Programme Policy Officer

About the job
The United Nations World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. The mission of WFP is to end global hunger. 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.

In emergencies, WFP gets food to where it is needed, saving the lives of victims of war, civil conflict and natural disasters. After an emergency, WFP uses food to help communities rebuild their shattered lives. Present in nearly 80 countries, the organization has the global footprint, deep field presence and local knowledge and relationships necessary to provide access to nutritious food and contribute to the lasting solutions, especially in many of the world’s most remote and fragile areas. We manage an operating budget of approximately $5.9 billion each year, distributing 12.6 billion rations to those most in need. We reach an average of 80 million people with food assistance in around 80 countries each year. The World Food Programme office in Johannesburg is a Regional Office coordinating and supporting the delivery of humanitarian assistance and providing technical support to 12 Southern Africa countries including, Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Republic of Congo, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

For more on WFP and what we do, please go to http://www.wfp.org/videos/zero-hunger

JOB TITLE: Programme Policy Officer (Strategic Programme Innovations and Transformation)

TYPE & LEVEL OF CONTRACT: Limited Fixed-Term Appointment (LFT) P2

UNIT/DIVISION: Programme and Policy

DUTY STATION (City, Country): Lusaka, Zambia

OPENING DATE OF APPLICATION: Monday 23 May 2022

CLOSING DATE OF APPLICATION: Monday 6 June 2022

PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:

WFP Zambia has designed a five-year Country Strategic Plan (CSP) as a result of rigorous consultations with government, donors and other stakeholders, and reflects their appetite to support and partner with WFP in the country. It is informed by, and strongly aligns with, national and United Nations priorities, and global commitments under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It embraces the Government’s long-term Vision 2030; aligns with 16 key strategic areas of its current 7th National Development Plan (NDP7); and contributes to the joint Zambia-UN Sustainable Development Partnership Framework (UNSDPF). The CSP is informed by WFP’s long-standing and broad experience in the country, embracing lessons from evaluations and reviews which call for greater synergy, a consolidation of ‘pilot’ initiatives, and improved gender-sensitive approaches to programme design. Finally, it is guided by the Zero Hunger Strategic Review (ZHSR).

In a break with past approaches, both the ZHSR and the NDP7 recognise that hunger and nutrition issues are multi-faceted, and require well-integrated, collaborative, multi-sectoral national approaches, that draw on the skills and resources of key stakeholders. These key strategies point to an increasing national consensus on food and nutrition security, which has created a strong opportunity for WFP to re-focus its investments and efforts to areas of genuine comparative advantage and give effect to maximum impact. WFP Zambia’s integrated and pragmatic CSP shifts away from unsustainable localized and micro-level interventions, to embrace more effective advocacy and engagement with national policies, systems and programmes to achieve national impact on SDG2. Given the Government’s commitment to budget support for nutrition, social protection, and agriculture, despite the country’s constrained fiscal position, WFP’s overarching strategy seeks to enable the government to meet its policy aspirations with better systems, expertise and resources for implementation. This means a decisive shift of WFP’s country positioning towards the provision of upstream technical assistance for nationally owned solutions.

Advancing the WFP Corporate Strategic Plan (2017-2021), the CSP addresses both SDG2 and SDG17, and WFP’s Strategic Results 1, 2, 3 and 5. WFP will implement six activities to achieve four Strategic Outcomes (SOs). These SOs will: respond to crises and shocks including support to refugees (SO1); address the root causes of malnutrition (SO2); build the resilience, enabling environment and market access for smallholders, especially women (SO3); and support government institutions to provide social protection systems (including home grown school meals) and disaster preparedness and response (SO4).

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

1.The incumbent will coordinate Smallholder Farmer (SHF) Support and will be responsible for guiding the SHF support team, providing technical advice in relevant activities in line with WFP standards and processes, and act as a point of referral on SHF analysis and queries.

2.Contribute towards the development of tools and processes to strengthen national programmes and initiatives, including supporting development of national government policies, action plans, protocols and guidelines.

3.Support the scale up of market access oriented SHF support, particularly on enhancing adoption of virtual farmers markets by SHFs, Intermediary users and off takers, contribute to enhancing user experience and diversity of VFM products and partnerships, operationalization of warehouse receipt system, strengthening the creation of localized sustainable marketing systems such as through aggregation networks, enhance market price information and dissemination through relevant technology.

4.Focus on consolidating gains made in setting-up and harmonization of financial products (including weather-based index insurance) to government initiatives, increase meteorological stations to enhance early warning systems. Liaise with UN agencies, NGOs, private and public sector to ensure scale and sustainable exit strategies from direct implementation.

5.Support the CO’s strategic shift and provide guidance on post-harvest management activities by helping to enhance private sector business modelling on PHL technologies and practices in addition to facilitating provision of trainings to extension staff on post-harvest management, knowledge management to effectively generate/adapt appropriate post-harvest technologies to minimize food loss, and systems strengthening.

6.Support and contribute to donor proposals and reporting.

7.Guide the team on field level agreements and general management of Cooperating Partners.

8.Support in the provision of guidance on advocacy and communication around nutrition-sensitive smallholder farmer support, climate change adaptation and resilience in general and ensuring that these are integrated into national strategies and programmes.

9.Build capacity of WFP staff, partners and national governments to prepare for and respond to shocks.

10.Prepare accurate and timely reports, contributing to a knowledge base that informs decision making of WFP and other stakeholders.

11.Support the monitoring and evaluation of WFP activities including provision of technical analysis, and interpretation.

12.Organizes, monitors, and prioritizes own and team’s efforts to ensure that they will fulfil the needs of internal and external partners.

13.Participate in technical discussions with government, UN and Agriculture Cooperating Partners meetings, and other interagency forums and ensure programme specific inputs around smallholder farmer support, market access, climate change, and resilience in general are provided.

14.Other as required.

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education:

Advanced University degree in Economics, Nutrition/Health, Agriculture, Social Sciences, Business, Marketing and other related fields.
Experience:

3 years experience in working within relevant area.
2 years experience in project management, business transformation and managing innovative concepts with proven results in achieving programme milestones.
Good understanding of WFP Zambia Resilience programme.
Excellent understanding of both the developmental and commercial ecosystem of the Zambia agricultural sector
Language:

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

Limited Fixed-Term Appointment (LFT) position is a non-mobile staff appointment in the international professional category for a limited period for up to 4 years and is open to all nationalities (for HQ and RBs) or candidates must be a national of a country other than the country of assignment (for Country Offices). The position is based in Lusaka, Zambia and the selected candidate will be expected to relocate. 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.

Female applicants and qualified applicants from developing countries are especially encouraged to apply