Programme Policy Officer (CST II)

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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

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<span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) is the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. We are the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflicts, disasters, and the impact of climate change.

Our response to emergencies - saving lives and livelihoods either through direct assistance or by strengthening country capacities – remains at the heart of our operations, especially as humanitarian needs become increasingly complex and protracted.</span>

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

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<span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">WFP Syria provides food, nutrition and livelihoods assistance to people in need with government operations across the country in controlled and non-controlled areas. Integrating protection, gender and AAP and related cross-cutting issues, based on WFP policies and guidelines, continues to be a priority and essential in the evolving context.
Recently, the interim Country Strategic Plan (i-CSP) got extended until end 2025 with a focus on both crisis response and resilience building. The key programmatic activities under crisis response are emergency food assistance and school meals activities. The key resilience building activities are livelihoods and early recovery, strengthening of national social safety nets and malnutrition prevention and treatment activities.

WFP Syria will soon design a new interim Country Strategic Plan (i-CSP) 2026-2027. Under the new generation i-CSP, in line with the priorities and strategies of the Government of Syria, WFP intends to facilitate gender, protection and AAP responsive programming of nutrition and food security interventions.

Focusing on information provision, consultation and strong complaints and feedback mechanisms supports, WFP aims to have accountability to the populations it serves. In addition, these activities support the understanding of the context and identification of protection risks that need to be addressed to ensure that WFP activities are contributing to the safety, dignity and integrity of affected populations and ensuring that WFP assistance is accessible impartially to those in need.</span>

JOB PURPOSE

WFP Syria is hiring a Programme Policy Officer to lead on the integration of accountability to affected people (AAP) and humanitarian principles in WFP programmes. The Programme Policy Officer will also take the lead on the mainstreaming and integration of WFP's Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment (GEWE), Protection and Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP), inclusion (disability) across WFP's operations in Syria. Under the direct supervision of the deputy head of programme and the direction of the head of Programme in Syria, and with technical support from the Gender and Protection Units in the organization , the Programme Policy Officer will lead on the operationalization of relevant WFP policy and strategic frameworks, such as the Protection and Accountability Policy (2020), Gender Policy (2022), the Disability Inclusion Road Map (2020-2022), and the Community Engagement for AAP Strategy (2022-2026), at the country office level.

Considering the breadth of WFP's commitments and the need to operationalize them across the country’s office operations in a volatile and complex environment, WFP Syria needs a practitioner who is able to operate with a high degree of independence, has subject matter expertise and can carry out technical and strategic support tasks with limited supervision. This will be done by providing timely specialized support to senior management and guiding teams for the implementation of different policies' components, ensuring close external coordination with relevant actors and inter-agency coordination fora, and ensuring timely communication and liaison with relevant counterparts at the regional and global level.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

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<span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">• Support WFP Syria to ensure that programs are based on context and risk analysis that consider the needs, capacities, vulnerabilities and other important characteristics such as age, gender, and (dis)ability, of affected populations receiving assistance. This will be done by conducting protection analysis for each WFP’s program and working with program staff to integrate protection and AAP throughout the program management cycle (design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation).
• Coordinate knowledge management, information and analysis to ensure integrated protection and disability inclusion, AAP, and gender-sensitive data collection, analysis, monitoring, reporting and decision-making such as on the integrated cross-cutting context analysis and risk assessment (ICARA) .
• Provide strategic and technical advice for the integration of WFP’s relevant policies and related humanitarian and human rights normative frameworks across WFP operations in the Syrian context.
• Conduct protection and gender analysis aimed at providing solid evidence to inform vulnerability-based and inclusive response across the programmatic cycle.
• Develop Community Engagement for AAP strategy/action plan.
• Develop Protection and Gender action plans.
• Manage the Protection, Gender & AAP team providing coaching and guidance as required and to ensure appropriate development and enable high performance.
• Liaise closely with other teams to ensure cross-functional synergies.
• Ensure affected communities are meaningfully engaged across the program cycle and inclusive two-way communication with communities’ mechanisms are available, including by ensuring Community Feedback Mechanisms (CFM) are established and respect WFP’s minimum requirements.
• Coordinate all of WFP’s complaints and feedback mechanisms (CFM) with the support of WFP CFM and AAP teams, ensuring that WFP’s policies and strategies on AAP and protection are well-reflected, all CFMs are coordinated, and supplement each other without duplicating efforts.
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KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (continued)

