Coordinator, Retail and Market for Nutrition

WFP seeks candidates of the highest integrity and professionalism who share our humanitarian principles

Selection of staff is made on a competitive basis, and we are committed to promoting diversity and gender balance

Job Title: Coordinator, Retail and Market for Nutrition

Type of Contract: International Consultant Level II

Division: Nutrition: Nutrition Division

Duty Station (City, Country): Rome, Italy

Duration: 11 months

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:

The current prevalence of malnutrition in children is alarming. Over 50 million children suffer from acute malnutrition and over 150 million suffer from stunting. Currently there are 800 million people that live below the poverty line. Food systems today do not produce affordable or adequate nutritious foods. As a result, three billion people are currently unable to pay for even the cheapest, locally available, healthy diets (SOFI, 2020) thereby contributing to multiple forms of malnutrition

Making food systems work for healthier diets has become a priority given the range of political, social, economic, health and environmental challenges. The World Food Programme (WFP)’s unique comparative advantage is to work across the food system and to improve both the supply of and demand for more nutritious foods as a key route to reducing all forms of malnutrition.

As the leading humanitarian agency in delivering food assistance and nutrition, WFP leverages its expertise in logistics and supply chain to build efficient, resilient and sustainable markets for healthier diet. WFP’s cash footprint has substantially increased over the past 10 years, reaching 36 million people with cash transfers in 69 countries. With its increasing cash & voucher programming, the food choices made by beneficiaries/consumers becomes critical. Low-income populations are spending more in markets than ever before and forecasts estimate that from 2015–2030 growth in consumer spending in emerging markets will be three times faster than in developed markets. It is therefore essential to link institutional demand, national social protection programs and individual consumer demand to strong food systems that deliver nutritious and affordable food, ensuring that local communities can access markets, services and healthy diets in a sustainable way.

OBJECTIVE

One of the goals of the Nutrition Division (NUT) of WFP is to contribute to the increased availability, accessibility, affordability and demand of foods for a heathy diet, in formal and informal markets, through improved, shock-resilient, and nutrition-sensitive food systems. Our goal is to leverage WFP’s footprint in institutional demand (particularly related to improving household’s purchasing power through cash, social protection, school-based programming), in food production and value chain development and on demand creation. We aim to combine our work to better connect supply and demand at market level to influence food value chains, retail and procurement strategies to support more healthier diets of the most vulnerable.

ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:

To undertake the Nutrition Division’s work on Food system and markets, WFP is looking for a Coordinator, Retail and Market for Nutrition. The incumbent will report directly to the Nutrition Team Lead for Food System and Nutrition under the general leadership of the Chief of Nutrition Sensitive, working closely with other NUT colleagues and colleagues in the Cash, Food system and Supply chain teams to:

1. Define operational guidance to harness markets aiming to improve affordability, availability, and access to healthy diets by building a Market/Retail Systems approach for Nutrition. The guidance should reflect a balance of policy recommendations and in-field implementation strategies across different food systems components aiming to provide direct support to country offices.

• Based on global best practices and WFP’s comparative advantage, strengthen nutrition program design (Cash, Social protection, Food system) by providing clear recommendations on market related nutrition sensitive assessments, undertaking food systems landscaping of other healthier food retail initiatives including assessing the environment within which they operate and their impact on demand creation towards healthier diets
• Support development and expansion of the analytical toolbox to be able to inform nutrition programming and leveraging markets for healthy diet. This includes reviewing internal WFP tools (MFI, MSA, MDA), and also benchmarking external tools.
• Provide inputs to the M&E framework for Nutrition in Retail Systems related programming and linking it to Healthy Diets
• Ensure reporting on progress, achievements, challenges, and successes on the Market system approach for Nutrition
• Support fundraising opportunities and concept note development as and when needed

1. Develop a roadmap with Regional Bureaus and Country Offices to strengthen the multistakeholder approach and identify clear entry points for interventions involving producers, aggregators, buyers, wholesalers, and market facilitators to build joint understanding of food and market systems needs within WFP that encourage improved uptake of nutritious foods by consumers.

