Programme Policy Officer 1

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Application deadline 2 years ago: Tuesday 5 Oct 2021 at 23:59 UTC

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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

JOB TITLE : Policy Programme Officer

TYPE OF CONTRACT : Consultancy

UNIT : PRO-F, smallholder and Food System Support

DUTY STATION : Rome

DURATION : 6 months

BACKGROUND

Africa is the second most populous continent in the World – with a population estimated at 1.34 billion in 2020. According to the UN population fund in 2009, this population had hit 1 billion and doubled in only 27 years, and population growth exceeds 2% every year for most countries. Africa’s population is predominantly young – reports state that up to 41% of the population is below 15.

Agriculture is key for most African economies – contributing at least 24% of GDP (WB 2018), and the sector employs up to two-third of the population, with small-holder farmers producing around 90% of the food in the continent. Despite the tremendous potentials of the African agriculture sector, this is unable to sustainably feed its growing population and promote sustainable growth to achieve Zero Hunger. By 2050, Sub-Saharan Africa will be home to a third of the world’s young people, who will play a key part in feeding future generations. No region is this phenomenon of having more young people in the future more apparent than in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the fact that young people in Sub-Saharan Africa often view agriculture as inefficient, socially immobile and technically uninteresting has led to a situation where the average age of Africa’s farmers is 60 despite the median age being 19. Additionally, women, especially young women, are marginalised in agriculture, excluded from the decision-making process and despite the important role they play producing up to 80% of foodstuff for household consumption.

The COVID-19 pandemic puts at risk the lives and livelihoods of many people in Africa and threatens to undermine decades of progress towards the SDGs. The pandemic magnified many long-term weaknesses, such as persistent inequalities, threatening the livelihoods of millions of people. The pandemic deepened the differences and shortcomings, hitting vulnerable people the hardest, particularly women, youth, and children. COVID-19 and the post-COVID have placed significant stress on all components of food systems (production, trade and distribution, and consumption).

As a global leader in fighting hunger and malnutrition worldwide, often in very difficult contexts, the World Food Programme (WFP) assist people recovering from conflicts, disasters, and the impact of climate change. While meeting immediate humanitarian needs is the priority, WFP is looking to the future to ensure that its assistance has a sustainable impact. A recovery that does not make these affected societies and economies more equal, inclusive, and resilient will be neither durable nor protective from the complex social, economic, and climate risks we face. WFP is adopting a more integrated approach to strengthening food systems, working on both food demand and supply sides to support national governments and partners to identify and address food system risks and disruptions to protect and sustain their function while working on analysing the complex and long-term effects of the COVID-19 crisis to build back food systems that are more efficient and resilient.

The Mastercard Foundation (MCF), one of the world’s largest foundations, works almost exclusively in Africa. It was created in 2006 by Mastercard International and operated independently under the governance of its Board of Directors. The Foundation focus is to help economically disadvantaged young people in Africa to find opportunities to move themselves, their families, and their communities out of poverty to a better life.

MCF and WFP share the intent to tackle food security—not only today’s crisis but working towards longer-term resilience. The partnership is based on a shared long-term goal to address systemic gaps in the food system. WFP is strategically focused on Africa and shares MCF’s priorities, including digitisation, job creation and livelihoods—for Africans young demographic, for its future. We can support communities as they recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and help them to build more secure and more resilient livelihoods.

The Project

Through a five-year project, implemented in eight countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana), the partnership aims to Strengthen Food Systems to empower small-holder farmers and young people. The project has a strong focus on empowering youth, in particular young women, with the objective of fully engaging youth in all segments of the value chain and thereby increasing their food security, income and employment opportunities. Using a value chain development approach, the project will focus on reducing post-harvest losses and increasing the access of small-holder farmers to reliable and remunerative market opportunities for a range of different crops. In complement to those core intervention areas, the partnership will introduce innovative access to finance solutions to the benefit of key-value chain actors, as well as a range of other innovative digital solutions to strengthen the performance of targeted value chain actors and improve overall the overall efficiency of the targeted value chains.

The three pillars of the project are:

  1. Post-harvest loss reduction, including through the provision of training, facilitation of access to post-harvest handling equipment and awareness-raising;
  2. SHF market access, including through the promotion of SHF production, support to SHF aggregation systems, facilitation of linkages between SHF aggregation systems and pro-smallholder buyers,
  3. Inclusive market system development, including a wide range of activities in terms of facilitation of youth and women, access to core value chain services, access to finance, promotion of digital innovations, value chain coordination and market information.

WFP Country Offices will promote integrated approaches to bring the various elements of the project together and connect and leverage existing WFP’s resilience-building activities in the countries to magnify impacts.

Job purpose

To deliver against the above, WFP HQ in Rome is seeking a Policy and Programme Officer (P4 level) to support the coordination and implementation of the Mastercard Foundation project. The incumbent will operate under the direct supervision of the Senior Project Coordinator (P5) of the MCF partnership.

The incumbent will be responsible for carrying out the following tasks and responsibilities:

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

Partnership management

  1. Support the project coordinator with the overall management of the partnership, ensuring smooth implementation of HQ and the field activities.
  2. Assist the coordinator to manage the budget and drive precise financial management.
  3. Support the Senior Project Coordinator with the preparation and dissemination of timely reports, publications, and various knowledge products or proposals for internal or external use as required by the donor and the partners.
  4. Represent the organization in meetings with government officials, partners, and donors to advocate for strategic partnerships as required.

Development of guidance

  1. Collaborate with the PRO-F team and the other relevant technical teams in HQ and the field to ensure the full integration and alignment of the project with the programmes and activities in the areas of Smallholder Agriculture Market Support (SAMS) Post-harvest Loss (PHL), Food Systems as well as school feeding, resilience and climate
  2. Coordinate the development of technical guidance material for CO-level implementation, in particular in the area of market access, PHL, gender, youth and M&E.
  3. Lead the dissemination of the relevant guidance to the implementing countries, including training of field staff as required

Field support

  1. Establish and manage strong communication and coordination frameworks with the Country Office and Regional Bureaus technical and operational units to promote synergies and effective coordination and enable the alignment and integration of the project with their strategic objectives and targets.
  2. Establish and oversee adherence to comprehensive workplans with COs and RBs.
  3. Provide field-level support to country offices for carrying out assessments and informing revisions in project design
  4. Provide field-level support for project implementation, including activity implementation, output and outcome monitoring as well as budget management.

Research

  1. Support the development of a comprehensive research agenda for the project in close collaboration with the selected research institute and MCF.
  2. Facilitate the implementation of the research activities of the research partner within WFP operations
  3. Review learning products reviewed by the research partner as well as Country Offices to ensure quality and coherence

  4. Other as required.


QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

Education:

Advanced University degree in Agriculture, Agriculture Economics, International Development, International Relations, or other fields relevant to rural developments and food systems, or a First University Degree with additional years of related work experience and/or training/courses.

Experience:

8 or more years of professional experience (including field experience) relevant to agriculture, food systems, rural development, preferably contributing to food security and/or job creation objectives in Africa

Knowledge & Skills:

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 websites 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: 05 October 2021

Qualified 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.

Added 2 years ago - Updated 2 years ago - Source: wfp.org