Digital Assistance Services Consultant

Programme & Policy

Overview

Develop digital strategy and solutions for effective program delivery

You have:

• Advanced university degree in information technology, computer science, business management, telecommunications engineering or social sciences, or another degree with relevant work experience.
• Fluency (level C) in English language.
• Intermediate knowledge (level B) of a second official UN language: Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish, and/or WFP’s working language, Portuguese.
• At least 4 years of post-graduate progressively responsible professional experience in humanitarian aid operations and/or business systems analysis, design and development.
• Experience in client-facing roles in either technology implementation projects or in the planning, design and implementation of humanitarian or development programmes.
• Knowledge of and hands-on experience in cash-based transfers (CBT) programming in humanitarian contexts; awareness of technologies used in the delivery of cash and vouchers in humanitarian contexts.
• Ability to operate in distributed/decentralised teams, engage with and support partners.
• Highly-developed written and oral communication skills with the ability to influence and adapt communication styles to different situations and individuals.

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Female applicants and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply.

WFP seeks candidates of the highest integrity and professionalism who share our humanitarian principles.

Selection of staff is made on a competitive basis, and we are committed to promoting diversity and gender balance.

ABOUT WFP

The United Nations World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. The mission of WFP is to help the world achieve Zero Hunger in our lifetimes. Every day, WFP works worldwide to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry and that the poorest and most vulnerable, particularly women and children, can access the nutritious food they need.

In emergencies, WFP gets food to where it is needed, saving the lives of people affected by disasters, conflict, epidemics/pandemics and more. After an emergency, WFP uses food to help communities rebuild their shattered lives. On average, WFP reaches more than 100 million people with food assistance in 83 countries each year. The organization has the global footprint, deep field presence and local knowledge and relationships necessary to provide access to nutritious food and contribute to the lasting solutions, especially in many of the world’s most remote and fragile areas.

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

These jobs are found in Headquarters (HQ), Regional Bureaux (RBs) or Country Offices (COs) and job holders report to a more senior Programme Policy Officer. Job holders operate with a high degree of independence, manage more junior staff to ensure that programme and policy objectives are achieved in full. They are usually involved in a wide variety of programme and policy activities and analytical work, some of which may be of a considerable complexity. At this level job holders are expected to contribute to performance improvement.

JOB PURPOSE

The World Food Programme has developed and is continuing to enhance and maintain digital solutions to help in identifying, registration and transferring entitlements, assistance to its beneficiaries, ensure the operations are carried out efficiently and related risks are identified and managed.The consultant will work under the direct supervision of Head of Programme and will work closely with CBT / SCOPE unit in CO, IT, Digital Assistance Services (DAS) in RBB and HQ, coordinate a cross-functional technical team that works closely with Programme and the Strategic Outcome activities to assure that needs for digitalization initiatives are clearly defined and well-coordinated.

The consultant will support the country office (CO) in the operationalization of SCOPE and related DAS for WFP. This will include analyzing new requirements and functionalities for the CO, the programmatic needs including exploring the possibility of scaling up SCOPE. The position holder will develop country office digital roadmap that fulfil business objectives while ensuring corporate guidelines are adhered to.

BACKGROUND

WFP Nepal has been implementing its five-year Country Strategic Plan (CSP) 2019-2023. It contributes to five Strategic Outcomes (SOs) that are aligned to five Strategic Results of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG 17 (Partnerships for Development). The five Strategic Outcomes (SO) are: SO 1: affected populations in Nepal have timely access to adequate food and nutrition during and in the aftermath of natural disasters and/or other shocks. SO 2: Food Insecure people in targeted areas have improved nutrition throughout the key stages of the life-cycle by 2025. SO 3: Vulnerable communities in remote, food-insecure areas of Nepal have improved food security and resilience to climate and other shocks by 2030. SO 4: The Government of Nepal has strengthened capabilities to provide essential food security services and respond to crises by 2023. SO 5: Government efforts towards achieving Zero Hunger by 2030 are supported by inclusive and coherent policy frameworks across all spheres of government by 2023.