• Provide oversight, technical coordination and capacity building support to global HQ, regional, and country level colleagues to achieve the goals and objectives outlined in the market, retail approach for Nutrition
• Lead joint program planning and implementation in priority countries with Nutrition, Supply Chain, Retail and Markets team to roll out / strengthen nutrition-sensitive retail systems programming.
• Develop market approaches including market development activities able to improve access, and affordability of nutritious diet adapted to the context (urban, fragile settings etc.).
• Identify opportunities for nutrition mainstreaming in all stages of the food and market systems development (production strategies, agro-processing, transport, storage, post-harvest processing, marketing, and public messaging) within WFP programs (SAMS, food fortification, HGSF, etc.)

1. Build and grow effective and meaningful partnerships both internally and externally with key divisions, academia, sister agencies, NGOs and private sector, in particular to link retail initiatives with our Sun Business Network field initiatives, as appropriate.

• Collaborate with the different streams in the Division (Analysis, SBCC, Food Systems, Data Innovation, Local Production, Nutrition Integration, SUN Business Network) and broadly within WFP (Supply Chain, RAM, CBT, Programme, Partnerships) to support synergies where applicable for a shared focus on the NUT objectives for retail.
• Partner with governments, private sector and other relevant actors to strengthen the enabling environment for nutrition, including through the design, enforcement and implementation of laws, regulations, policies and positive support programmes.

1. Support the knowledge management and learning agenda for food system and markets for healthy diet workstream.

• Work closely with supply chain, Food system, HQ colleagues and with regional bureau nutrition advisors to support learning and knowledge management from ongoing nutrition sensitive retail interventions.
• Support the development of a plan to capture stronger evidence of different approaches for nutrition sensitive retail programs.
• Provide synthesis and summaries of latest available evidence/articles related to market and nutrition for dissemination to WFP global nutrition community

DELIVERABLES AT THE END OF THE CONTRACT:

• A well-defined Product Vision and an up-to-date Product Roadmap fully aligned with Business Roadmaps and the needs of end-users.
• A well-managed Product Backlog duly groomed and with Product Backlog Items (PBIs) passing the Definition of Ready criteria.
• A product which achieves the highest quality in terms of technical usability, user acceptability, and domain suitability.
• A high level of satisfaction of the product users as first priority, in particular country office and implementing partner teams, IT Solution Architect, and Development Teams in relation to soft skills such as effective communication, conflict management, strategic contributions to product’s success, leadership skills, etc.
• Contribution to improvement of shared processes and tools.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

Education:

Advanced University degree in Food Sciences, Business Development, International Development, Development Economics, Marketing Communications or other relevant field OR First University degree with additional years of related work experience and/or Training/courses.

Experience:

Minimum of 7 years of professional experience, ideally working within the food industry with markets, consumer goods engagement experience or related. Ideally with an experience with NGO, UN agency in similar initiatives.

Experience in engaging on coordinated relevant initiatives and the management of external partner relationships.

Proven track record working with the private sector, in particular experience in consumer marketing or brand-building.

Experience in resource mobilization and ability to build productive relationships with representatives of donors.

Knowledge & Skills:

Relationship management, communications and networking skills.

Writing skills.

Ability to convene and manage inputs from diverse teams.

Languages:

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

Terms and Conditions

WFP offers a competitive compensation package which will be determined by the contract type and selected candidate’s qualifications and experience.

Please visit the following websites for detailed information on working with WFP.

http://www.wfp.org Click on: “Our work” and “Countries” to learn more about WFP’s operations.

Deadline for applications: 26 March 2023

Ref.: VA No. 600903

Qualified female applicants and qualified applicants from developing countries are especially encouraged to apply

WFP has zero tolerance for discrimination and does not discriminate on the basis of HIV/AIDS status

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.

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