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<span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">• Develop and update risk matrix and mitigation responses including program adjustments, advocacy measures, partnership building and coordination enhancement activities.
• Support program management in Country and field-Offices to ensure strong institutional commitment and leadership for gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE) and protection mainstreaming across programming and operations.
• Provide advice and support on the integration of gender and protection in the formulation of country level WFP-specific and interagency strategic documents and programmes.
• Support program staff in the integration of AAP, disability inclusion, gender and protection throughout the program management cycle (design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation), and in needs assessment frameworks as appropriate, including the adaptation of tools, collection, analysis and reporting processes to ensure that different beneficiary needs are identified and met.
• Build the capacity of program staff and cooperating partners to integrate and mainstream disability inclusion across the operation, including both programs and support functions.
• Design and support the implementation of gender and protection capacity development initiatives, undertaking training and building the capacity of staff on protection analysis, response development and integration of these areas in WFP’s work.
• Lead on the Gender Equality Certification Program (GECP), which is a systematic and practical means through which WFP can fulfill its gender commitments.
• Represent WFP in all relevant inter-agency gender, food security sector, protection, and AAP coordination mechanisms, PSEA and coordinating and strengthening the link between WFP's internal work on gender, protection and AAP and its interagency role as a partner and peer within the humanitarian system; including coordination and support to develop harmonized approaches with other protection, gender and AAP work across the sector.
• Work with head of program to ensure adequate allocation of human and financial resources, supporting the mobilization of resources to implement Action Plans.
• Support, together with CO and PSEA designated focal points, the existing organizational commitments and efforts to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA).</span>

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education: Advanced university degree in one of the following disciplines: Gender studies, social sciences, international relations, human rights, political science, development economics, or another related field relevant to WFP's work (such as international development, agriculture and rural development, or nutrition), or a First University Degree in above field with two (2) additional years of experience.

Experience: At least six (6) years of postgraduate professional experience in addressing accountability o affected population, protection, disability inclusion and gender issues in a humanitarian context, of which at least three (3) years spent working in a humanitarian crisis context.

Language: Fluency in verbal and written English (C Level). Knowledge of Arabic will be considered as an asset.

FUNCTIONAL CAPABILITIES

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<span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Optimal candidate will have the following characteristics:
- Has gained valuable experience working on accountability to affected population integration and mainstreaming into program.
- Has gained valuable experience working directly on protection integration or protection mainstreaming, gender equality and women empowerment, disability inclusion, and accountability to affected populations.
- Has participated in undertaking capacity building of colleagues or partner organizations and/or delivering training.
- Has experience in establishing and maintaining multi-sectoral collaborations, partnerships, and networks.
- Has valuable experience managing large multi-functional teams, covering: AAP including CFM and call centers, disability inclusion, protection and gender.
- Previous experience with UN or WFP, and knowledge of the UN or WFP operations is preferred.
- Strong analytical and writing skills, including the ability to write in an engaging and informative manner, and conceptualize and clearly synthesize information.
- Ability to facilitate consultations and technical discussions.
- Initiative, enthusiasm, and flexibility with excellent interpersonal skills and team spirit.
- Proficiency in Windows, MS Office (Word, Excel, Power point, Outlook).
- Ability to work in a multicultural environment and balance competing priorities and deadlines.
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TERMS AND CONDITIONS

International consultants have a competitive remuneration package, including medical insurance coverage. International consultants in Syria also benefit from monthly daily subsistence (DSA) allowance and danger pay allowances, and from a six (6) weeks R&R cycle.

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

In order to be considered, all applications must be received by Sunday March 3 23:59 (GMT+3).

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Selection of staff is made on a competitive basis, and we are committed to promoting diversity and gender balance. WFP encourages qualified female applicants and people with disabilities to apply. Specifically for people with disabilities, WFP will ensure that reasonable accommodation measures are be provided upon request.

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.

WFP has a zero-tolerance approach to conduct such as fraud, sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to WFP’s standards of conduct and will therefore undergo rigorous background verification internally or through third parties. Selected candidates will also be required to provide additional information as part of the verification exercise. Misrepresentation of information provided during the recruitment process may lead to disqualification or termination of employment.

WFP will not request payment at any stage of the recruitment process including at the offer stage. Any requests for payment should be refused and reported to local law enforcement authorities for appropriate action.