Programme Policy Officer (Inter Agency CVWG Coordinator)

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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.

ABOUT WFP

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is well known for its ability to deliver food assistance rapidly to people in need. To continue responding effectively to challenging contexts while also contributing to longer-term efforts to end hunger, WFP’s Strategic Plan focuses on better understanding of national food and nutrition security challenges and reshaping its engagement through support to national safety nets and social protection systems, to help host governments with their hunger-fighting strategies.

In emergencies, WFP is often first on the scene, providing food assistance to the victims of war, civil conflict, drought, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, crop failures and natural disasters. When the emergency subsides, WFP helps communities rebuild shattered lives and livelihoods. WFP also works to strengthen the resilience of people and communities affected by protracted crises by applying a development lens in our humanitarian response. WFP development projects focus on nutrition, especially for mothers and children, addressing malnutrition from the earliest stages through programmes targeting the first 1,000 days from conception to a child’s second birthday, and later through school meals.

WFP IN AFGHANISTAN

With a committed government, rich natural resources, and a young and diverse population, Afghanistan has the potential to make significant progress on the 2030 Agenda. However, a complex and protracted conflict, combined with challenges related to climate change, demographics, gender inequalities, underemployment, and transparency issues, has dramatically impeded its efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 2 on Zero Hunger. The 2017 Afghanistan Zero Hunger Strategic Review (ZHSR) found that the country suffers from high, and in some cases rapidly rising, levels of food insecurity and undernutrition, and outlines a series of recommendations to address the problem.

WFP is well placed to help Afghanistan implement several of the key recommendations through their new Country Strategic Plan (2018-2022). The overarching goal of the WFP Afghanistan CSP is to support the country to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 in a manner that also contributes, wherever possible, to the broader, longer-term transition to peace and development. Mainstreaming the cross-cutting issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment, protection, and accountability to affected populations, the CSP will focus on six, highly interrelated outcomes that span both SDG 2 and 17 (partnering for the goals).

Extensive consultations with government, partners, and affected communities, helped to guide this approach which entails shifts that will allow WFP to more effectively support the country to achieve SDG 2, including a shift to a more comprehensive, national-led framing of all strategic result areas, by supporting policy coherence. This will help the Afghanistan Unity Government to build trust and enhance its legitimacy. These shifts will also permit WFP to contribute to the broader, long-term goals of the country by operationalizing the humanitarian-development-peace nexus. This approach is directly aligned with the government’s commitment to achieve the SDGs by 2030 and with its five-year plan – the Afghanistan National Peace and Development Framework (ANPDF) – for making progress on the SDGs.

JOB PURPOSE

The objective of the Cash and Voucher Working Group (CVWG) Co-Lead is to support the work of the Cash and Voucher Partners, assist in improving the quality of cash and voucher programmes and enable partners to explore expansion of use of cash and vouchers across sectors as well as support the scale-up, thus contributing to improved relevance and effectiveness of cash-based responses in Afghanistan. The Co-Lead will promote Cash and Voucher Assistance use among humanitarian stakeholders and will co-create the vision for Cash and Voucher Assistance and assist in implementing the vision, with a view to position cash and voucher assistance as an integral component of the humanitarian and development response in Afghanistan.

The purpose of this position is to Co-Lead the CVWG in close coordination with the DRC-hosted Co-Lead, and to work closely with the cash and voucher partners, coordinate the broader cash and voucher needs and requirements, as well as development of operational standards. The successful candidate will work closely with key humanitarian and development partners across sectors to ensure that partners work collectively and actions are coordinated. The Co-Lead will also engage with Cluster and Inter-Cluster mechanisms and other relevant coordination bodies to promote cash and voucher programming.

The position is hosted by WFP and will formally report to WFP Head of Operations and Field Coordination. It is however critical that the Co-Lead remains neutral, deal with all stakeholders equally and represent the cash community as a whole without bias.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

This position is 100% dedicated to Co-Lead the CVWG in Afghanistan in close coordination with the NGO Co-Lead (currently DRC):

Leadership & Coordination - Provide leadership to the CVWG; organize and chair regular CVWG meetings; ensure CVA is coordinated, harmonized, and in line with best practice. Share secretarial role with NGO Co-Lead, alternating in calling for meetings, taking notes, etc. - Maintain regular communication with other INGOs, local NGOs, donors and government working on CVA interventions. - Ensure appropriate representation in the CVWG, including Government, national partners, private sector, and other relevant actors to the context of Afghanistan. - Advocacy (advise RC/HC, Cash Working Groups, Clusters, communication and advocacy, donor advocacy, advocacy on concerns of affected people).

