Programme Policy Officer (Resilience, Livelihood & food Systems) P2 – Yaounde

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.

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

WFP Cameroon is implementing its Country Strategic Plan (CSP) 2022-2026, which focuses on supporting the Government of Cameroon in its effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and the Zero Hunger 2030 agenda. WFP interventions span across the two axes simultaneously delivering and enabling with the dual objective of saving lives and changing lives. WFP CSP aims to progressively shift the focus of WFPs work from direct implementation of food assistance programmes towards capacity strengthening and technical assistance to national partners.

Resilience building, food systems and social protection are focus areas anchored under the CSP’s Strategic Outcome 3: Food-insecure and climate-affected populations and smallholder farmers have enhanced livelihoods and resilience to shocks by 2026 and Strategic Outcome 4: National institutions and partners have strengthened capacities to manage food and nutrition programmes and social protection systems by 2030. WFP aims to provide livelihood support and strengthen food systems for including through climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, climate risk management and smallholder agriculture market support. WFP aims to expand its support to enhance smallholder farmers’ capacity to on post-harvest management and value chain development linking the homegrown school feeding programme and other structured markets. The Global Commodity Management Facility (GCMF) also offers an opportunity to facilitate linking smallholder farmers to markets. Within the Humanitarian coordination set up, WFP leads the National Cash Working Group.

PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:

The objective of the role is to provide support to Cameroon Country Office in the development and implementation of its resilience building, food systems and social protection programming, integrating key thematic areas including climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, climate risk management and smallholder agriculture market support. This position will also support external cash working group coordination. The role holder will report to the Country Director.

Why work with us?

• WFP provides food assistance to more than 86 million people in 83 countries, including Cameroon. Your work will have a positive impact on lives of the world’s most vulnerable people.

• You will join a diverse team of professionals and will have an opportunity to exchange your experiences with your colleagues and continuously learning from each other.

• WFP invests in the training and development of its employees through a range of training, accreditation, mentorship and other programs as well as through international mobility opportunities.

• Our team is growing nationally and internationally and the timing to join us cannot be better!

Join us to make a difference, watch this video to know more about us!!

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnaxfnNKdsM

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES/ RESPONSIBILITIES:

The incumbent will be responsible for carrying out the following tasks and responsibilities:

• Lead the development and implementation of resilience, livelihoods and social protection activities (including the homegrown school feeding, agricultural value chain and market systems development) under the WFP Country Strategic Plan (CSP) 2022 – 2026, ensuring alignment with WFP global policies and other guidance; Provide technical leadership for the development of climate change adaptation and climate risk management projects, plans and processes, ensuring a cross-cutting gender and age consideration;

• Assist government stakeholders in developing and implementing relevant policy frameworks and provide technical expertise for the planning, formulation and implementation of food systems interventions to strengthen government and community capacities;

• Identify and facilitate engagement with relevant operational and strategic partnerships (including private sector, UN agencies, research organization, NGOs) at national and sub-national level for collaboration for the expansion of food systems and integration with other technical areas;

• Support the development and roll out of relevant guidelines, standard operating procedures, templates that would support effective and quality delivery of the homegrown school feeding linkages with smallholder farmers working with the relevant government counterparts;

• Organise and facilitate technical assessments to understand the production and marketing capacity of smallholder farmers, farmer organizations, their ability to access services, credit, information and resources and to inform interventions design and implementation for resilience projects;

• Develop and facilitate tailored capacity building strategies for smallholder farmers and farmer organisations to strengthen their aggregation, food safety and quality control, marketing and business development capacity and skills to increase marketable surpluses and market access;

• Represent WFP in partnership forums pertinent to resilience, livelihoods and social protection and provide coordination leadership for the National Cash Working Group and other relevant UN engagement processes;

• Lead timely preparations and implementation of partnership agreements with government, cooperating/ implementing partners related to linking smallholder farmers to homegrown school feeding, including preparation of memorandum of understanding (MOU) and field level agreements (FLA);

• Take responsibility for incorporating gender and other cross-cutting perspectives in areas of work (Protection, accountability to affected population) to ensure equal participation of women and men;

Contribute to Country Office resource mobilization efforts through development of concept notes, funding proposals, budget and other necessary activities for complementary activities to meet school feeding program specific funding targets;

• Provide effective management of project resources/funds for resilience, livelihoods and social protection initiatives including advising on timely planning and tracking of fund utilization working hand in hand with the Finance and Resource management teams to ensure timely commitment and disbursement of the project funds in line with agreements with donors;

• Advise on and support the design of knowledge management initiatives that enhance the capacity of WFP staff and partners to engage in resilience, livelihoods and social protection-relevant policy dialogues, program design and delivery;

• Contribute to the preparation and dissemination of timely analytical and critical reports (Sitreps, bulletins, etc), publications, and a variety of knowledge products or proposals related to resilience building, food systems and social protection for internal or external use. This includes contribution to the Annual Country Reporting process;

• Perform any other duties as required.

DESIRED EXPERIENCES FOR ENTRY INTO THE ROLE:

• Training and/or experience in food systems, including value chains development and market systems.

• Understanding of Agenda SDG 2030 and respective targets – particularly SDG1, SDG2 and SDG17 – and how the work of WFP can contribute to achieving them.

• Understanding of donor policies, strategies and programme priorities.

• Knowledge of WFP’s mandate, Country Strategic Planning process, intervention modalities, program and project lifecycle tools, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation are a desirable.

• Knowledge of WFP strategies for support to resilience, livelihoods, climate change, cash and social protection programming.

• Knowledge of key national and regional contexts and related issues.

• Knowledge and/or experience of one or more cross cutting areas, such as protection, accountability to affected populations, gender and conflict-sensitive approaches, triple nexus is considered an asset.

• Knowledge of current thinking and developments in country capacity strengthening and effective knowledge transfer models, concepts, and principles are considered an asset.

• Knowledge of in-kind food, cash-based assistance transfers is considered an asset.

STANDARD MINIMUM ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS:

Education: Advanced University degree in Agriculture, Economics, Development Economics or any relevant field.

Experience:

1. At least 7 years of progressively responsible experience in programme related functions of which significant experience (2 or more years) has to be relate to resilience building, agricultural value chains, market linkages for smallholder farmers, social protection to achieve food security and/or nutrition objectives.

2. Experience working with government in implementing resilience, social protection, climate risk management and disaster risk reduction interventions;

3. Experience in programming of food and cash assistance in emergency and/or development contexts including cash coordination;

4. Experience in developing, establishing, strengthening and maintaining relationships with a variety of stakeholders: governments and/or humanitarian & development stakeholders, preferably related to livelihoods and social protection programming.

5. Experience in supervising, leading and coaching staff

Language:

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

March 2023

Kindly note the only documents you need to submit at this time are your CV and Cover Letter. Additional documents such as passport, recommendation letters, academic certificates, etc may potentially be requested at a future time.

For candidates who experience problems accessing WFP E-recruitment platform and need accommodations in applying, please contact wfprecruitment@wfp.org mentioning the VA number in the subject line.

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.

Apply For Job