WBG Pioneer - AgriConnect Europe Intern

Background/Organizational Context

By 2050, the world's farmers will need to feed 10 billion people - 2 billion more than today. This increased demand for food is a challenge, particularly as much of the world''s food - roughly 80 percent - is grown by family farms, many of whom remain stuck in subsistence farming due to limited access to electricity, storage, training, market access, and commercial finance.

AgriConnect, a flagship World Bank Group initiative, aims to break this cycle and help 300 million farmers move from subsistence to surplus by building the right ecosystem for farmers and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to move up the value chain - strengthening cooperatives, improving market links, and enhancing access to finance and digital tools.

Europe''s agri-food system is central to this effort. The region is home to some of the world''s leading grain and oilseed exporters, alongside millions of smallholders and SMEs whose growth is held back by policy and regulatory barriers, fragmented value chains, limited access to finance, and infrastructure gaps. AgriConnect is responding with country-level engagements across key geographies globally.

IFC''s Manufacturing, Agribusiness & Services (MAS) team leads AgriConnect''s delivery in Europe and is seeking a motivated intern to support delivery of this flagship initiative across the region.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the AgriConnect Europe team, the intern will support the design and implementation of the AgriConnect initiative in the EUR region. Specific responsibilities include:

• Sector and Solutions Research. Supporting research and analysis on agri-food sector trends, value chains, and bottlenecks across priority countries in the Europe region. Contributing to the mapping of potential anchor firms, cooperatives, and financial institutions for engagement under AgriConnect pillars.
• Joint Implementation Plan Support. Contributing to the validation of country-level Joint Implementation Plans for AgriConnect in Europe, including consolidating feedback and tracking outstanding inputs, and developing and maintaining a tracking tool to monitor plan validation status, launch readiness milestones, and partner engagement.
• Cross-Institutional Coordination. Maintaining a stakeholder and workstream map across IBRD/IDA, IFC, and MIGA activities related to AgriConnect in each Europe AgriConnect country, to support visibility and coordination and to help identify duplication or gaps.
• Launch and Stakeholder Event Coordination. Supporting the planning of AgriConnect launch activities in the Europe region, including drafting event concept notes, identifying potential government, private sector, and donor participants, and coordinating logistics for stakeholder meetings and workshops.
• Knowledge Products and Communications. Drafting and providing inputs to briefing materials, presentations, talking points, knowledge products, case studies, and lessons-learned materials
• Other Assigned Tasks. Performing other related tasks, as assigned by the supervisor to support the team''s work program.