Maturity Framework Advisor Consultant

WFP seeks candidates of the highest integrity and professionalism who share our humanitarian principles

Selection of staff is made on a competitive basis, and we are committed to promoting diversity and gender balance

Job Title: AAP (Accountability to affected population) – Maturity Framework Advisor

Type of Contract: Regular Consultant

Division: PRO-P (Programme, Humanitarian and Development / Emergencies and Transition Service Unit)

Duty Station (City, Country): Rome, HQ

Duration: 11 months

BACKGROUND:

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.

This position will support the Protection Unit of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Rome, and its execution of the new Protection and Accountability Policy. The Protection Unit undertakes a wide range of activities associated with mainstreaming protection in key areas of WFP’s work, including in the development of strategic plans, frameworks, and standard procedures within other divisions of WFP, as well as in the engagement of its entire range of stakeholders, of which the most critical are the affected people it aims to serve.

In 2017, WFP endorsed the updated Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) commitments on AAP, which refined the 2011 commitments to four key areas: 1) leadership, 2) participation & partnership, 3) information, feedback & action, and 4) results.

The Protection Unit requires an individual that can support its work plan for 2020-2021 through the development of a WFP accountability to affected populations (AAP) maturity framework, and its components, to guide and track progress towards meeting WFP's AAP commitments at the country office, regional bureau and headquarter levels. The framework will assess the effectiveness of internal controls, governance and risk management processes related to WFP's commitments on AAP, which can be used to verify and demonstrate that WFP is meeting AAP commitments. The framework will be considered an effective tool for directing country offices to better, not more, control.

The development of a maturity framework, and its components, addresses an outstanding action to ensure that second line actors, including the regional bureaux, provide coherent advice and support to country offices and close any control gaps with regard to community feedback mechanisms (CFM) (Internal Audit of Beneficiary Management, AR/17/17). The maturity framework is meant be used for self-assessments and oversight. More importantly it should serve as a tool for orientation and continuous monitoring and measuring, helping to embed AAP-thinking into day-to-day work, the development of strategic plans, frameworks, and standard procedures within other divisions of WFP, as well as in the engagement of its entire range of stakeholders. WFP's most critical stakeholder is the affected people it aims to serve. Risk and control matrices and other mappings produced as a result of this assignment may subsequently be used by WFP to produce tools for monitoring and/or learning.

Supported by the background and recommendations of the Audit Advisory for AAP, the activities linked to the development of the maturity framework can be broadly understood as encompassed in 3 stages:

Stage 1. Benchmarking results along WFP's internal control framework (responsibilities 1-7);

Stage 2. Identifying and selecting the appropriate measurement indicators and scales for internal and collective reporting of AAP commitments (responsibilities 8-11); and

Stage 3. Developing and piloting the maturity framework product(s) including any relevant documentation and reporting tool(s) that can be used at country, regional and global levels for monitoring, guidance and/or orientation (responsibilities 12-19).

ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:

