below, these differ in the sort of opportunity they offer.  Perhaps the most important sorts are;
 

   Two main sections are presented here. The first briefly describes five categories of organization offering employment.
  A few examples are given for each category with a note on the sort of career opportunities usually available and a linked WW Web reference where one has been identified.
      The second section lists general sources of information on overseas employment opportunities, selected because they include a section on rural development.  The sources are WW Web sites and pamphlets produced  by interested agencies based in the UK. The pamphlets are likely to be available with, or obtainable by, the Careers Advisory Service at those universities with an interest in overseas development.
 

TYPES OF ORGANISATION & SORTS OF JOBS OFFERED

      On the whole experience has become a  prerequisite to be recruited for a long-term career, particularly with those organizations operating donor funded programmes.  Developing country governments naturally expect that on the job training integral to the programme will benefit their own people.  Volunteering, working with NGOs, working on university managed projects and internships with consultants, offer the best opportunities to gain initial overseas experience. Beyond these, commercial corporations and both multilateral and bilateral aid organizations take on younger staff in order to maintain their cadres of experience.
      Five main types of organization offer job opportunities in rural development overseas. Below is a brief text on the sorts of jobs offered by each type of organization, the level of qualifications usually needed, and useful web sites where these have been identified.

1. Commercial:
      Within this general category two types can be distinguished; companies directly engaged in primary production, and traders in agricultural supplies and equipment. These offer long term career opportunities and will have small cadres of people in training.  A few examples are listed under each type. Contact details for PLCs quoted on the stock exchange can be found at www.hemscott.net. The homepage of most PLCs can be found by using www.companyname.com. Contact information can also be found at www.worldyellowpages.com .
Primary production;
            There are opportunities with plantation companies, including some in  management as agents for governments or private owners, and some in the organization of central processing and marketing for the smallholder production of plantation crops.  There are also opportunities with large scale commercial producers of traded crops, animals and forest products.  Many companies originally founded as producers now offer management services, particularly in the Asian plantation sector. Much of the expertise in earlier commercial operations is now vested in consultancy companies which feature separately as the second category of organizations.
      Increasingly, for this category,  recruits come from the professional cadre in the country in which the enterprise is located. UK recruited staff will normally have agricultural degree qualifications. On recruitment they may be given charge of a production section, play a technical role in crop establishment and management, or pursue research. With experience there may be promotion into production management or into research. Some, CDC is an example (www.cdcgroup.com), have small intern schemes for exposing graduates to the type of work they offer.
      Examples: Brook Bond, Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC), James Finlay, BookerTate,  Harrison Fleming Advisory Services, Sime Darby Services, Mitchell-Cotts Group, British-American Tobacco Co.

Trade & Suppliers; This type of commercial operation, generally headquartered in Western Europe or North America, offers a range of overseas opportunities. The major seed, chemical and equipment companies carry out research, promote their products, and provide advice on their use.  A further type of company works with major retailers identifying sources of produce to fill market niches in North American and Western European markets. These sometimes establish and operate production companies to ensure reliable supplies.
      Examples: Pioneer Hibred, DeKalb, Cargill, Ciba-Geigy, Dow, Monsanto,  Dupont,  Fisons,  Zeneca,
      John Deere, Massey-Ferguson. Geest, Vitacress.

2. Consultancies,
      A wide range of consultancy companies compete for project design, implementation and evaluation contracts funded by the public aid agencies, particularly the World Bank, the European Union and DFID. They recruit professionals to support their project applications and to staff the contracts they win.  A link with a consultancy by placing your CV on their roster of skills, can provide intermittent opportunities to go overseas while pursuing a UK based career. Entry to such rosters is easiest after a preliminary career overseas to establish a base of experience.  Several larger consultancies offer internships to provide initial experience. Most have their own web page and many of these are listed at the web reference  www.euroagri.net    Some consultant companies are active across the whole spectrum of development sectors, some specialize in infrastructure development, irrigation and roads in particular, and retain professional capacity to support the human and agricultural dimensions of such projects where relevant.  Others specialize in rural development projects.
      Examples: Sir Alexander Gibbs, Sir William Halcrow, Hunting Technical Services, Cooper & Lybrand
      Associates, MASDAR, ULG Consultants, Agrisystems (Overseas) Ltd, Cargill plc, Landell-Mills Ltd.
      MacDonald Agricultural Services.

The British Institute of Agricultural Consultants is at The Estate Office, Torry Hill, Milstead, Sittingbourne, Kent ME9 0SP.  They publish a Directory annually which includes companies consulting in agriculture in UK and overseas, as well as individual consultants.

3. Public funded donor and programme organizations
      Perhaps public funded donor and development organizations offer the widest choice of job
opportunities in rural development overseas.  Varying levels of qualification are required but there are few opportunities for first degree holders. Most employers in this category will require an appropriate Masters qualification, some, including the CGIAR and the World Bank, require a Ph.D or MBA.  All offer long term career opportunities. These organizations all have their own web sites and are divided below into three types; Multilateral, bilateral, and UK based.

