Post Title : Programme Policy Officer CBT NOC
Location : Yaoundé
Duration : 12 months
Contract Type: Fixed-Term
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.
Are you a Programme Manager/Team Leader interested in further developing your professional experience while contributing to ending global hunger? Would you like to join WFP, a highly reputable organisation bringing positive change to lives of people affected by hardships? Would you like to join a global organisation investing in its people? If your answer is yes, then this is a great opportunity for you to become an integral member of a diverse and passionate team that works on varied and international projects directly contributing to beneficiary assistance.
About WFP
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) 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. With more than 18,000 colleagues worldwide, WFP works 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.
Why WFP?
- WFP provides food assistance to more than 86 million people in 83 countries, including Cameroon. Your work will have a positive impact on lives of the world’s most vulnerable people.
- You will join a diverse team of professionals and will have an opportunity to exchange your experiences with your colleagues and continuously learning from each other.
- WFP invests in the training and development of its employees through a range of training, accreditation, mentorship and other programs as well as through international mobility opportunities.
- Our team is growing nationally and internationally and the timing to join us cannot be better!
- We offer attractive compensation package (please refer to Terms and Conditions section)
Background
The WFP Cameroon Country Strategic Plan [CSP] (2018 – 2021) endeavours to ensure that targeted food-insecure and vulnerable populations benefit from more sustainable and inclusive food systems and increased resilience to shocks to meet their food and nutrition needs. Under this CSP, WFP will design and implement interventions to address food and nutrition security challenges, from production through to consumption. In line with the CSP, WFP will apply its vast comparative advantages including experiences in delivery of food assistance to hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable in timely, innovative, cost effective and sustainable ways, it’s deep field presence, logistics and supply chain, partnerships and relationships with national and regional authorities to; a) strengthen national systems and capacities to deliver food and nutrition security; b) contribute to greater efficiency in crisis response interventions; c) ensure access to nutritious food rather than provision while building the national capacities and systems for social protection, emergency preparedness and response and government-led programmes and services; and d) increase resilience by focusing on food systems rather than access to food, through development of integrated solutions that can be scaled up by Government and the private sector.
The Position
Reporting to the Head of Programme, the National Programme Policy Officer (Cash based Transfers – CBTs) will work in close collaboration with all Programme activity managers (crisis response, nutrition, resilience), Heads of other technical units including vulnerability assessment and mapping (VAM), M&E as well as Heads of WFP Field Offices in Maroua, Bamenda, Bertoua and Ngaoundere. This position is required to provide overall leadership, management and coordination of WFP Cameroon’s CBT portfolio in promoting food and nutrition security, resilience and livelihoods, capacity strengthening and social protection as guided by the CSP. Specific activities include design, implementation and management of appropriate and transformational food and nutrition security, livelihoods assistance and social protection programmes, capacity strengthening of national and regional governments, prioritisation and management of resources including financial flows from multiple funding sources, provision of normative guidance to field operations for effective and efficient delivery, among others.
Key accountabilities
- Design, manage and monitor the implementation of food assistance activities that use CBTs to address food insecurity in line with WFP’s corporate CBT business model. This also involves developing corresponding programme operational guidelines with proper control mechanisms to ensure consistency between corporate and country-level policies and field operations.
- Provide technical advice or mobilise technical expertise on CBT issues including assessment and analysis, the choice of objectives, activities, transfer modalities and appropriate food baskets, the deployment and testing of innovative approaches and the development of strategies to support government efforts to reduce hunger and malnutrition.
- Through the inter-agency cash working group for which WFP is the national chair, maintain and enhance WFP’s leadership status (as chair) by identifying opportunities for collaborative and harmonized approaches and initiatives that improve humanitarian assistance using cash transfers and support advocacy work to market the use of cash.
- Through the internal cash working group chaired by the Deputy Country Director, liaise with other units including Supply Chain, Finance, IT, VAM, Procurement, Security as well as Heads of Field Offices to ensure the multi-disciplinary participation of all functional units in the implementation and efficient delivery of programmes that use CBTs as a modality of assistance.
- Provide advice and support on moderately complex issues concerning CBTs to clarify ambiguities and ensure that policy and programme operations are consistent with WFP policies, Executive Board decisions and other relevant guidance.
- Assist counterparts in governments and other partners in identifying where food assistance using CBTs can be usefully employed and provide relevant support and technical expertise for the planning, formulation and implementation to strengthen government and community ownership and effectiveness of food security and nutrition programmes at national and sub-national levels.
- Represent WFP in local and international forums relating to area of specialism, for example food security, nutrition, livelihoods, social protection, resilience or engagement in humanitarian, transition and development contexts through direct participation and briefings.
- Manage operational research and evidence building on issues relevant to food assistance using CBTs.
- Manage the preparation and dissemination of timely analytical and critical reports, publications, and a variety of information products or proposals for internal or external use.
- Contribute to resources mobilisations efforts for WFP projects, including clearly articulating the need for food assistance using CBTs and related programme opportunities, and follow up on the resource situation of projects including commodity and cash availability, seeking advice from senior colleagues where necessary.