1. Identify key controls, their attributes in different operating contexts and the options to measure their presence and functioning in line with WFP's Internal Control Framework.
2. Review the WFP Enterprise Risk Management Framework and map the risk categories that reference AAP concepts. Identify key risk indicators to provide an indication of whether AAP efforts are in line with WFP's risk appetite.
3. Produce risk and control matrices, as well as other mapping. Define framework and its components purpose and objectives, define the scale, develop the expectations for each component level, define the different ways of pursuing AAP (with WFP tools, with inter-agency/collective tools, or by providing quality assurance over government tools), define scales accordingly, define the level of maturity to achieve under what condition (for example, sudden on-set emergency, protracted crises), define specific constraints for when desired level of maturity cannot be demonstrated or where dilemmas have to be addressed.
4. Assess the effectiveness of internal controls, governance and risk management processes related to WFP's IASC commitments on AAP.
5. Develop a framework for envisioning the future, outlining the pathway to the desired state of maturity and thus facilitating the development of action or improvement plans.
6. Develop a mechanism to provide insight into progress on the improvement path from immature to mature, and also a tool for decision making on risk tolerance levels (to avoid costs of control that exceed risk reduction benefits).
7. Develop benchmarks for the organisation to compare maturity levels internally and externally.
8. Develop a model in line with the Institute of Internal Auditor's Practice Guide, involving three steps: determine the purpose of the model and its components; define the scales; and develop the expectations for each component level
9. Map WFP AAP's commitments and review and build on the WFP AAP Audit Advisory to track WFP's progress towards meeting the commitments and to guide WFP staff in implementing AAP.
10. Establish a systematic basis to describe, verify and demonstrate the developmental state of AAP in relation to commitments. The design should include three steps to determine the purpose of the model and its components, to define the scales, and to develop the expectations for each component level.
11. Develop indicators that must be valid at an inter-agency level or agreed to for measuring collective commitments.
12. Support in the creation of a country information management strategy template and an AAP information management strategy template.
13. Support in building a dashboard to reference AAP controls as identified and mapped in the AAP Audit Advisory to ensure alignment and facilitate reporting on collective commitments.
14. Establish common criteria for community feedback mechanisms to ensure inter-operability and effective referrals.
15. Establish an oversight and support plan to systematically assess and strengthen community feedback mechanisms based on common criteria.
16. Review and assess existing verification schemes (for example, the CHS Alliance), as well as the 2020 Humanitarian Coordinators Retreat, the IASC Result Group 2 on Accountability and Inclusion results tracker and accountability framework, among others, to ensure complementarity.  Pilot and adjust the maturity framework.
17. Identify and liaise with relevant units in headquarter, regional bureaux and country offices where this is required for any of the above activities.
18. To perform any other duties as required.

DELIVERABLES AT THE END OF THE CONTRACT:

1.WFP AAP Maturity Framework and its components

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

Education:

Advanced university degree in audit, governance, risk management and control, or a related field. A first University Degree with two additional years of relevant work experience from the minimum experience requirement stated below.

Experience:

Eight years of progressively responsible professional experience in risk management and control, or a related field is required.

Experience in developing and tesing maturity frameworks.

Experience working in a conflict and post-conflict settings is required.

Experience in outreach, coordination, research, analysis and reporting is required.

Prior experience dealing with protection issues from humanitarian and peacekeeping perspectives is desired.

Knowledge and skills:

In-depth knowledge of risk management and control, monitoring and evaluation, metrics, reporting systems.

Advanced research and analytical skills, report writing and quality assurance.

Proven ability to network effectively with multiple work units.

Willingness to build capacity of others through formal and informal training processes.

Ability to meet deadlines, deliver results through planning and organising activities.

Advanced exposure and understanding of mandates and activities of UN entities, funds and programmes as well as UN peacekeeping missions and special political missions. Experience of WFP is preferred.

Knowledge of information management systems, data collation and analysis software (e.g. Excel, RStudio or SPSS) and database management basics will be required.

Proficiency in MS Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook) as well as familiarity with other dynamic reporting tools (Tableau, PowerBI, or other).

Knowledge of WFP data management processes an asset.

Language:

Excellent spoken and written English is required. Knowledge of Arabic or another official UN language (Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish) or Portuguese (one of WFP’s working languages) is an asset.

Terms and Conditions

WFP offers a competitive compensation package which will be determined by the contract type and selected candidate’s qualifications and experience.

Please visit the following websites for detailed information on working with WFP.

http://www.wfp.org Click on: “Our work” and “Countries” to learn more about WFP’s operations.

Deadline for applications:  02 March 2021

Ref.: VA No. 136804

Qualified female applicants and qualified applicants from developing countries are especially encouraged to apply

WFP has zero tolerance for discrimination and does not discriminate on the basis of HIV/AIDS status

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.