International Consultant – Programme Policy Officer (Early Warning and Famine Prevention)- CST II

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WFP seeks candidates of the highest integrity and professionalism who share our humanitarian principles. Selection of staff is made on a competitive basis. We are committed to promoting diversity and the principle of equal employment opportunity for all our employees and encourage qualified candidates to apply irrespective of religion or belief, ethnic or social background, gender, gender identity and disability.

JOB DETAILS

Job Title: International Consultant – Programme Policy Officer (Early Warnings and Famine Prevention)
Grade: CST II
Type of contract: Consultancy
Duration: 11 Months (with the possibility of extension)
Duty Station: Kabul
Vacancy Number: 828998
Date of Publication: 13 Aug 2023
Deadline of Application: 03 Sep 2023

ABOUT WFP

The World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organization saving lives and changing lives, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience.

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

The hunger crisis in Afghanistan is unfolding at a rapidly, with over half the country’s population of 15 million now facing acute food insecurity—the highest number the humanitarian community has ever seen in Afghanistan. Work opportunities are shrinking, with most households now reporting just one day of work per week. This comes on top of the worst drought in years, which is especially concerning for the 85 percent of the population who rely on agriculture for livelihoods. Preventing and mitigating a drastic increase in hunger and malnutrition is the aim of WFP in Afghanistan which can only be achieved through the scaled up and sustained complementary food security and nutrition interventions, combined with a scale-up of resilience interventions to safeguard gains. WFP has embarked on a significant month on month scale-up of its crisis response and resilience programmes across the country, ensuring that the programme is delivered at the right scale and time, targeted to the right areas. WFP is also actively following up on evolving trends to pre-empt hotspots, while guaranteeing quality and maximum impact of the programme through the monitoring of these hotspots to be able to support continued donor advocacy.

The September 2022 Hunger Hotspots report by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization indicated that Afghanistan remained one of the highest risk countries in the world for extreme food insecurity, including famine conditions and famine. This followed confirmation of famine conditions in limited areas of Ghor Province affecting an estimated 20,000 people in the March 2022 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis. Afghanistan may be facing its highest risk of famine or famine conditions in 25 years, even as the constraints on humanitarian action continue to rise.

Globally, famine early warning is largely done through the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analytical framework and process. Yet this approach provides infrequent results over large geographic areas, resulting in outputs that are not immediately actionable for humanitarian programming. This form of early warning matches neither the potential speed nor scale of famine. These global challenges are compounded by rapidly narrowing humanitarian space in Afghanistan as the de facto authorities enact restrictive policies, such as on female employment, and press for greater control over humanitarian assessments, including the household surveys that provide the bulk of the data used in any IPC analysis. WFP requires a Programme Policy Officer able to lead and innovate in famine early warning while also linking these efforts concretely to WFP programming and operations.

JOB PURPOSE

WFP-Afghanistan requires a Programme Policy Officer (Early Warning and Famine Prevention) to lead in the development of a famine prevention strategy, including designing the early warning approach to be by the Country Office (CO). This staff member will also manage and expand the CO’s early warning portfolio, including partnerships with multiple cooperating partners engaged in early warning as well as commercial partnerships. This requires the management of ongoing early warning projects as well as designing and fundraising for new early warning projects, including proposal development, and fund management. This position is required to operate with considerable independence, driving famine prevention and early warning without significant supervisory support or guidance. This position will also supervise the Early Warning Analyst working within the early warning team within the Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping (VAM) team.
This staff member will produce integrated context and food security analysis and coordinate its application to programming and operations across different units and teams. This staff member is responsible for ensuring that analysis drives concrete changes in programming with client units and teams. These efforts will be both reactive – responding to issues and requests as they arise – and proactive – utilizing wide-ranging context analysis to prevent and mitigate programmatic and operational issues and to anticipate analytical needs within the organization. In addition to CO units and teams, the Analyst also supports all Area Offices (AOs) as needed. This position is in the VAM team. They are also expected to work across all relevant units and teams, including collaborating heavily with Gender & Protection, Security, Access, and others.
The Programme Policy Officer also functions as a further link between the Country Office and a wide range of stakeholders as relevant to food security and context analysis in Afghanistan. These may include research organizations like International Crisis Group or academic institutions like Tufts University.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