Multilateral foreign: The most prominent organizations of this type are the World Bank, the FAO, the UNDP, and the CGIAR each employing large numbers of professionals in rural development. The CGIAR and FAO, two organizations devoted wholly to agricultural research and development, employ over 3,000 professional specialists. Job opportunities within these organizations are covered at the web site
www.nt1.ids.ac.uk/eldis/jobs/job_lele and are linked from there to their homepages. The World Bank takes higher degree graduates into its ‘Young Professionals’ programme, which is detailed on its website. It also offers summer internships to provide exposure to Bank activities before final graduation with a Ph.D or MBA. The CGIAR Centers partner home universities in facilitating Ph.D students to  do field-work on which to base their theses using facilities at the Centre and in Centre field sites. The CGIAR donors sponsor ICRA. Based at the International Agricultural Centre, Wageningen and at Agropolis, Montpellier, France (http://icra.agropolis.fr) this is a seven month training course in applying participatory  methods to research and policy planning in agriculture. It includes 3-4 months in the field in a developing country.

Bilateral foreign: All developed countries have a cadre of rural development professionals in their bilateral aid organizations USAID, France, Germany, Denmark, the Scandanavian countries, Australia, Japan and Canada are among the most prominent. It is unusual [but not unknown] for these organizations to employ non-nationals, but their projects are often more flexible in their staffing. Web sites for the major bilaterals are listed under the reference www.nt1.ids.ac.uk/eldis/jobs/job_lele and linked from there to their home pages which are good sources of information on  projects being funded or in preparation.

UK based: The Department for International Development (DFID) is the UK bilateral aid agency. Two other organizations, partially publicly funded, are the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), now part of the University of Greenwich at Chatham, and  the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London. International divisions have recently been added to some agricultural research institutes, including Rothamstead (see www.iacr.ac.uk) and Wellsbourne. The Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux International(CABI) incorporates a number of science institutes with overseas programmes.
      DFID offers training opportunities through its ‘Associate Professional Officers Scheme’ (APOS). These provide practical work experience both overseas and in London. From 900 applications 51 APOS grants were made in 1998/99, of these only two were for academic training. The scheme documentation suggests that chances of a successful application are improved if the candidate has some overseas experience. Forms and further details are available through the DFID web site at www.dfid.gov.uk.
      ODI offers a fellowship scheme which provides post-graduate economists with practical work
experience in developing countries at www.oneworld.org/odi. The ODI scheme, like DFID’s, does not provide support for routine academic training.

4. Universities.
      Those universities with an interest in agricultural development overseas seek funding for projects from aid donors and these are planned, managed, and implemented by university faculty members.  Staffing may be wholly from the faculty or outside expertise may be sought to make up an appropriate team profile, particularly where professional staff are needed on the ground. Usually Masters level qualifications will be required for consideration. Opportunities to work on overseas projects being implemented by the university sometimes arise through signing on for the relevant Masters course in the university concerned.  This provides early experience.  The following are examples of universities undertaking overseas projects in agriculture, all have web sites, use the words shown to search for any particular university on the web.

International: Wageningen Agricultural University (in the Netherlands), The Swedish Agricultural University, The American Land Grant colleges; Uiversity of Florida Gainesville, Iowa State University, Cornell University, Michigan State University, University of California Davis.

UK: University of Wales, Bangor, University of Wales, Aberyswith, Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, University of Cranfield, University of Edinburgh, University of Newcastle, University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonnington, University of Reading, London University, Wye College of Agriculture.

5. Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).
      NGOs vary in the levels of salaries and conditions offered. Some see the moral drive as a reason for
lower salary levels than equivalent commercial or public organization positions. Others believe they need to be competitive to get the best people.  Many have some short term field assignments but in the main a longer term commitment, a year or more, is required. Three broad types are described briefly below, most have a web site.

International: The ‘multinational’ NGO has much in common organizationally with the multinational company with offices in countries in which it raises funds as well as countries in which it implements projects.  Examples are: Bread for the World, CARE, Freedom from Hunger, Heifer Project International, OXFAM, Winrock International, World Harvest, World Neighbours Inc., World Wildlife Fund. Some have a central cadre of professionals who are concerned with strategy, policy and project development.

UK based: British Overseas NGOs for Development (BOND) publish a Directory of Members listing some 200 UK based organizations working in developing countries, though only a minority, perhaps 60, work in agriculture and related areas. The Directory costs GBP 15.00 from the BOND Secretariat, Regents Wharf, 8 All Saints St. London N1 9RL. Email: bond@gn.apc.org . Most organizations listed in the Directory offer a website address.
Bond itself has a website at www.bond.org.uk . Many of the international NGOs such as OXFAM and CARE have a UK presence. Many others, including FARM-Africa, Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG),
SOS Sahel International (UK) and Voluntary Service Overseas, are UK based. SOS Sahel International offers 6 months internships for new graduates.