To be able to serve the people in need, WFP uses digital tools and technologies to efficiently carry out its activities across different SOs. With the changing context, the CO aims to prepare its strategy on digital transformation and support CO in identification of gaps.

In addition, under the coordination of UNRCO, UN Agencies in Nepal have been developing UN Common Cash Framework, with aim of collaboration in various stages of humanitarian cash response in Nepal among UN Agencies, including beneficiary information registration and management. This framework enables UN Agencies working within the framework to share the beneficiary data and or use a single platform for registration and management. WFP has offered its platform SCOPE to other UN Agencies for the same if necessary.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

JOB TITLE: Digital Assistance Services Consultant TYPE OF CONTRACT: International Consultancy L/I UNIT/DIVISION: Programme DUTY STATION (City, Country): Kathmandu, Nepal DURATION: 4 months

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

• Engage with senior management at strategic and operational levels to develop Country Office-digital Solutions Roadmap based on the CSP, Digital Transformation solutions and key digital products available in WFP corporate portfolio.
• Lead in the development of country specific digital strategy for WFP and planning to advocate for business results and outcomes in compliance with WFP policies, standards and strategy.
• Assess and advise on how WFP’s posture should look like at both the country office and field office levels that quickly adapts to critical events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and other natural and manmade disasters ensuring also that all units / systems, tools and applications talk to each other thereby increasing collaboration within WFP and across all partners we work with.
• Assess and develop a strategy on WFP’s approach to partnerships that promote digital transformation as well as ensure WFP’s comparative advantage in creating digital ecosystem in Nepal including supporting the achievement of SDG 9 on Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure through generating employment and income.
• Analyse the business requirement, identify the needs and gaps in operations, recommend the WFP’s corporate systems or the need for innovation and development.
• Recommend the appropriate digital tools to be adopted throughout assistance delivery eco system from WFP’s corporate tools.
• Capacity and needs assessment for human resource and technology for Digital Assistance Service and provide recommendation for WFP CO.
• Support in identifying and preparing specific functionality and improvement needs requirement related to SCOPE, analytics, dashboards and reporting.
• Active participation in Beneficiary Data Management Working Group (BDM-WG) under UN Common Cash Framework and its activities. Support in collaboration among UN agencies in establishing Data Sharing Agreements, explore the possibility and challenges in joint beneficiary registration and management through SCOPE and other arrangements for beneficiary deduplication.
• Ensure Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for digital solutions where necessary are prepared and are available.
• Support the management of change brought about by the use of technology in CO/Programme processes.
• Provide supervision and support with international perspective to Digital Payment Solutions Consultant to ensure the assessment of regulatory framework and existing digital transfer solutions that are available and being used by other humanitarian partners are done and necessary recommendation is provided for different forms of cash and voucher assistance program of WFP.
• Perform any other duties as required.

DELIVERABLES AT THE END OF ASSIGNMENT

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• Country office digital transformation road map and workable digital strategy and options developed for the country office supporting WFP to adapt to critical events.
• Understand operation need and requirements defined and recommendation for the appropriate corporate tools. Recommendation for additional tools, systems required for CO Operations if needed and its specifications.
• Updated Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) as required

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education: Advanced university degree in information technology, computer science, business management, telecommunications engineering or social sciences, or another degree wtih relevant work experience.

Language: Fluency (level C) in English language. Intermediate knowledge (level B) of a second official UN language: Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish, and/or WFP’s working language, Portuguese.

DESIRED EXPERIENCES FOR ENTRY INTO THE ROLE

• At least 4 years of post-graduate progressively responsible professional experience in humanitarian aid operations and/or business systems analysis, design and development.
• Experience in client-facing roles in either technology implementation projects or in the planning, design and implementation of humanitarian or development programmes.
• Experience in collaborating with different humanitarian actors or different service providers to design on payment mechanisms and instruments and and capacity building to coordinate the delivery of assistance in humanitarian contexts.

