Programme Policy Officer (Head of SBC Unit)

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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 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.

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

WFP Armenia embraces the ‘Changing Lives’ vision set in the 2030 Agenda for a world free from hunger in a context of equitable and environmentally responsible sustainable development. To achieve this, WFP cannot proceed with ‘business as usual’ and cannot fully achieve SDG 2 and a world with Zero Hunger, without supporting individuals, wider communities, and policy makers to make meaningful, long-term changes to their behaviour. However, the traditional approaches of informing, educating and encouraging are insufficient to achieve long-term behavioural changes. Thus, there needs to be a shift to a focus on supporting good nutrition by helping people make healthier choices and ensuring those healthy choices are valued and accessible. There is also a need to focus behaviour change efforts across the whole food value chain activities to create greater economies of scale and consistent production of nutritious foods and to ensure that effective transitions from social safety nets to employment and greater self-reliance.

In January 2022, WFP Armenia created a unique unit - the Social Behaviour Change (SBC) Unit. The Unit works across all the programmes to embed SBC principles and theories into the programmes delivered by other Units, including Social Protection, School Feeding, and Food Value Chain. Nutrition is cross cutting as a theme but anchored within the SBC Unit’s portfolio.

WFP Armenia are looking for a new Head of their Social Behaviour Change Unit. Since January 2022, the SBC Unit have successfully embedded principles of behavioural science into the School Feeding programme and the Food Value Chain work. Work to embed SBC also into the Social Protection is also needed.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

Under the overall guidance of the Country Director and the direct supervision of the Deputy Country Director, the Programme Policy Officer will be responsible for the following duties:

1. Build capacity around SBC and BeSci across WFP Armenia Units and partners and create a positive attitude towards the use of SBC and BeSci:

• Assess the opportunities for strengthening SBC and nutrition in all WFP Armenia’s programmatic portfolios, including the integration of SBC and nutrition sensitive components in other programme portfolios including identifying capacities and resources required to deliver.
• Contribute towards the development and execute a plan to engage key stakeholders, including frontline partners, research and expert advisors, and potential future funders, and strengthen collaboration with other UN agencies related to behaviour change.
• Forge partnerships with stakeholders that can be part of the SBC campaigns and interventions including private sector, such as the milk for school’s project.
• Support the development of funding bids and identify funding opportunities for social behaviour change activities.
• Support the establishment of public and private sector partnerships to support attaining behaviour change in all WFP’s programmatic pathways to achieve zero hunger.
• Develop an evidence base for integrating SBC into WFP programmes through leading on and supporting robust evaluation activities.

2. Integrate SBC and BeSci into existing WFP Armenia programme areas to enhance outcomes

• Build and manage a portfolio of SBC interventions as they progress through development, piloting, and evaluation stages, including managing the new SBC healthy snacks pilot throughout the project life cycle and working with the School Feeding Unit to support the development of a healthy snacking programme, including healthy tuck shops and self-funding breakfast clubs.
• Support the Food Value Chain Unit and other Units to ensure the principles and co-creation/co-design and co-production are embedded in all programme development.
• Support identification of barriers and opportunities for transitioning vulnerable populations out of state benefit systems to self-reliance/ self-employment opportunities as part of the Social Protection programme.

3. Design population health interventions to improve nutrition and livelihood outcomes

• Engage with the Armenian Ministry of Health to design national SBC programmes, helping them to understand how their existing budgets can be used more effectively.
• Deliver on the nutrition curriculum work, in line with Ministry of Education requirements, and working in close collaboration with the School Feeding Unit.

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education: Advanced university degree in Behavioural Science, International Affairs, Economics, Nutrition/Health, Agriculture, Environmental Science, Social Sciences or other field relevant to international development assistance, or First University Degree with additional years of related work experience and/or trainings/courses.

Experience:

• A minimum of 5 years of experience in implementing SBC programmes, preferably in public health and nutrition.

  • Project and programme management experience.
  • Previous experience in developing context specific social and behaviour change strategies that include communications.
  • Experience designing and conducting qualitative research and monitoring and evaluation for behaviour change projects.
  • Experience conducting formative research using mixed methods, and behavioural science/ consumer insights research required Humanitarian programming experience considered an asset.
  • Experience working in WFP programming preferred.

  Knowledge & Skills: Advanced knowledge of behaviour change programming in public health, nutrition, and emergency humanitarian response. • Strong programme/project management experience, with evidence of ability to plan, execute, and manage a wide variety of stakeholders. • Experience managing diverse teams and facilitating multi-sectoral working groups. • Demonstrated ability to work effectively in complex settings, particularly supporting governments. • Excellent communication skills to engage with a variety of people and organisations. • Evidence of successfully managing programme/project budgets, ensuring appropriate procurement processes, documents and systems are in place. • Excellent organisational skills, attention to detail, and ability to execute a plan with minimal supervision

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

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.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

NOTE: the position is not open to Armenian nationals.

Contract Duration: 11 months

Applications must be submitted online through WFP e-Recruitment System.

Internal WFP staff can access the VA through the internal WFP CAREER page via the link: http://newgo.wfp.org/services/e-recruitment

Make sure that you answer all mandatory questions accurately and to upload your updated CV in English.

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

The successful candidate will have to be vaccinated against the COVID-19 to be able to perform his/her duties. The UN strongly recommends UN personnel, and their dependents receive a COVID-19 vaccine that has been approved by WHO.

Female applicants and individuals with disabilities are especially encouraged to apply.

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

Interested candidates are invited to submit their application not later than Monday, 17 October 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.