Programme Policy Officer (Smallholder Agriculture Market Support, Climate Change & Food System)- NOB

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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. We are committed to promoting diversity and the principle of equal employment opportunity for all our employees and encourage qualified candidates to apply irrespective of religion or belief, ethnic or social background, gender, gender identity, and disability.

JOB DETAILS

Job Title: Programme Policy Officer (Smallholder Agriculture Market Support, climate change & food system) Grade: NOB Type of contract: Fixed Term Duration: 12 Months (Extendable) Duty Station: Kabul Vacancy Number: 830880 Date of Publication: 11 Jan 2024 Deadline of Application: 25 Jan 2024

This vacancy announcement is for Afghan nationals only and WFP encourages especially Afghan females and Afghans with disabilities to apply.

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.

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

The hunger crisis in Afghanistan is unfolding at a rapid pace, with 15 million of population now facing acute food insecurity. Work opportunities are shrinking, with most households now reporting just one day of work per week. This comes on top of the worst drought in years, which is especially concerning for the 85 percent of the population who rely on agriculture for livelihoods.

Preventing and mitigating a drastic increase in hunger and malnutrition is the aim of WFP in Afghanistan which can only be achieved through the scaled up and sustained complementary food security and nutrition interventions, combined with a scale-up of resilience interventions to safeguard gains. WFP has embarked on a significant month-on-month scale-up of its crisis response and resilience programmes across the country, ensuring that the programme is delivered at the right scale and time, targeted to the right areas. WFP is also actively following up on evolving trends to pre-empt hotspots, while guaranteeing quality and maximum impact of the programme through the monitoring of these hotspots to be able to support continued donor advocacy.

JOB PURPOSE

WFP Afghanistan’s Country Strategic Plan 2018-2026 focuses on a new strategic shift towards strengthening resilience of communities, recognizing the interconnected nature of relief, nutrition, safety nets, food systems, capacity strengthening and partnerships, addressing some of the above causes within the context of chronic drought and frequent climate-related shocks. A key focus area is on building sustainable food systems and value chains, promote climate change initiatives, climate smart agriculture, disaster risk reduction, microfinance, forecast based financing initiatives, to improve the availability, accessibility, affordability, and consumption of nutritious and healthy diets in Afghanistan and to prevent and reduce the impact of man-made and natural shocks on vulnerable populations. As part of these activities, WFP provides early recovery, resilience-building, disaster risk reduction, adaptation to climate change and livelihoods support to vulnerable smallholder farmers and communities seriously impacted by natural disaster. This position will support, the development and implementation of WFP’s climate smart agriculture, market linkages, small scale value chain, and food systems projects, anticipatory actions particularly working with smallholder farmers on improving agricultural value chains, introducing climate-adaptive livelihoods practices, and strengthening community and household resilience.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

Under the direct supervision of the Deputy Head of Resilience and Food Systems (RFS): To provide support to policy and programme activities that effectively meet food assistance needs.

Job holders will operate with a high degree of independence, manage more junior staff to ensure that programme and policy objectives are achieved in full. Will be involved in programme and policy activities and analytical work, some of which may be of a considerable complexity. At this level job holders are expected to contribute to performance improvement.

• Coordinate and oversee the implementation of smallholder agriculture market support (SAMS), small scale value chains, food systems initiatives, nutrition, post-harvest management and climate change, disaster risk management, forecast based finance initiatives within the Afghanistan RFS programme.
• Supports with the formulation of DRR, Climate Change, climate action, climate finance preparedness, response and resilience projects and the identification, validation and scaling up of DRR, integration with asset creation and livelihoods, and Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) good practices and technologies in agriculture.
• Contribute towards the development of a wide variety of food systems, climate smart agriculture, anticipatory actions, disaster risk reduction, and climate resilient livelihoods projects, plans and processes, ensuring alignment with wider resilience building programme policies and guidance.
• Provide specialized project management support to specific and/or defined programmes to ensure that technical support is provided or resourced following WFP’s policies and procedures.

• Provide support for RFS Calls for Proposals and partner selection process, leading review of proposals, giving relevant feedback to Area Offices; developing implementation-based plan based on projected needs and available resources, presenting project proposals to the Country Project Committee (CoPAC) and follow up with AOs on issues raised by the committee.

• Mobilize and coordinate private sector input partners and other Agri services, microfinance, insurance providers to participate and invest in developing practical solutions for SHFs to produce sustainably and increase productivity and use of climate smart technologies, financial and insurance services relevant to SHFs.

• Coordinate with agriculture ecosystem players in developing a scalable and sustainable model to offer last mile delivery of extension information, inputs, climate services, market linkage, post-harvest management and other services to SHFs.
• Participate and support training on 3PA related tools, particularly Community Based Participatory Planning (CBPP) and Seasonal livelihood programming (SLP).
• In conjunction with programme unit, develop strategies for transitioning relief into recovery, livelihoods, and resilience programmes, integration of internally displaced persons and returnees.
• Participate in the review of Monitoring & Evaluation tools and Cooperating Partners reporting formats for livelihoods and resilience activities.
• Participate in support and supervision missions to project sites to monitor progress and assist Area Offices in resolving challenges. This includes identifying training and capacity building areas for the team and cooperating partners.
• Manage WFP nutrition sensitive initiatives linked to SHF capacity strengthening and market linkages.
• Develop and provide inputs for donor funding proposals and donor reports.
• Contribute to the preparation of accurate and timely reporting on programmes and activities that enable informed decision making and consistency of information presented to stakeholders.
• Perform other related duties as required.

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education:

• Advanced University degree in International Affairs, Economics, Nutrition/Health, Agriculture, Environmental Science, Social Sciences or other field relevant to international development assistance,
• Or First University degree with additional specialized training and additional two years of most related professional work experience

Minimum Work Experience:

• At least three (3) years of postgraduate professional experience in programme management focused on small holder farmers and agriculture markets.

Desirable Work Experience:

• Substantial experience in implementation of smallholder agriculture market support (SAMS), small scale value chains, food systems initiatives, and/ or post-harvest management.
• Experience in building partnership and coordinating with different internal and external stakeholders and co-creating innovative solutions.
• Substantial role in the creation and training of teams and in explain complicated concepts to a diverse audience.

Knowledge and Skills:

• Update knowledge on current issues and challenges relate to resilience, and food systems, livelihoods, climate change, disaster risk reduction, especially how it relates to Afghanistan.
• Editorial skills including use of research to produce quality documents, recommendations and reports
• Proficiency in Microsoft software.

Language:

• Fluency (Level C) in both written and spoken English, Dari and Pashto.

HOW TO APPLY

To be considered, interested candidates are invited to apply via (https://www.wfp.org/careers/job-openings). Only short-listed candidates will be contacted. We want to ensure the recruitment process is fully accessible. Please contact us at [email protected] to advise us of any accessibility needs you may have.

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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.