Programme Policy Officer Technical support & Donor liaison, LFT P3, Addis Ababa
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CONTRACTUAL INFORMATION
JOB TITLE: Programme Policy Officer, Technical support & Donor liaison (Resilience building & Climate change adaptation)
TYPE OF CONTRACT: Limited Fixed Term (LFT) P3
UNIT/DIVISION: Programme
DUTY STATION: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
DURATION: 2 years
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.
BACKGROUND & PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT
The World Food Programme (WFP) is the United Nations' frontline humanitarian agency addressing hunger and malnutrition worldwide. WFP tackles poverty and hunger through a range of interventions: saving lives and protecting livelihoods in emergencies; investing in the prevention and mitigation of disasters; restoring and rebuilding lives and livelihoods in post-conflict or post-disaster situation; and other interventions to tackle hunger. Each year, on average, WFP assists more than 100 million people in over 80 countries.
In addition to responding to the humanitarian needs in Ethiopia by providing emergency food and cash assistance to shock-affected populations, WFP is scaling up interventions aimed at strengthening resilience and enhancing livelihoods through a wide range of integrated and mutually reinforcing activities across the country, thereby reducing aid dependency. Germany, through its Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and its Development Bank (KfW), is one of the main donors enabling WFP Ethiopia to implement such activities, funding several projects. As part of WFP’s efforts to strengthen and scale-up its portfolio of resilience-building activities, WFP Ethiopia is introducing a project manager position for KfW- and BMZ-funded projects.
The WFP Ethiopia Country Office has made significant progress in scaling up its resilience building and livelihood strengthening initiatives as a mechanism of supporting vulnerable communities regain and maintain their livelihoods. As part of the Country Office’s goal to systematically transition a significant number of beneficiaries from humanitarian assistance to more changing lives interventions, WFP Ethiopia has developed two strategies designed to guide the scale up of resilience building interventions for individuals and communities in pastoral lowlands and for smallholder farmers in agricultural productive parts of the country. These strategies are aligned to the development priorities of the Federal and Regional governments.
With increased government and donor interest in scaling up resilience building initiatives, it is imperative that WFP get the right skill sets to design and implement innovative and plausible interventions while positioning WFP as a partner of choice. The primary role of this position is to provide technical liaison between WFP and selected donors, in this case BMZ, KFW and Scandinavian countries, keeping them updated on programme implementation, inherent project implementation bottlenecks, and opportunities for further support, while ensuring alignment of interventions with government priorities, donor requirements and WFP’s corporate frameworks. Work closely with the WFP Ethiopia and regional bureau partnerships teams. It therefore requires somebody with strong knowledge of programme/project design and implementation, understanding of pastoral and agro-pastoral working contexts and the ability to adapt solutions to context in a highly complex programme.
KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)
As technical liaison between WFP and BMZ, KFW and the Scandinavian funded projects in Ethiopia, the Programme Policy Officer has the responsibility of contributing to project design through ensuring alignment of project interventions to donor requirements, ensuring timelines in submission of concept notes and proposals to respective donors and that any variations or adjustments to implementation are adequately communicated to the donor. Responsibilities under this role may be extended to supporting projects funded by other donors in addition to the ones stated above as may be deemed necessary as well as strategic planning support to the Head of the Changing Lives portfolio in Ethiopia.
Under the direct supervision of the Lead, Innovation, Insurance & Financial Inclusion, the incumbent’s responsibilities will include:
1. Project Liaison: Liaison for resilience building and livelihood interventions funded by BMZ, KFW and the Scandinavian Countries, and other forms of assistance, as defined by the head of changing lives. Provide regular feedback to the donors on project implementation and support identify, and address bottlenecks affecting the smooth running of the projects. Contribute to project design and ensure alignment of project concept notes or proposals to donor requirements and to WFP policies and the Country Strategic Plan (CSP). Liaise with WFP staff involved in the project implementation to provide guidance on project requirements and monitor project milestones against project targets and objectives, ensure deadlines and targets are met, and ensure that relevant policies, guidelines, and processes (WFP corporate and project-specific) are adhered to (compliance).
2. Technical support: Contribute to the design of projects, ensuring alignment of concept notes and proposals to donor requirements; and ensure that the proposals are of a good quality and are submitted on time, and that they are aligned to WFP Ethiopia’s CSP and the respective projects/workstreams under the resilience building and climate change adaptation portfolio.