Under the supervision of the Head of Research, Analysis, Monitoring, and Evaluation (RAME), this position shall perform the following tasks:

• Manage the early warning workstream within VAM. Supervise the early warning team, lead the provision of VAME’s early warning-related technical inputs and strategic advisory to Programme and management;
• Coordinate and develop an early warning system for the CO, advising Programme and other units of risks and needed programmatic and operational adjustments.
• Develop a famine prevention strategy for the CO, including an innovative approach to famine early warning that aligns with the operational realities of Afghanistan in 2023;
• Provide advice and support to the CO on famine prevention, including linking early warning analysis directly to programmatic and operational adjustments in line with WFP’s obligations and commitments;
• Lead the CO Early Warning Forum, including delivering internal early warning briefings, coordinating the contributions of CO teams and units, and providing technical advice to other CO teams and units regarding the utilization of forum outputs;
• Lead WFP preparations for IPC and WFP internal review and quality assurance workstreams related to IPC engagement.
• Source and analyze a wide range of information, including related to food and nutrition security, governance, protection, and humanitarian access, to inform context analysis in support of all aspects of the programme cycle and operations, strategic planning, and ad hoc needsProduce public and internal memos, briefs, full-length reports, presentations, and other written outputs as needed, including in collaboration with other teams and units;
• Establish and maintain formal and informal relationships with external stakeholders, including organizations and individuals, involved in context analysis related to Afghanistan as considered relevant for CO needs;
• Ensure the incorporation of key research findings and recommendations into WFP programming and operations and facilitate collaborative and/or applied research, preferably from the beginning of the research cycle, to advance WFP contextual understanding;
• Perform other related duties as required.

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education:

• Advanced University degree in International Affairs, Economics, Nutrition/Health, Agriculture, Environmental Science, Social Sciences or other field relevant to international development assistance, or First University Degree with additional years of related work experience and/or trainings/courses.

Experience:

• At least 6 years professional experience, including in famine early warning and general context analysis

Required Knowledge and Skills:

• Displays ability to identify the main hunger problem at the national or subnational level to design and implement context-specific programmes that integrate complex analysis and the full range of food assistance tools
• Displays ability to translate understanding of programme principles in emergencies and protracted conflict situations into relevant, effective, and context specific approaches
• High familiarity with WFP programming and ways of working as well as food security, and major contextual issues generally, in Afghanistan and/or demonstrated ability and willingness to rapidly acquire such in-depth knowledge
• Advanced knowledge of food insecurity and vulnerability measurement and analysis
• Demonstrated experience in humanitarian and other data collection, management, and analysis
• Advanced knowledge of the Integrated Food Security Classification (IPC) framework, related processes, and outputs; IPC certification an asset.
• Strong initiative and independence, maturity of judgement, tact, and interpersonal skills
• Ability to communicate effectively orally and in writing
• Ability to deliver on responsibilities with minimal guidance
• Ability to establish and work within teams and build effective working relationships with persons of many national and cultural backgrounds
• Ability and willingness to cope with situations which may threaten health or safety and to live in challenging environments
• General knowledge of humanitarian principles, UN rules, regulations and procedures
• Flexibility in accepting work assignments outside normal desk description or outside Terms of Reference

Language:

• Fluency (level C) in English language.

HOW TO APPLY

To be considered, interested candidates are invited to apply via (https://www.wfp.org/careers/job-openings). Only short-listed candidates will be contacted. We want to ensure the recruitment process is fully accessible. Please contact us at afg.hrrecruitment@wfp.org to advise us of any accessibility needs you may have.

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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.

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