Climate Adaptation and Environmental Sustainability Officer

The World Food Programme (WFP) Zambia is implementing a five- year Country Strategic Plan (CSP), which is a result of rigorous consultations with the Government, donors, and other stakeholders, and reflects their intent to support and partner with WFP in the country. The CSP 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 key strategic areas of its 8th National Development Plan (8NDP); and contributes to the joint Zambia-UN Sustainable Development Cooperation 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 Reviews (ZHSR).

Advancing the WFP Corporate Strategic Plan (2022-2025), the CSP addresses both SDG2 and SDG17 and WFP’s strategic results 1,2,3, and 5. WFP is implementing six activities to achieve four Strategic Outcomes (SO). The SO will: respond to crises and shocks including support to refugees (SO1); address root causes of malnutrition (SO2); build the resilience, enabling environment and market access for smallholder farmers especially women (SO3) and support Government institutions to provide social protection systems (including home grown school meals), disaster preparedness and response SO4.

In July 2023, the World Food Programme (WFP) Zambia commenced a new five-year Country Strategic Plan (CSP), informed by and aligned 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 the 8th National Development Plan (NDP8); and contributes to the joint Zambia-United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF). Advancing the global WFP Strategic Plan (2022-25), the CSP addresses SDG2 and SDG17, and WFP’s Strategic Results 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Under the CSP, WFP will implement seven activities to achieve five Strategic Outcomes (SO). These include: (SO1) responding to crises and shocks ensuring that crisis-affected people, including refugees, are able to meet their urgent food and nutrition needs; (SO2) addressing the root causes of malnutrition; (SO3) building resilience, enabling environment and market access for smallholder farmers, especially women; (SO4) supporting government institutions to provide social protection systems (including home grown school meals) and disaster preparedness and response; and (SO5) improving access to supply chain services for humanitarian and development actors.

Under strategic outcome 1, 2 and 3 of the CSP, WFP works with the Government and a range of partners to provide relief support to crises affected populations, address root causes of malnutrition through nutrition-sensitive approaches and support smallholder farmers-built resilience to climate risks, improve incomes and food security. These initiatives operationalize synergies across different activities including food relief, cash based transfers, early warning and anticipatory action initiatives, disaster risk reduction approaches, sustainable regenerative agriculture, social behavior change and communication, financial inclusion and empowerment through financial literacy and access to finance services, postharvest loss re-duction, access to viable markets, enhanced access to pro-smallholder farmer’s services through digital systems and nutrition mainstreaming. Environmental sustainability is a critical part of WFP activities in Zambia. WFP programme in Zambia is implemented in 9 of the 10 provinces supported by four field offices. The Climate Adaptation and Environmental Sustain-ability Officer will be part of this exciting team.

Under the direct supervision of the Programme Policy Officer, the UN Volunteer will perform the following tasks:

• Assist with the assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the on-going/recent WFP livelihood support activities/projects linked to climate resilience and smallholder agricultural markets support and lead the evidence generation/lessons learnt to improve sustainability of ongoing programmes;
• Assist WFP to define value proposition in terms of climate action around the food security-water-climate nexus and help design sustainable action plan;
• Contribute to the implementation of WFP country strategic plan by advancing sustainable management of resources to implement climate adaptation of rural and urban livelihoods and integration of innovation, economic viability and environmental sustainability programmes;
• As part of the team and in liaison with the Smallholder Farmer Support manager and field teams, extension staff from the Government and other partners, provide training to smallholders in Post-Harvest Handling and Storage (PHHS) and facilitate access to appropriate hermetic storage solutions;
• Participate in capacity building of agro-dealers and support to establish an efficient private sector led distribution network for PHHS equipment districts where projects will be implemented;
• Support development of viable climate adaptation initiatives including use of renewable energy for rural smallholder farmers livelihoods and integration of smallholder farmer into home-grown school feeding procurement;
• Participate in and support climate resilience and Markets initiatives that target women and Youth from urban and rural communities;
• As part of a team, support environmental, social safeguard screening, assessment, mitigation, monitoring and reporting of WFP activities;
• Assist in providing technical support to Government through appropriate line ministries and partners at field level in backstopping trainings for smallholders in production of drought tolerant value chains, post-harvest loss management, access, and appropriate use of improved storage solutions;
• Contribute to resource mobilization efforts for WFP projects, including clearly articulating programme opportunities through proposals, concepts, and donor discussions;
• Perform any other tasks as assigned.