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

• Knowledge of and hands-on experience in cash-based transfers (CBT) programming in humanitarian contexts; awareness of technologies used in the delivery of cash and vouchers in humanitarian contexts; and training and knowledge of business analysis and project management philosophies and methodologies would be an asset.
• Possession of a combination of broad business skills and IT experience including: general management skills in business and public sector contexts; Business analysis including creation and review of functional and non-functional business requirements for IT solutions.
• Ability to operate in distributed / decentralised teams, engage with and support partners;
• Ability to perform under pressure, to multi-task, to navigate through multiple priorities and conflicting requests;
• Ability to work independently through appropriate personal initiative and regular follow-ups;
• Highly-developed written and oral communication skills with the ability to influence and adapt communication styles to different situations and individuals;
• Collaborative hands-on team member and relationship-builder with a facilitative nature and strong business partnering skills towards colleagues and stakeholders;
• Detail-oriented; Ethics & Values; Client Orientation.

4Ps CORE ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITIES

Purpose

• Understand and communicate the Strategic Objectives: Understands WFP’s Strategic Objectives and the link to own work objectives.
• Be a force for positive change: Flexibly adapts individual contributions to accommodate changes in direction from supervisors and internal/external changes (such as evolving needs of beneficiaries, new requirements of partners).
• Make the mission inspiring to our team: Recognizes and shares with team members the ways in which individual contributions relate to WFP’s mission.
• Make our mission visible in everyday actions: Sets own goals in alignment with WFP’s overall operations, and is able to communicate this link to others.

People

• Look for ways to strengthen people's skills: Assesses own strengths and weaknesses to increase self-awareness, and includes these in conversations on own developmental needs.
• Create an inclusive culture: Participates in open dialogue, and values the diverse opinion of others, regardless of background, culture, experience, or country assignment.
• Be a coach & provide constructive feedback: Proactively seeks feedback and coaching to build confidence, and develop and improve individual skills.
• Create an “I will”/”We will” spirit: Participates in accomplishing team activities and goals in the face of challenging circumstances.

Performance

• Encourage innovation & creative solutions: Shows willingness to explore and experiment with new ideas and approaches in own work.
• Focus on getting results: Consistently delivers results within individual scope of work on time, on budget and without errors.
• Make commitments and make good on commitments: Commits to upholding individual accountabilities and responsibilities in the face of ever-changing country or functional priorities.
• Be Decisive: Makes rational decisions about individual activities when faced with uncertain circumstances, including in times of ambiguity regarding information or manager direction.

Partnership

• Connect and share across WFP units: Seeks to understand and adapt to internal or cross-unit teams’ priorities and preferred working styles.
• Build strong external partnerships: Demonstrates ability to understand and appropriately respond to and/or escalate needs of external partners.
• Be politically agile & adaptable: Portrays an informed and professional demeanor toward internal and external partners and stakeholders.
• Be clear about the value WFP brings to partnerships: Provides operational support on analyses and assessments that quantifies and demonstrates WFP’s unique value as a partner.

FUNCTIONAL CAPABILITIES

Capability Name Description of the behaviour expected for the proficiency level Programme Lifecycle & Food Assistance Displays ability to identify the main hunger problem at the national or subnational level to design and implement context-specific programmes that integrate complex analysis and the full range of food assistance tools. Transfer Modalities (Food, Cash, Voucher) Demonstrates ability to analyse and consolidate quantitative and qualitative information from different sources (e.g., market studies) to inform transfer modality selection and programme development. Broad Knowledge of Specialized areas (i.e. Nutrition, VAM, etc.) Demonstrates the ability to interpret basic data in the context of WFP specialised fields to contribute to technical programme design, implementation and monitoring. Emergency Programming Displays ability to translate understanding of programme principles in emergencies and protracted conflict situations into relevant, effective, and context specific approaches. Strategic Policy Engagement w/ Government Develops thorough recommendations using multiple inputs (e.g., government counsel, research, own experience) to strengthen national or subnational entities and government owned food and nutrition security programmes.

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

Saturday, 06 November 2021

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

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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.

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Potential interview questions

Added 4 years ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: wfp.org