- Advice and support the development of functional training in areas of expertise to enhance the capacity of WFP staff and partners to design and deliver effective food assistance programmes that use CBTs as a modality of assistance.
- Contribute to Country Office Emergency Preparedness i.e. early warning, risk analysis, and contingency planning in order to respond to humanitarian crises and needs.
- Manage agreements, contracts and MoUs related to all activities using CBTs as a modality of assistance to ensure corporate standards are followed with particular attention and emphasis on quality control, loss prevention, risk mitigation and cost effectiveness.
- As head of a sub-unit within the Programme unit, manage, develop, mentor and motivate a team of supervisees including programme officers to facilitate consistent high performances.
About You
- The ideal profile is a professional who is highly adaptive, has experience leading teams and is able to work with different stakeholders who might not share the same priorities.
- The ideal candidate has operational experience in both humanitarian and development settings and is able to adapt policies and principles to the realities of a protracted crisis and is able to prioritize and strike balances between ideal goals and operational requirements and risks.
- 4Ps CORE ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITIES:
4P Theme
Capability Name
Description of the behaviour expected for the proficiency level
Understand and communicate the
Strategic Objectives
Utilizes understanding of WFP’s Strategic Objectives to communicate linkages to team objectives and work.
Be a force for positive change
Proactively identifies and develops new methods or improvements for self and immediate team to address work challenges within own work area.
Make the mission inspiring to our team
Identifies opportunities to further align individual contributions with WFP’s mission of making an impact on local communities.
Make our mission visible in everyday actions
Helps colleagues to see the link between their individual tasks and the contributions of their unit’s goals to the broader context of WFP’s mission.
Look for ways to
strengthen people’s
skills
Is able to identify, support and encourage focused on-the-job learning opportunities to address gaps between current skillsets and needed future skillsets for WFP.
Create an inclusive culture
Recognizes the contributions of teammates, and encourages contributions from culturally different team mates to recognise the value of diversity above and beyond just including it in programming for beneficiaries.
Be a coach & provide constructive feedback
Provides and solicits ongoing constructive feedback on strengths and development opportunities to help develop individual skills, whilst also helping others identify areas for improvement.
Create an ‘I will’/’We will’ spirit
Sets clear targets for self and others to focus team efforts in ambiguous situations (e.g., unprecedented issues and/or scenarios)
Encourage innovation & creative solutions
Thinks beyond team’s conventional approaches to formulate creative methods for delivering food aid and assistance to beneficiaries.
Focus on getting results
Maintains focus on achieving individual results in the face of obstacles such as volatile or fragile environments and/or organizational roadblocks.
Make commitments and make good on commitments
Takes personal accountability for upholding and delivering upon team’s commitments and provides assurance to stakeholders.
Be Decisive
Demonstrates ability to adjust to team’s plans and priorities to optimize outcomes in light of evolving directives, while also responding quickly in highpressure environments, such as in emergency settings.
Connect and share across WFP units
Demonstrates an understanding of when and how to tactfully engage other units in conversations on impact, timing, or planning
Build strong external partnerships
Networks regularly with key external partners using formal and informal opportunities to understand each partner’s unique value proposition, and to build and strengthen relationships
Be politically agile & adaptable
Demonstrates ability to adapt engagement approach in the context of evolving partner circumstances and expectations
Be clear about the value WFP brings to partnerships
Demonstrates ability to articulate to internal and external audiences the value that individual contributions and immediate teams bring to partnerships.
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 the ability to design, implement, monitor and provide oversight over effective and efficient programmes deploying different transfer modalities.
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.
Minimum requirements for the position
- Completion of secondary school. Advanced University degree in any of the following disciplines; Economics, Agriculture, Environmental Sciences, Social Sciences, Nutrition, IT, Mathematics, Statistics, Development Studies or other related fields.
- At least five years’ progressive professional experience in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of humanitarian, early recovery and development programmes with focus on food and nutrition security, resilience, livelihoods, refugee assistance, protection and social protection.
- 3-5 years of demonstrated operational and theoretical experience and knowledge of cash-based transfers including cash feasibility assessments, markets assessments, analysis of appropriate cash delivery systems / mechanisms, construction of minimum expenditure baskets, among others.
- Theoretical and practical knowledge of major humanitarian and development challenges and issues, specifically strategies and frameworks for poverty and hunger reduction including the nexus approach, sustainable development goals, etc.
- Demonstrated planning and project management skills including supervisory and people management, ability to mobilize resources through well written proposals and strategy documents, negotiation, communication, judgement and decision making and capacity building skills, among others.
- Demonstrated cordial working relationships with local and regional governments, civil society, donors, UN agencies, local and international organisations. Proof of coordination leadership and/or experience is a plus.
- Fluency in oral and written English and French (Level C) is a must. Additional knowledge of local dialects including pidgin is desirable.
- Knowledge of databases, information, and monitoring systems is a plus.
LANGUAGES
- Fluent in English (Level C) and French (level C).
Female applicants are especially encouraged to apply.
Application deadline: July 17 th , 2020
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.
More Information
- Job City Yaounde, Cameroon