3. Partnerships: As the liaison with KFW/MMZ and Scandinavian development partners under activity 5, keep the direct supervisor and the WFP partnerships team informed on the implementation of activities funded by KfW/BMZ and the Scandinavian countries. The selected candidate will undertake regular meetings, workshops, joint field visits, presentations, submission of reports and proactively seek opportunities for further funding to support the scale-up of interventions, in addition to seeking new partnerships as needed. Additional responsibilities include supporting the field offices with the selection, onboarding of cooperating partners, including drafting of agreements, with guidance and support by the Programme Partnership unit.
4. Strategic Planning: Support the Changing Lives Portfolio Manager, as guided, to pro-actively formulate and contribute to strategy formulation, development of strategic plans, concept notes, scale-up plans for on-going projects, partnership strategy development, and consolidation of inputs into the second-generation CSPs. Also provide or contribute to reporting and knowledge management.
5. Reporting: Ensure timely and high-quality reporting, which includes compiling relevant annual project reports, provide inputs to WFP Ethiopia’s internal and external reporting structures such as the Annual Country Report (ACR), donor updates, and weekly updates, and provide other reporting inputs as required. Additionally, collaborate with M&E focal points to generate the necessary evidence emerging from the work done under respective activity leads within the resilience building and climate change adaptation portfolio, and changing lives agenda in general. This includes supporting the design of results frameworks, data collection processes, and contributing to evidence generation initiatives.
6. Financial Management: Ensure accountability of the use of project funds; oversee the administrative, financial, and budgetary aspects of project activities, including the monitoring of financial expenditures and transactions; ensure strict and consistent application of WFP rules and regulations and alignment to donor requirements.
7. Knowledge Management: Liaise with focal points of various thematic areas relevant to the project as well as related projects, both externally and internally in the Country Office to ensure best practices are effectively captured and lessons from them applied to enhance programme delivery. Introduce innovative solutions (including digital) to capture, store and access such information. Also support the development of a framework within which knowledge management is effectively managed and utilized.
8. Travel: Regular travel to the field and project sites, including the facilitation of donor- and high-level visits.
9. Other: Carry out other relevant tasks and duties as requested by the immediate supervisor, Head of Programme, and Country Office management
QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
Education: Advanced University degree in Environmental Sciences, Management Sciences, (Development) Economics, Statistics, or similar studies.
Experience: At least 5 years of working in the humanitarian or development sector and demonstrated job-related professional experience in project design and management, partnership management, budgeting, and inter-sectoral engagements or other related fields
Knowledge & Skills:
- Demonstrated experience in establishing and maintaining effective partnerships with donors, government entities and other actors, experience in project design and implementation, especially for resilience building and livelihood interventions in pastoral low-land and agricultural production contexts and the ability to effectively manage and work the multi-sectoral teams, including field-based teams.
- Possess strong analytical and problem-solving skills and proven ability to apply these skills in complex situations.
- Good management and leadership skills coupled with the ability to prepare high quality reports for internal and external consumption. Prior work experience within UN, other international organizations or development finance institutions would be an advantage; Strong client orientation and proven capacity to work across multiple internal and external stakeholders, including civil society and community-based organizations.
Language: Fluency (level C) in English language.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
A Limited Fixed-Term (LFT) contract is a non-mobile staff appointment in the international professional category for a limited period of up to 4 years. This LFT position will be based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and the selected candidate will be expected to reside at the duty station. Incumbents of LFT positions are not eligible to apply for other mobile positions advertised internally through the Reassignment.
WFP offers an attractive compensation and benefits package in line with ICSC standards (http://icsc.un.org) including basic salary, post adjustment, relocation entitlement, travel and shipment allowances, 30 days’ annual leave, home leave, an education grant for dependent children, a pension plan, and medical insurance.
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS
August 15, 2023
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WFP has a zero-tolerance approach to conduct such as fraud, sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to WFP’s standards of conduct and will therefore undergo rigorous background verification internally or through third parties. Selected candidates will also be required to provide additional information as part of the verification exercise. Misrepresentation of information provided during the recruitment process may lead to disqualification or termination of employment
WFP will not request payment at any stage of the recruitment process including at the offer stage. Any requests for payment should be refused and reported to local law enforcement authorities for appropriate action.
