Country Capacity Strengthening Officer, International Professional P3

 

 

Country Capacity Strengthening Officer – Programme Policy Officer P3 – Rome, Italy

 

 

The World Food Programme is opening a position in its School-Based Programmes Division in Rome tasked with helping governments design better and more effective school health and nutrition programmes. We are looking for someone who has ample experience in the public sector, knows the strengths and challenges of public administration in developing countries – particularly the challenges of “getting things done” in government, particularly on service delivery of social assistance programmes – and has first-hand experience with decision making processes and prioritization of efforts within constrained budget environments. The ideal candidate will help WFP strengthen the way it engages with governments and supports their objectives, by bringing in a different perspective to the work of strengthening national capacities and capabilities to deliver programmes for the most vulnerable.

 

 

Our ideal candidate is probably currently working in a ministry like Education, Social Inclusion, Planning and Finance. From their position, she or he has partnered with the United Nations or other multilateral organizations and has an opinion about what the UN could do better when supporting governments. From this experience, he or she believes they can help WFP engage with national entities in a better, more effective way. The ideal candidate does not have to be an expert on school health and nutrition but does have experience in the social sectors of education, health or social protection. Finally, he or she can demonstrate that they can work and thrive in a multicultural and international environment.  

 

 

 

ABOUT WFP

 

 

 

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 to ensure that no child goes to school hungry and that the poorest and most vulnerable, particularly women and children, can access the nutritious food they need. For its efforts in tackling hunger, WFP was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020.

 

WFP assists more than 86 million people in 83 countries, including 17 million school children. Our work in schools, providing meals and other services to children is one of our most important contributions to human capital, gender equality, child development and economic growth. We work with Ministries of Education, Health, Social Protection and Agriculture to help them design and implement programmes that keep boys and girls healthy, well-nourished and ready and able to learn and thrive. Our partnerships with other UN agencies like UNICEF, UNESCO and the World Bank help to ensure we are supporting governments to reach children with an integrated package of support, which includes not only meals but other services like deworming, supplementation and water and sanitation. We work with NGOs all over the world, universities, private sector companies and communities. Our overarching goal is to help countries establish nationally owned and funded school feeding and health programmes.

 

Working with governments to the wellbeing and health of school children  has been particularly relevant in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The social and economic impacts COVID-19 have been profound. Children are among those hit hardest by the pandemic. At the peak of the crisis, 370 million children missed out on school meals. Not only has their education been disrupted due to school closures, but their well-being, nutrition and development are increasingly at stake. At WFP we are working with governments to reopen schools safely and restore access to these vital health and nutrition programmes.  

 

 

 

ABOUT WFP’S SCHOOL BASED PROGRAMMES SERVICE

 

 

 

WFP’s School Based Programmes Service was established in 2018 to help expand WFP’s efforts in the area of school health and nutrition. We are a high-performing team of about 20 international staff from diverse cultural backgrounds, augmented by School Feeding Experts in 6 Regional Bureaux. We help set the overarching policy and strategic directions for WFP globally on school health and nutrition, provide technical assistance to our teams in the Regional Bureaux and Country Offices, engage with partners and support to mobilize funding and advocacy. We are housed within the Programme and Policy Department at the WFP headquarters in Rome.

 

Led by our team, WFP recently launched a 10-year strategy to work with governments and partners to ensure that the 73 million primary school children living in extreme poverty have access to meals in school, accompanied by a broader package of health and nutrition services. The strategy envisions a transition from WFP-funded and operated programmes in certain countries, to national ownership of these efforts. WFP has identified about 30 lower-middle income countries which currently rely on WFP support where this transition needs to happen to guarantee the sustainability of the programmes.

 

 

 

 

THE ROLE

 

 

 

 

SBP is recruiting a Country Capacity Strengthening Programme and Policy Officer (P3) to strengthen WFP’s ability to engage and sustain support to governments in their efforts to design and implement more robust school health and nutrition policies and programmes.

 

The successful candidate will bring a government perspective to WFP’s work, raise the capacities of WFP staff members to understand how decision-making process work within governments, the challenges of national public administration systems, and how to provide the best and most effective support to government entities (Ministries of Education, Health, Agriculture, Planning) on school health and nutrition.