Local, developing country based NGO’s. Estimates show many thousands of local NGO’s in developing countries. For India alone the estimate is 10,000 +.  Few offer opportunities for expatriates, and those which do expect them to work under the same conditions as locals.  Some offer experience at a price.  The larger local NGOs receive donor funds and over the last decade, since the inception of participatory methods, there has been a trend towards donors using both external and local NGOs as a channel for project implementation. Examples of large local NGOs are; Environment and Development for the Third World(ENDA) in Africa, The International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) in Asia, Red Internacional Metologia de Investigacion de Systemas de Producion(RIMISP) in Latin America and Mysore Resettlement and Development Agency (MYRADA) in India. Use the acronyms to locate the homepages for these NGOs
 

GENERAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON OVERSEAS JOB OPPORTUNITIES

1. World Wide Web;
      None of the following addresses is rural development specific. Several allow searches using rural development or agriculture as a keyword or have an index in which agriculture and /or rural development feature.
      www.nt1.ids.ac.uk/eldis/jobs/job_lele  This website, funded by Danish aid and hosted by IDS Sussex,
offers a huge amount of information on jobs, including a list, ‘Yellow Monday’, of current jobs on offer which is renewed each week. It has links to a very wide range of websites of development oriented organizations.
      www.energ.polimi.it/development This website [currently being reconstructed as
http://www.coop4coop.org ] is a ‘World Directory of Development Organizations and Programmes’, with
over 2500 contacts and the web site references for many of these. It is organized, and can be searched by, Name, Nationality, Field of activity, Country and Country x Activity. Fields of Activity include Food Production, which incorporates agriculture, livestock and fishing, Development, which includes rural development, and Technology, which includes appropriate technology and technology transfer.
      www.oneworld.net This site has a facility at the bottom of the single home page with a drop down
menu which allows a jump to other pages on the site. Two listed categories are ‘Jobs’ and ‘Volunteering’. Both offer a range of current opportunities.
      Several websites specialize in opportunities for voluntary work, some are paid, some offer expenses only, others require a payment from the volunteer. The right voluntary work can contribute to one’s CV helping to create the experience base needed these days to obtain longer term professional posts overseas. Below are three web addresses for volunteers, the final one is specialized for school leavers.
           www.idealist.org Is the website of ‘Action without Borders’, the home page offers a list of sites including; volunteer opportunities, non-profit jobs, non-profit internships, consultant jobs and consultant internships. It also has a page which offers organizations which can help you volunteer abroad.
             www.workingabroad.com This address includes an application form. There is a charge [£20+] for providing 20 job opportunities which fit your profile of qualifications and experience. It also includes a list of voluntary organizations currently looking for staff.
           www.projecttrust.org.uk This offers school leavers a list of project opportunities they might take up
during a gap year between school and university.

2. AGCAS Graduate Careers Information booklets.
            Held in University Careers offices, a list of current titles and prices can be obtained from CSU, Despatch Department, Prospects House, Booth Street East, Machester M13 9EP, The three most relevant titles are;
      ‘Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry, Fisheries and Animal Care’, 1999 series, 33pp. Has a section on  careers, a section on information sources including addresses, and one on employers addresses which   includes websites. Each section has a small international sub-section.
      ‘Environmental Management, Protection and Conservation’, 1999 series with a similar layout.  ‘Working Abroad’, Special interest series.

3. Universities of Cambridge & Reading Careers Service pamphlet.
‘Development Work’, 48 pp. A ‘one-off’ pamphlet produced by collaboration between the Universities of
Cambridge and Reading and obtainable from the Careers Advisory Service at the respective universities, this includes sections on; The Experience Trap, Main Routes to a Career in Development, Personal Experiences, List of Potential Employers (which includes some based in other countries), Bibliography.

4. World Service Enquiry.
Produces a ‘Guide to Working for Development at Home and Overseas’ which is updated annually. It is available free of charge from World Service Enquiry, 1, Stockwell Green, London SW9 9HP. There is a website at http://www.wse.org.uk which is valuable for its lists of jobs available and also for the opportunity to review other cv’s offered for the jobs in which you have an interest. Some of the facilities on the site require payment, others not. You can place your profile on a register here as ‘available for work’.

5. Foundations
            Such foundations are endowments from a family or from a private corporation, which distinguishes them from NGO’s which raise funds as well as spending them on projects. The major foundations are important as possible sources of funding for those wishing to work on overseas projects.  There is a very well organized website at www.fdncenter.org/grantmaker allowing searches of a database of USA based charities.  The site offers a ‘prospect worksheet’ on which to profile your requirements and it matches these to grant makers interested in your areas of activity. There is a website www.caritas.co.uk/index for UK based charities. This is not as well organized but does provide details of some 1500 UK based charities.   Some foundations, the Geneva based Aga Khan Foundation is an example, have subsidiaries which implement field programmes. The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme in the Northern Areas in Pakistan is well known and well regarded. Similarly Winrock International is a project arm of the Rockefeller group of foundations. For these some recruitment is done directly through the project subsidiary rather than through the foundation.
 

[ please email any amendments, updates, corrections or useful additions to the TAA c/o: membership_secretary@taa.org.uk ]

Back to Front Page