Innovative Financing 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.

ABOUT WFP

The World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organization saving lives and changing lives, delivering food assistance in emergencies, and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. We are currently seeking to fill an Innovative Financing Consultancy position in the INKA division, based in Munich, Germany.

Brief description of WFP Innovation Accelerator, INKA:

The World Food Programme (WFP) is the United Nations frontline agency fighting hunger. WFP reaches more than 100 million people every day - delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with smallholder farmers, communities, and governments to improve nutrition and build resilience.

The WFP Innovation Accelerator was named by Fast Company as Most Innovative Non-Profit Organization 2021 for its work in identifying, nurturing, and scaling disruptive start-ups and innovations to end global hunger. Based in Munich, Germany, the Innovation Accelerator provides WFP employees and start-ups with funding, hands-on support, and access to WFP’s global operations. Through the Accelerator, WFP is leveraging unprecedented advances in digital innovation - such as mobile technology, artificial intelligence, and blockchain - and new business models to transform the way it serves vulnerable communities across the world. In 2021, Accelerator supported innovations that positively impacted the lives of 9 million people globally. Most recently, the Accelerator runs programs for external partners such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others

More information here: http://innovation.wfp.org and https://youtu.be/OnKkQlRdh2c.

General Information:

• Title of Post: Innovative Finance Consultant
• Unit: Innovation Accelerator, Innovation and Knowledge Management Division (INKA)
• Country: Germany
• Duty Station: Munich
• Initial contract duration: 5 months (extendable)
• Expected Start Date: 01.07.2022

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

The Consultant, reporting to the Head of Innovative Finance and Venture Launchpad, is expected to:

1) Foster the development and implementation of the regenerative financing mechanisms, to pool donor funds and private investors’ money towards investable and scalable innovations, accelerating their path to scale:

• Conduct landscape mapping to further inform WFP impact investing activities and support relationship building with external investor partners to help with fundraising efforts for the WFP funding mechanisms as well as direct capital raising by the innovations;
• Deliver, design and implement selected innovative financing or other strategic ventures throughout ideation, pilot and scale-up phases, contributing to the ventures’ launch and growth;
• Support the development of all the necessary innovative financing venture documentation and processes, including preparing agreements with third party organisations, as appropriate;
• Coordinate daily the selected innovative financing or other strategic ventures’ operations ranging from the attraction of grant and micro-loans funding to their investment and the corresponding impact measurement and evaluation, reporting, and communication;

2) Support innovations and other Accelerator teams with investment readiness, other innovative financing activities to accelerate their path to scale and to advance toward Zero Hunger and other Sustainable Development Goals:

• Support and coach project teams from ideation to implementation (as applicable), with a focus on innovative financing while using methodologies such as human-centred design, lean start-up, project management and business modelling;
• Define key performance indicators and milestones for the innovation project and support their implementation, impact measurement and reporting;
• Support piloting and/or integration within WFP operations or within other organisations (as applicable), while liaising with internal units such as country offices, procurement and legal, as required;

• Engage and collaborate with all necessary internal and external stakeholders (including WFP country and field offices, finance, partnerships, legal) to gather needed input, secure internal support and approval, and launch the innovative financing or other strategic ventures;

  3) Support the Innovation Accelerator’s strategy deployment and operations:

• Provide investment readiness and venture building support and coach project teams from ideation to implementation (as applicable), using methodologies such as human-centred design, lean start-up, project management and business modelling;

• Engage with all necessary internal stakeholders on topics related to innovative financing ventures and support the building of strong external partnerships within the Innovative Financing and venture building ecosystem globally;
• Provide analysis and content preparation for presentations and management meetings on innovative financing and other priority topics;Support other core processes of the WFP Innovation Accelerator (e.g. innovation sourcing; innovation bootcamps; sprints programme; scale-up enablement; innovation services; communications and knowledge management) as required, and, from time to time, support the Head of the Innovation Accelerator and the Director of Innovation and Knowledge Management with any other activities as required.

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education: Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Business Administration or equivalent. Master’s degree a plus.

Experience: At least 3 years of progressively responsible international experience in a start-up leadership role, start-up accelerator, innovations in private businesses or innovations in the humanitarian or international development sector. Experience in innovative financing and in microfinance is a plus.

Languages: Fluency in oral and written English is mandatory. Intermediate knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish) or Portuguese (one of WFP’s working languages) is a plus.

REQUIRED SOFT SKILLS | WFP COMPETENCIES

• A proven track record building fintech projects and/or driving and implementing innovative finance venture building projects, preferably in an impact, humanitarian and/or development context;
• Experience in microfinance, crowdfunding platforms, preferably in crowdlending;
• Experience and interest in initiatives focused on financial inclusion, microfinance and resilience programmes;
• Passion and understanding of technology innovations (e.g. digital payments, crypto assets) and business model innovations (e.g. innovative finance, venture capital, impact bonds);
• Experience in innovation project life cycle - from ideation, minimum viable product, testing, prototyping and implementation;

• Worked or led cross-functionally and get things done in an agile and hands-on way;

• Experience working in a large scale-organisation or with a client/in partnership with a large-scale organisation;

• Proven track record of driving projects - effectively delivering impactful elements of projects in a fast-moving environment, ideally for new businesses, new business models, start-ups etc.;
• Strong conceptual thinking to develop new strategies & innovative projects;
• Able to interact with a broad range of stakeholders and external audiences with maturity and tact;
• Excellent communication/presentation skills, with the ability to write strategy and partnership documents, develop business plans and write and deliver presentations;
• Collaborative spirit, able to partner with a wide range of people at all levels and across different cultures and to act with credibility and diplomacy;
• Self-motivated and able to work with a high degree of autonomy;
• Sets high-level of ambition for the project and own work to achieve impact for the people we serve;
• Fully committed and motivated to achieve the aims of the UN World Food Programme.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

WFP offers a competitive compensation package which will be determined by the contract type and selected candidate’s qualifications and experience.

Please visit the following website for detailed information on working with WFP: http://www.wfp.org

Click on: “Our work” and “Countries” to learn more about WFP’s operations.

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

Closing date: 24 June 2022

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All employment decisions are made on the basis of organizational needs, job requirements, merit, and individual qualifications. WFP is committed to providing an inclusive work environment free of sexual exploitation and abuse, all forms of discrimination, any kind of harassment, sexual harassment, and abuse of authority. Therefore, all selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

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.