Cash Transfer Services Officer (Lead) (International Consultant)

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WFP celebrates and embraces diversity. It is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all its employees and encourages qualified candidates to apply irrespective of race, colour, national origin, ethnic or social background, genetic information, gender, gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, religion or belief, HIV status or disability.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Position Title: Lead Cash Transfer Services Officer (International Consultant)

Contract type & Grade: International Consultant (Level II)

Duty Station/travel: WFP Afghanistan Country Office

Compensation package: Competitive Monthly Honorarium, Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA), Rest & Recuperation (R&R) every 4 weeks (7 days), Medical Coverage, and Danger Pay. All benefits and entitlements are subject to respective ICSC rules and regulations.

Duration: Initial period of six (6) months.

WFP Work Environment: WFP is committed to ensuring that all its workplaces are free from abuse, offensive behaviour, harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. WFP is also committed to promoting a work culture in which every employee understands, and is able to carry out, his/her personal responsibilities for maintaining the dignity of work colleagues. WFP seeks to promote gender equality Gender equality | World Food Programme (wfp.org) and the empowerment of women. We believe our mission of fighting global hunger worldwide can only be achieved if women, men, girls and boys are offered equal opportunities in terms of access to resources and services and participation in decision making roles.

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

17 March 2022

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

1. Coordinate and serve as the lead focal point for WFP’s On-Demand Cash Transfer Services that facilitate other humanitarian and development actors to avail of WFP’s financial systems, platforms, and established contracts to transfer funds to beneficiaries in Afghanistan. This is includes to coordinate with the WFP in-country CBT team lead on all operational and strategic discussions, and alignments. 2. Manage the relationship with the potential service users and take the lead on detailing the requirements for each use case, following through to the signature of the agreement. This is includes to coordinate with the WFP finance team on formulating budgets and setting the cost recovery rates for each agreement. 3. Liaise with the Global Privacy Officer to ensure all agreements adhere to WFP’s data protection and privacy policies and strategies. 4. Develop a localized service catalogue for Cash-On-Demand Services with all applicable costing options to be presented to senior management and technical programme leads, in addition to potential service users including UN agencies, international and national NGOs, governments, international financial institutions (IFIs), and humanitarian aid entities. 5. Coordinate with WFP’s global finance and legal teams to support the finalization of agreements in a timely manner. 6. Manage the relationship with the existing financial service providers and act as the focal point for the additional on-demand cash transfer opportunities. 7. Initiate and coordinate inputs for budget revisions, in collaboration with WFP finance, budget and programming teams, to include a standalone activity for the On-Demand Cash Transfer Services. 8. Guide and coordinate other internal units to ensure synchronized technical backstopping and compliance with corporate policy, strategic objectives, and guidance. 9. In collaboration with other internal units, develop and update standard operational procedures (SOPs) for the provision of cash transfer services, and ensure they are aligned with corporate standards and guidelines. 10. Provide capacity building for functional units on processes, steps, and guidelines of On-Demand Cash Transfer Services. Moreover, coordinate with regional CBT and SP teams to share and learn from best practices of On-Demand Cash Transfer Services. 11. Participate in key inter-agency working groups, coordination meetings and other fora to present WFP On-Demand Cash Transfer Services as a CBT modality option for the humanitarian development community.

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education: Advanced university degree in political/social sciences, international development, development economics, or related fields or First University Degree with additional years of related work experience and/or trainings/courses.

Experience: Minimum 5 years’ professional experience is required. Desired Experience: o Experience in establishing or managing cash operations including coordination with internal and external stakeholders and supporting emergency programs o Experience in financial-service provision related to cash trasnfers o Experience in operational and strategic CBT planning o Experience in developing and managing customer relationships and/or inter-agency collaboration o Experience supervising teams of professional staff

Knowledge & Skills:

• Knowledge of major humanitarian and development challenges and issues, specifically strategies and/or policies at global/regional/national level for building resilience and developing livelihoods. • Knowledge of emergency preparedness, preparedness planning, early warning, and emergency response. • Strong teamwork and coordination capacities. • Understanding of donor policies, strategies, and programmes priorities in relation to resilience building. • Proven ability and experience in the development of interagency networks, partnerships, strategies and communications initiatives.

Languages: Fluency in both oral and written communication in English.

DELIVERABLES:

1. Established On-Demand Cash Transfer Service with required strategy, operational plan, and service management tools. 2. Established On-Demand Cash Transfer Services offered effectively to contract humanitarian development partners. 3. Established processes and intra-organizational understanding of the legal, financial and compliance related components of the On-Demand Cash Transfer Service. 4. Established SOPs and KPIs for the performance of the On-Demand Cash Transfer Service, as agreed upon by senior management. 5. As required in line with above detailed accountabilities and as per the annual workplan

ABOUT WFP

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is the world’s largest humanitarian agency, fighting hunger worldwide. More than half the population of Afghanistan – a record 22.8 million people – will face acute food insecurity in 2022. The combined effects of drought, conflict, COVID-19, and the economic crisis, have severely affected lives, livelihoods, and people’s access to food.

The team of more than 600 staff, around 550 of which are female and male Afghan nationals are working tireless to bring emergency food and nutrition assistance to the millions of people suffering across the country. The assistance provided by WFP includes emergency food assistance, school meals, nutrition programmes and important self-reliance and resilience programmes. The packet of support can include food, cash, or vouchers.

In conflict situations, we bring relief to exhausted populations and use food assistance to build pathways to peace and stability – work for which WFP was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020.

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

The hunger crisis is unfolding at a rapid speed, with over half of Afghanistan’s population of 40 million now facing acute food insecurity—the highest number the humanitarian community has ever seen in the country.

Years of compounded crises and under-investment have resulted in nearly four times the number of people in need of life-saving humanitarian assistance compared to just three years ago in Afghanistan. Following the withdrawal of foreign troops in August 2021 and the near collapsing economic situation, in 2022, an estimated 24.4 million people are in urgent humanitarian need.

To address this alarming humanitarian crisis, WFP is undertaking an ambitious cash and vouchers response scale-up in Afghanistan. Last year, WFP provided USD $36 million in cash-based transfers (CBT) to over 2.6 million people in support of emergency assistance, school-based programs, and resilience activities. This year, WFP is scaling up to reach 23 million people with cash and voucher assistance.

In addition, AFG CO launched a commodity voucher intervention in December in Kabul City and in January in Herat and Mazar respectively. It is planned to expand to other area offices as appropriate. This complements WFP’s cash-based response, which is diversifying financial service providers (FSPs) to include banks, remittance agents, mobile money operators, money service providers (MSPs) to ensure sufficient capacity and minimize risks.

WFP has been adopting its innovative and agile cash and voucher programming for over a decade, co-leading the Afghanistan cash and voucher working group, leading on its market-price-monitoring, and furthering analytical work to benefit wider humanitarian and development actors. As such, WFP has positioned itself as a partner of choice for the provision of cash and vouchers services to the humanitarian community.

WFP is now seeking a Cash Transfer Services Officer to lead an on-demand cash transfer service that facilitates other humanitarian and development actors to be facilitated by WFP’s financial systems, platforms and established contracts to transfer funds to beneficiaries in Afghanistan.

Female applicants and qualified applicants from developing countries are especially encouraged to apply WFP has zero tolerance for discrimination and does not discriminate on the basis of HIV/AIDS status. No appointment under any kind of contract will be offered to members of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), FAO Finance Committee, WFP External Auditor, WFP Audit Committee, Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) and other similar bodies within the United Nations system with oversight responsibilities over WFP, both during their service and within three years of ceasing that service.