 

We are looking for someone who has worked in a government, ideally has experience working through tough choices and decisions in Ministries that have limited budgets to address a large number of challenges. The successful candidate will help WFP advise governments in making those choices,  innovate in our approaches to government engagement, strengthen the way WFP supports sectoral plans, engage with partners in a sectoral and multisectoral way, advise governments on policy and programmatic decisions, and provide technical support in specific areas of expertise.

 

The successful candidate must bring new ideas and approaches and be able to advance innovation within an international, multicultural environment.

 

 

 

 

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

 

 

 

• Strengthen the ability of country offices to  engage in sectoral discussions, provide advice to governments on policy decisions and establish strong, credible partnerships on policy and technical support.
• Assess current capacities of WFP programme officers and senior staff in working with governments. The Officer will design guidance and deliver training to country office staff on how to work with governments. Guidance and training would include topics such as: how to understand national governments (their priorities, decision-making processes, systems and structures, and what matters to public administration officials); how to design plans of engagement with governments that respond to local needs and make the best use of WFP capacities and assets; how to assess government capacity and put in place feasible technical assistance plans; how to budget for these plans; and where and how to get the required support.
• Identify types of assistance that governments need and strengthen WFP’s ability to provide that assistance. This would include, for example: an assessment of existing WFP capacities that need to be better leveraged (targeting, supply chain, logistics, monitoring); and an assessment of external capacities that would need to be put in place for on-demand support to country offices: roster of consultants, stand-by agreements with other partners, etc. 
• Provide direct and indirect support to regional bureaus and selected country offices in their engagement with governments and the design of transition strategies for school feeding. This would include for example: support to design Country Strategic Plans, support national capacity assessments; support national school feeding transition strategies; support with donor and government engagement.
• Leverage the knowledge products that have and are being produced by other parts of SBP and WFP on school health and nutrition (publications, academic papers, research pieces) and turn them into guidance notes and position papers for country offices.
• Contribute to finding better ways to measure WFP’s results in this area of work.
• Design and/or review existing WFP tools for capacity strengthening.

 

 

 

ABOUT YOU

 

 

 

• You have or are working for a government and have firsthand experience with decision-making processes, prioritization, particularly in the context of basic social services and/or large-scale safety-nets
• You have a solid understanding about public administration strengths, challenges and shortcomings in developing countries
• You have a solid knowledge about effective change management within the public sector
• You have partnered with the UN or with multilateral agencies and have been on the receiving end of support. You have a good idea of what we do well and what we can do better in supporting governments and want to help us improve.
• You are familiar with the concepts and principles on how to transfer knowledge
• You believe in Agenda 2030 and in addressing inequalities to ensure no one is left behind
• You are an excellent communicator in English (written and spoken) and you will comfortably liaise with a variety of stakeholders to ensure full engagement
• You have a strong ability to participate in open dialogue and value diverse opinions, regardless of background, culture or experience
• You are somebody that likes to explore and experiment with new ideas and approaches
• You are a team player but can also work independently on multiple tasks in a timely and organized manner

 

 

 

EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS

 

 

 

 

• Advanced University degree in Public Governance, Public Administration, International Development, International Relations, Education, Social Protection, Economics, Social Policy, Social Research Methods or other field relevant to international development assistance, or First University Degree with additional years of related work experience and/or trainings/courses.

 

 

DESIRED EXPERIENCES FOR ENTRY INTO THE ROLE

 

 

• 5 or more years of relevant professional experience working in or with governments in a position which involved decision making and well evaluating the different trade-offs, preferable with focus on basic social services and/or safety nets;
• Experience in developing and implementing a change management strategy within or for a government, in part
• Experience working in or with international organizations, with multicultural, multilingual environments;
• Experience in establishing contacts and liaising with partner organizations/companies.

 

 

LANGUAGES

 

 

 

• 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 is an asset

 

 

 

CLOSING DATE: March 17, 2021 (11.59 PM Rome time)

Terms and Conditions

Mobility is, and continues to be, a core contractual requirement in WFP. The selected candidate will be employed on a Fixed-Term contract with an initial duration of two years including a probationary period of one year.

WFP offers an attractive compensation and benefits package including basic salary, post adjustment, relocation entitlement, travel and shipment allowances, 30 days’ annual leave, home leave, an education grant for dependent children, pension plan and medical insurance. For more details, please visit icsc.un.org.

Qualified female applicants and qualified applicants from Low- and Middle-Income 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.