VAM Officer (International Consultant - 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

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

The World Food Programme (WFP) in Armenia is scaling up Vulnerability Analysis Mapping (VAM) capacity as part of a strategic investment in increasing in-house and national capacities in analysis and research pertaining to food security and nutrition informing policies and programmes in the country. The VAM unit has a central function in WFP Armenia supporting WFP activities as well strengthening capacity of Government and other national partners. Armenia is a land-locked developing country that has experienced different macroeconomic progresses and structural reforms that have not equally reached its society, From 27 Sep-10 Nov, a conflict around the Nagorno- Karabakh area took place. The conflict resulted in mass human losses, widespread infrastructure damage, and prompted a wave of spontaneous arrivals from the disputed territory into the Republic of Armenia. Before the conflict, COVID-19 already had significant implications on food security, nutrition and poverty in Armenia. The crisis combined with underlying structural issues affected local and regional food systems with substantial consequences on people’s access to food. WFP’s recent Food Security Assessment conducted nationwide in April 2021 revealed that the Armenian population was resorting to emergency coping strategies due to the pandemic and 21.4% of Armenians were food insecure while 56.4% were at risk of falling into food insecurity. The assessment also pointed to alarming levels of diets among children. In response to these challenges, WFP Armenia Country Strategic Plan (CSP) 2019-2024 is built around four main pillars; the continuation of its school feeding programme with a clear handover strategy for a full ownership of the programme by the Government of Armenia by 2023; the establishment of effective and sustainable, nutrition sensitive food value chains; supporting the Government enhancing food security and nutrition sensitive social protection programmes, systems and policies; and emergency preparedness and response. WFP’s work in Armenia aligns with The UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework, and WFP cooperates and ensures complementarity with local stakeholders, UN entities and International Financial Institutions at country level. Capacity strengthening is a cross-cutting effort at all levels in the CSP and key to ensure sustainability of the programmes and activities. In particular, WFP Armenia is engaged in building the capacity of the Government and supporting policy frameworks such as the food security strategy and the establishment of a shock responsive social safety-net. The latter includes dedicated vulnerability analysis to link food insecurity to the social safety-nets, and in terms of shock responsiveness be able to identify food insecurity vulnerability prior to a shock. A discussion about a broader early warning system capturing socio-economic indicators is under way and VAM will have a pivotal role in identifying socio-economic indicators and thresholds for early warning.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

Under the direct supervision of the Deputy Country Director/Head of Programme, the incumbent shall ensure the successful completion of WFP mission objectives, including following duties:

• Lead the office’s engagement with national counterparts on the development of systems, tools and overall capacities in food security and nutrition surveillance, early warning, targeting and determination of transfer modalities and values line with innovative methodologies and best practice.
• Lead the identification of opportunities for joint work with and capacity strengthening of national and international counterparts including IFIs in food security and nutrition related analytics.
• Provide technical advice and support WFP and its partners on matters pertaining to food security and nutrition to inform strategies, policies, programmes, and facilitate the timely and productive use of related outputs in a manner that complies with WFP standards and processes.
• Manage and/or conduct food security, nutrition, social protection, markets and resilience analysis and prepare timely reports on food assessment needs in line with wider VAM policies, processes and guidance to enable effective decision-making on the development of country strategy, policies and programmes.
• Ensure VAM analyses reach the targeted audience and promote usage of findings for research, programme design and policy making.
• Keep up to date with and advise on food assistance developments and issues and the potential impact upon WFP activity to enable timely and appropriate programme evolution and intervention.
• Contribute to the development of programme activities, providing technical analysis, interpretation and recommendations to facilitate food assistance needs to be met effectively.
• Provide coaching and guidance to VAM staff as required to ensure appropriate development and enable high performance.
• Support the monitoring and evaluation of WFP activities, providing technical analysis, interpretation and information as required to support the assessment of activity impact.
• Represent WFP during meetings with partners to contribute to technical discussions, exchange of knowledge and experience, and seek for appropriate interventions (based on an evidence base), and areas for potential collaboration.
• Build capacity of WFP staff, partners and national government to conduct analysis on food security, nutrition, markets, resilience, and related topics to effectively inform policies, programmes and systems including for social protection and early warning early action purposes.
• Provide support to relevant partners that are focusing on food security and nutrition to enable sharing of experience, lessons learned and best practice.
• Build the capacity of the national VAM team staff and set up the VAM unit within the CO Armenia.
• Support innovation efforts and new initiatives related to WFP’s development and emergency work in Armenia;
• Other as required.

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education: Advanced University degree in Economics, Food Security, Statistics, Data Science, Public Health/Nutrition, Geography or other related field, or First University degree with additional years of related work experience and/or training/courses.

Experience:

• Minimum of 6 years of relevant professional work experience
• Gained valuable experience in collecting geospatial and socioeconomic food security data, conducting quantitative and qualitative analyses, and reporting findings to senior leaders.
• Has led surveys, multiple assessments in countries, including the design, data collection and analysis.

Knowledge & Skills: Excellent communication (written and oral) and interpersonal skills; Strong organization and planning ability; Capacity to work simultaneously on several projects and multitasking abilities; Ability to work with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.

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

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

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.

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

Interested candidates are invited to submit their application not later than Wednesday, 23 March 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.