Job Opportunity at WFP, Programme Policy Officer (Gender and Youth Employment Specialist)
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, physical or mental disability.
ABOUT WFP
The World Food Programme (WFP) is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. WFP pursues a vision of the world in which every man, woman and child has access at all times to the diverse food needed for an active and healthy life.
WFP Tanzania has been connecting smallholder farmers to markets since the launch of the Purchase for Progress (P4P) pilot in 2009. WFP has been supporting Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to strengthen the ecosystem in which smallholder farmers access affordable inputs, services and markets. Finally, with the Government of Tanzania, WFP supports local and smallholder purchasing to meet local and regional demand for WFP food assistance.
WFP’s strategy to support smallholder farmers highlights the importance of women and youth in rural development, livelihoods, strengthening value chains, and improving food systems. The strategy is committed to empower over 405,000 farmers in the next five years (2022-2027), generating over USD 150 million of aggregated annual purchasing demand in the Country.
In livelihoods support of the strategy, the upcoming “Strengthening Food Systems to Empower Smallholder Farmers and Young People” project will support MSME development and scale support to the maize, sorghum, beans and horticulture value chains, targeting smallholder farmers and youths, especially women.
Furthermore, the upcoming “Strengthening Smallholder Agriculture Value Chain, Gender Equity and Peace in Refugee Hosting Districts” project will enhance food security and nutrition amongst vulnerable groups, strengthen community-based organizations to become active contributors to social cohesion, gender equality and peace, and increase smallholder farmers agricultural and financial capacities for market engagement and resilient livelihoods.
STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
Education: University degree, preferably with specialized certification in international development, gender studies, behavioral economics, sociology, or another related field;
Language: Fluency in both oral and written communication in English and Swahili and any other official UN language would be an asset.
ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT
Under the overall guidance of the Head of the Sub Office and the technical guidance of the Head of Smallholder Unit, and in close collaboration with the CO Gender Focal Point, the incumbent will play a key role in identifying and implementing gender and youth integration strategies into WFP activities supporting commodity value chains, smallholder access to markets, and capacity strengthening of community-based organizations. This will lead to a more equal distribution of access to resources, livelihood opportunities and income across stakeholder groups.
JOB PURPOSE
The incumbent is expected to provide professional support to improve the equal participation of women and youth along the value chain and its actors – including MSMEs, financial institutions, bank guarantee schemes including insurance products to smallholder farmers, private off takers, farmer groups, and other supply chain actors along the value chains that WFP supports.
KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)
- Integration and Support: Conduct Gender Equity and Youth Engagement Analysis and build a Plan of Action for integrating a gender and youth lens into WFP Smallholder programming, including but not limited to:
- Integrate elements of the WFP Gender Strategy to ensure that gender issues are appropriately mainstreamed in project implementation
- Lead the implementation of youth engagement strategies across activities
- Identify and develop innovative activities related to gender equality and youth engagement that contribute to social changes in the project areas and facilitate the gender and youth learning agenda
- Capacity building on Gender Equity and Youth Engagement amongst internal and external stakeholders
- Disseminating gender equity and youth engagement best practices to WFP Staff, farmers, partners, and Government. Review and propose capacity building programmes for different stakeholder groups.
- Propose and create educational and communication materials, including at village level to highlight gender and youth issues
- Build capacity of WFP programme staff, including Sub-offices, for better understanding why gender and youth mainstreaming is important, and ensure gender and youth are mainstreamed across smallholder activities with clear gender and youth indicators. Leverage synergies in smallholder farmer value chains support interventions to impart gender knowledge and awareness at field levels
- Liaise with Community Development Officer and hold gender advocacy sessions at the District and Region levels to garner support for gender mainstreaming in all other projects by other partners.
KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES CONTINUED
- Work closely with the M&E Unit to oversee the monitoring of project outputs related to gender and youth.
- Monitor progress on youth and gender related indicators. Provide appropriate feedback, technical advice and support to the project staff and partners during the implementation
- Document gender and youth engagement best practices
- Draft regular progress reports and contribute to donors and corporate reports as required
- Contribute to the development of Concept Notes and proposals for gender and youth mainstreaming as required
- Perform other related duties as required.