Technical assistance - Coordinate the provision or provide direct technical advice and/or network technical requests with potential solutions to CVWG members, sectors and clusters on efficient, effective and context- appropriate CVAs for affected population. - Draft MPCA and sector specific CVA guidelines, key messages and Standard Operational Procedures as needed. - Ensure monitoring mechanisms are in place to review the impact of cash interventions and measure progress against implementation plans. - Develop and strengthen the capacity of national NGOs to implement CVA in line with international standards. - Facilitate a review of the financial and legal framework(s) on CVA within Afghanistan and advise implementing agencies on opportunities and constraints. - Collate, review and make available information on financial infrastructure and available delivery mechanisms and advise implementing agencies on opportunities and constraints. - Assist the CVWG in designing tools for, and the implementation of, market and needs assessment, response analyses, selection of delivery mechanisms and PDM, and facilitate access to tools to stakeholders who require them. - Support the establishment of standardized data management, data sharing and data sharing systems to facilitate data collection, efficiency in assessment and referral. - Ensure that all activities and products that are relevant to multiple clusters are catalogued in the ICCT and advocate for action where inter-cluster/sector collaboration would add value to improved cash and voucher programming in Afghanistan.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (Continues)

Advocacy and capacity building - Engage regularly with donors to gauge appetite and policies related to CVAs in Afghanistan and share information with members accordingly. Disseminate information on compliance and risk concerns from a donor perspective specific to the context of Afghanistan. Facilitate the development of a common risk mitigation approach if requested. - Continue/establish connections with other relevant groups, such as the Cash Learning partnership (CALP), the Better than Cash Alliance and other similar coordination groups for learning and capacity building of the community of practice. - Gauge interest for capacity building among partners to ensure prospective trainings are relevant to their needs. - Where appropriate, advocate with national and local government for cash-based interventions to ensure that CVAs are accepted and well understood. - In due time, develop relationships with key governmental bodies active in the social protection space in Afghanistan. - Coordinate efforts to link humanitarian CVAs with existing governmental social protection programmes, where possible. - Build linkages and enhance relationships between humanitarian actors/interventions and recovery/durable solutions programming, through participation and representation in working groups and forums already present in the country (e.g. once the Social Protection Group gets re-activated).

Reporting and Knowledge Management - Report to ICCT monthly on the progress against the agreed workplan and on the key topics in order to ensure consistency among the sectors/clusters. - Report to HCT quarterly. - Collect and promote good practices and lessons learned, contributing to a collection of replicable good practices for cash transfer programming and way forward on coordinating multi sector responses, guidelines and guidance development.

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education: Advanced University degree in International Affairs, Economics, Business Administration, Accounting, Statistics or other field relevant to international development assistance.

Experience

• At least five years of experience and progressive responsibility in providing technical assistance on cash and voucher programme design and implementation, policy analysis and guidance on cash and voucher programmes and cash-based social safety nets, and/or operational guidance in shock responsive programmes in emergency/post-emergency contexts.
• Direct experience in working in Cash-Based transfers.
• Experience in cash coordination would be an advantage.
• Inter-agency coordination experience would be preferred.
• Experience in working with governments for Cash-Based transfers modality of assistance and/or in government social safety net/social protection programmes will be an added advantage.

Language: Fluency (level C) in English language.

DESIRED KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

• Excellent coordination skills of external cash working groups and/or clusters.
• Skill in designing and implementing programmes using cash-based transfers.
• Excellent written and oral communications and presentation/facilitation skills.
• Strong analytical and negotiation skills.
• Demonstrated ability to develop and maintain effective work relationships with counterparts and staff in the office, host population, the Government of Afghanistan, donors, other cash and vouchers actors, UN agencies and others.
• Strong analytical and negotiation skills.
• Demonstrated flexibility and creativity in planning and problem solving.
• Ability to work in a multi-cultural team and establish effective working relationships with persons of different national and cultural backgrounds.
• Knowledge of Sphere standards and other training in humanitarian response preferred.
• Good understanding of Afghan culture and country context.
• Excellent oral and written English skills required.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Position Title: Programme Policy Officer (Inter Agency Cash and Voucher Working Group Coordinator)

Duration: 6 months with possibility of extension

Contract: Consultant (Regular)

Duty Station: Kabul Country Office

Conditions: Competitive Salary, living allowance, medical coverage, Danger Pay, Rest and Recuperation every 6 weeks, etc

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

Tuesday, 08 December 2020

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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.