Analyst National Junior Consultant
VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT
Job Title: Junior Analyst (4 positions)
Mission: To support the Design Phase of the Togo Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA)
Unit/Division: Programme Unit / CO Togo
Contract Type: National Consultancy / CST
Contract Duration: Sept 2022 to 31 January 2023 (5 months) with the possibility of longer-term engagement with the Togo ATA
Duty Station (City, Country): Lomé, Togo
ABOUT WFP
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. We are the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters, and the impact of climate change.
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, physical or mental disability.
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT
Togo, officially the Togolese Republic is one of the smallest countries in Africa and home to 8.6 million people. Situated in the Gulf of Guinea, Togo serves as a critical corridor to enable the COVID-19 response to landlocked countries in the Central Sahel region.
Togo’s economy depends heavily on both commercial and subsistence agriculture, with both sectors providing employment for 60 percent of the labour force. Socio-political and economic turmoil coupled with devastating floods and now COVID-19 have seen a deterioration in its food and nutritional situation.
Agriculture and food systems are vital to food security, livelihoods, and development. The sector has proven to be more effective for poverty alleviation and job creation than others, and sustainable transformation of agriculture and food systems can underpin economic development for many African countries. One innovative approach to spur transformational change is in the use of a Nodal Agency—successively leveraged by many Asian countries and beyond.
The nodal agency model was successfully leveraged by many Asian countries in the 1960s to 1990s to drive transformational growth and rapidly expand their economies. More recently, the nodal agency model was used successfully by the Government of Ethiopia when it established the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) in 2010.
The nodal agency model leverages key characteristics to achieve impact:
- Operates from a “center of government” position with strong links to senior government officials including the Head of State.
- A high level of authority, independence, and responsibility that allow it to innovate, use evidence to inform decision making, work across public and private sectors, exert influence over actors, and ultimately manage and ensure effectiveness.
- High organizational performance that enables efficient systems to be implemented, focuses on results, and ensures learning takes place within and across institutions and programs to adapt to changing contexts and take advantage of opportunities.
The Government of Togo (GoT), in its 2025 Roadmap, has positioned agriculture as a priority engine of growth for production, income, and job creation. The Roadmap specifically identifies mechanization, irrigation, and extension through public-private-partnerships as areas of significant opportunity.
To further support progress on the Roadmap and in recognition of the need for transformational growth in the sector, the GoT in March 2022 made the decision to leverage the Nodal Agency model and create an Agricultural Transformation Agency. The GoT has engaged TASC to support the scope, design, and establishment of this Agency by January 2023. Togolese stakeholders have worked with TASC to complete development of the scope of the Agency, which includes 5 priority focus areas for the new ATA: mechanization, irrigation, digital extension, ZAAPs (agricultural production areas)/value chains.
The Government of Togo in partnership with TASC/WFP is now looking to form a high-performing design team that can develop these priority focus areas into a clear set of projects, initiatives, and workplans to enable the ATA to begin activities in January 2023.
JOB PURPOSE
Provide analytical support for the design of the priority focus areas.
KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive, within delegated authority):
The (Senior) Analyst will be under the supervision of a Project Manager/Focus Area Team Lead, who is responsible for each focus area and who, in turn, will report into the Design Phase Director. The analytical support required is envisaged as follows and will be refined based on the needs of the focus area:
- Support the Case Team Lead with analysis and problem-solving to review, analyze, and identify potential priority focus area initiatives – based off of key sector strategies, master plan documents, and details from the scoping phase
- Identify and prioritize potential initiatives to form a portfolio of work which can be successfully operationalized in 2023, including associated design phase outputs (design document, workplan, resource requirements)
- Support and/or own the development of key project design outputs such as a project design document, implementation workplan, human resource requirements, and budget etc.)
- Other general ATA setup and design tasks as required (developing the organizational structure, support recruitment, resource mobilization, etc.)
- Provide support to government partners to test and leverage new performance management approaches
- Conduct data-based analysis and problem-solving to identify key delivery issues and propose potential interventions
- In some cases, participate in field visits for data collection
- Work across focus areas to support other analytical needs as needed
QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
Education:
Bachelor’s Degree in Economics, Business, International development, Social Science, Agricultural Sciences / Agronomy, or other relevant area.
Experience:
Junior professionals with 3 years or more experience who have developed a strong base level of excellent critical thinking and analytical skills within a high-performance environment (such as management consulting), with proven ability to support/lead workstreams.
Must include a high proficiency in MS Excel and PPT.
Experience and/or interest in agricultural development, specifically related to any of the Togo ATA priority focus areas (Mechanization, Irrigation, Digital Extension and ZAAPs/Value Chains) is advantageous.
The role is suitable for those with a genuine intellectual curiosity and desire to innovate and bring large-scale change as part of high-profile government work.
Knowledge & Skills:
- Plan, prioritize and manage work streams from start to finish, including data collection, analysis and content development, stakeholder input and validation, and ensure required timelines and quality standards are met
- Identify and structure problems, develop key hypothesis and innovative solutions, and apply suitable analytical frameworks and approaches to test hypothesis and solutions
- Identify, acquire, and analyze relevant quantitative and qualitative data using a range of applied and pragmatic techniques; quality control data to ensure validity and accuracy
- Organize and conduct interviews with up to mid-manager level stakeholders; plan and execute other critical stakeholder management activities
- Execute wide range of analysis drawing on best practice approaches, to generate critical and actionable insights for partners
- Produce of high-quality presentations and/or written documents
- Proactively and frequently engage with senior staff to seek input and enhance outputs, identify risks and issues affecting timely delivery of work streams, and promptly communicate upward with solution options and recommendations
- Present ideas and respond to queries clearly and concisely in internal and external discussions
- Effectively manage operational activities (e.g., scheduling, logistical and financial organization of field trips and workshops, procurement processes, etc.) for delivery of work streams
Language:
Fluency (level C) in French and at least an intermediate knowledge (level B) in English (written and verbal).
WHY WORK WITH US?
This is an opportunity for an exciting and challenging position in a multi-cultural and interdisciplinary team, based in a unique location, on a topic with high relevance. In addition, we offer:
➡️Meaningful and impactful careers:
Our day-to-day work makes a difference in the lives of the people we serve
➡️Continuous learning and training:
We provide learning tools for our staff to continually develop their careers
➡️Multicultural and stimulating work environment:
We encourage gender and cultural diversity to make our teams stronger
Join us to make a difference, watch this video to know more about us!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnaxfnNKdsM&t=7s
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: September 7, 2022
All employment decisions are made based on 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.