4Ps CORE ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITIES
Purpose
- Understand and communicate the Strategic Objectives: Understands WFP’s Strategic Objectives and the link to own work objectives.
- Be a force for positive change: Flexibly adapts individual contributions to accommodate changes in direction from supervisors and internal/external changes (such as evolving needs of beneficiaries, new requirements of partners).
- Make the mission inspiring to our team: Recognizes and shares with team members the ways in which individual contributions relate to WFP’s mission.
- Make our mission visible in everyday actions: Sets own goals in alignment with WFP’s overall operations, and is able to communicate this link to others.
People
- Look for ways to strengthen people’s skills: Assesses own strengths and weaknesses to increase self-awareness, and includes these in conversations on own developmental needs.
- Create an inclusive culture: Participates in open dialogue, and values the diverse opinion of others, regardless of background, culture, experience, or country assignment.
- Be a coach & provide constructive feedback: Proactively seeks feedback and coaching to build confidence, and develop and improve individual skills.
- Create an “I will”/”We will” spirit: Participates in accomplishing team activities and goals in the face of challenging circumstances.
Performance
- Encourage innovation & creative solutions: Shows willingness to explore and experiment with new ideas and approaches in own work.
- Focus on getting results: Consistently delivers results within individual scope of work on time, on budget and without errors.
- Make commitments and make good on commitments: Commits to upholding individual accountabilities and responsibilities in the face of ever-changing country or functional priorities.
- Be Decisive: Makes rational decisions about individual activities when faced with uncertain circumstances, including in times of ambiguity regarding information or manager direction.
Partnership
- Connect and share across WFP units: Seeks to understand and adapt to internal or cross-unit teams’ priorities and preferred working styles.
- Build strong external partnerships: Demonstrates ability to understand and appropriately respond to and/or escalate needs of external partners.
- Be politically agile & adaptable: Portrays an informed and professional demeanor toward internal and external partners and stakeholders.
- Be clear about the value WFP brings to partnerships: Provides operational support on analyses and assessments that quantifies and demonstrates WFP’s unique value as a partner.
FUNCTIONAL CAPABILITIES
Capability Name: Description of the behaviour expected for the proficiency level
Programme Lifecycle & Food Assistance 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.
Transfer Modalities (Food, Cash, Voucher) Demonstrates ability to analyse and consolidate quantitative and qualitative information from different sources (e.g., market studies) to inform transfer modality selection and programme development.
Broad Knowledge of Specialized areas (i.e. Nutrition, VAM, etc.) Demonstrates the ability to interpret basic data in the context of WFP specialised fields to contribute to technical programme design, implementation and monitoring.
Emergency Programming Displays ability to translate understanding of programme principles in emergencies and protracted conflict situations into relevant, effective, and context specific approaches.
Strategic Policy Engagement w/ Government Develops thorough recommendations using multiple inputs (e.g., government counsel, research, own experience) to strengthen national or subnational entities and government owned food and nutrition security programmes.
OTHER SPECIFIC JOB REQUIREMENTS
- 3+ year of working experience with demonstrated knowledge of youth and gender as related to food security, agricultural value chains/market systems and/or nutrition-integrated agriculture strongly preferred.
- University degree in one or more of the following disciplines: international development, gender studies, behavioral economics, sociology, or related field;
- Experience conducting gender, positive youth development, and other related participatory trainings
- Competent on problem solving, negotiation skills and ability to travel extensively in remote areas.
DESIRED EXPERIENCES FOR ENTRY INTO THE ROLE
- Has experience working across the Program portfolio including Gender/Youth empowerment.
- Has led a sub office or a small country/area office programme team or a component of a country office programme portfolio.
- Has engaged in policy discussions and provided input into policy decisions.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Duration of Contract: One year renewable up to five years until end of project (subject to performance).
All applications should be submitted through e-recruitment portal.
Only qualified shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS
The deadline for receiving applications is 07 January 2022.
.
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.
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.
No comments: