Senior Policy Advisor

Organizational Setting

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations is the specialized agency of the United Nations for food, nutrition, agriculture, and forestry. FAO’s global vision is for a world free from hunger and malnutrition where food and agriculture contribute to improving the living standards of all, especially the poorest, in an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable manner. Achieving food security for all is at the heart of FAO's efforts – to make sure people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active and healthy lives.

The mission of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is to work to eradicate hunger and promote global food security together with balanced and complete nutrition. Our mandate is to raise levels of nutrition, improve agricultural productivity, better the lives of rural populations and contribute to the growth of the world economy.

Our three main goals are: the eradication of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition; the elimination of poverty and the driving forward of economic and social progress for all; and, the sustainable management and utilization of natural resources, including land, water, air, climate and genetic resources for the benefit of present and future generations.

The Productive Safety Net Program Phase Five (PSNP5) is an integral component of Ethiopia's revised Agricultural and Rural Development (ARD) policy to respond to drought-related shocks, and protect and foster the livelihoods of the chronically food insecure and vulnerable population in rural Ethiopia. The program is implemented in the eight regions of Afar, Amhara, Dire Dawa, Harari, Oromia, SNNPR, Somali, and Tigray.

The program provides cash and/or food transfers to chronically and transitory food insecure households. In addition, a Big-Push Plus for Enhanced Livelihoods (BEL) Pilot is designed to integrate major flagship programs operating in pilot woredas towards enhanced livelihoods of target PSNP beneficiaries by enabling synergy among the flagship program for pulling together resources and capacity to bring about transformative change within a short period.

The revised ARD Policy continues with dedicated attention to vulnerable/fragile production systems and marginalized communities to promote inclusive and sustainable agriculture and rural development. In addition, the revised policy enables more resilient agriculture and rural livelihood by ,editing and/or designing new policy instruments (policy, strategy and legal framework).

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Ethiopia has developed a PRO-ACT proposal funded by the EU with an overarching goal of enhanced cost-effective, resilient and sustainable food security and nutrition solutions for the vulnerable households living in the fragile production system. Besides, the project will provide technical support to Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) to promote policy and programmatic synergies between agriculture, social protection and resilience. The project plans to support the policy environments to address food insecurity & vulnerability and implement safety nets program toward a social protection policy that enables more resilient agriculture and rural livelihood.

In support of PSNP5 implementation, Policy Support Specialists (PSS) are required to work within the Government of Ethiopia's PSNP implementing agencies. PSSs provide policy support to the Ministry of Agriculture on social protection and resilience building, where the role is to perform PSNP5 and to guide government staff as they learn new skills related to the implementation of PSNP policy functions. In addition to the social protection roles, new early warning system and monitoring tools promoted by the project – Livestock and Crop conditions monitoring (Pictorial Evaluation Tools (PET), Agriculture Stress Index (ASIS), feed inventory, and Pastoral Livestock Early Warning Systems (PLEWS) will be integrated into the National Early Warning System.

Reporting Lines

The Senior Policy Advisor works under the overall supervision of the FAO Representative (FAOR) in Ethiopia, the direct supervision of the Assitant FAO Representaive (P) and in close coordination and technical guidance of the different Technical Executive Team Leads within the Ministry.

Technical Focus

The Senior Policy Advisor acts as a the focal person of integrating project activities to ongoing senior government level debates and processes. The Senior Policy Advisor will provide specialized expertise support to the Food Security Coordination Directorate (FSCD), Crop Directorate, Livestock Directorate, and Policy Unity of the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA).

Tasks and responsibilities

• Ensure project objectives are linked with ongoing high level processes in the areas of early warning systems, PSNP and DRM. • Provide policy and advisory support to enable PSNP build resilient agriculture and rural livelihood; • Provide policy and advisory support to Ministry of Agriculture on upstream policies and strategies to address food insecurity and vulnerability, especially in the fragile production system; • Facilitate linkages of new livestock early warning tools to be part of the national seasonal assessments and early warning systems. • Support the alignment of food insecurity and vulnerability, especially in the fragile production system in upstream ARD policies and strategies; • Support the alignment of the livestock and crop early warning systems to the national early warning system; • Support the alignment of resilience building in national social protection through partnership and policy influence, • Support the establishment of sound mechanisms for inclusion of livelihood response to the shock-responsive social protection system by collaborating with DRM-ART; • Support capacity building to policy function of PSNP and MoA's Policy Unit to develop policy and enabling environment for building a resilient agriculture and rural livelihood; • Provide additional support as requested.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• Candidate should be a national of Ethiopia; • Advanced university degree in public policy, economics, agricultural economics, or related fields; • Minimum of 10 years experience working in Agriculture, Livelihoods, Social Protection, Resilience projects; • Working knowledge of English and knowledge local language of the duty station.

FAO Core Competencies

• Results Focus • Teamwork • Communication • Building Effective Relationships • Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

• Extent and relevance of experience on project management and implementation using result-based management; including directing the formulation of detailed work plan, setting objectives and priorities; • Extent and relevance of experience in supporting and facilitating multi-stakeholders processes including interacting with policy- and decision makers at various levels; • Strong interpersonal and collaboration skills within team and with external stakeholders; • Demonstrated ability to communicate in English, concisely in writing and verbally • Excellent project management, team-working, planning, facilitation and communication skills; • Familiarity and good knowledge of Livestock and agricultural livelihoods support systems, concept and approach, agricultural innovation system actors and issues in Ethiopia.

Selection Criteria

• At least 5 years of working experience in the design of policy and its instruments (roadmap, strategies, proclamation, directive, guidelines, training materials) • Experience in partnerships to enhance policy outreach and collaboration with other teams and organizations; • Knowledge of policies related to social Protection and resilience in Ethiopia. • Demonstrated ability to summarize data and write technical and non-technical reports in English. • Good inter-personal skills and ability to work with multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural staff. • Excellent command of MS Office applications and proficiency in Power Point.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• FAO does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process (application, interview meeting, processing)
• Incomplete applications will not be considered. If you need help please contact: [email protected]
• Applications received after the closing date will not be accepted
• Please note that FAO only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU) / United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed at http://www.whed.net/
• For additional employment opportunities visit the FAO employment website: http://www.fao.org/employment/home/en/
• Appointment will be subject to certification that the candidate is medically fit for appointment, accreditation, any residency or visa requirements, and security clearances.