Afghanistan: Programme Policy Officer (Policy Coherence)
Jun 7, 2018
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World Food Programme
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The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is the world's largest humanitarian Agency, fighting hunger worldwide. WFP has been working in Afghanistan since 1963. WFP food assistance aims to help the most vulnerable, food insecure Afghans, including women and children, as well as families affected by conflict and natural disasters. In 2017, WFP fed over 2.8 million vulnerable Afghans through various programme activities such as general distributions (food, and/or cash and voucher as the transfer modality); nutrition programmes, through targeted supplementary feeding; school take-home rations; food for assets creation, Purchase for Progress (P4P), training and capacity development activities. For more information, see wfp.org
BACKGROUND & JOB PURPOSE
With a committed government, rich natural resources, and a young and diverse population, Afghanistan has the potential to make significant progress on the 2030 Agenda. However, a complex and protracted conflict, combined with challenges related to climate change, demographics, gender inequalities, underemployment, and transparency issues, has dramatically impeded its efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 2 on Zero Hunger. The 2017 Afghanistan Zero Hunger Strategic Review (ZHSR) found that the country suffers from high, and in some cases rapidly rising, levels of food insecurity and undernutrition, and outlines a series of recommendations to address the problem.
WFP is well placed to help Afghanistan implement several of the key recommendations through their new Country Strategic Plan (2018-2022). The overarching goal of the WFP Afghanistan CSP is to support the country to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 in a manner that also contributes, wherever possible, to the broader, longer-term transition to peace and development. Mainstreaming the cross-cutting issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment, protection, and accountability to affected populations, the CSP will focus on six, highly interrelated outcomes that span both SDG 2 and 17 (partnering for the goals).
Extensive consultations with government, partners, and affected communities, helped to guide this approach which entails shifts that will allow WFP to more effectively support the country to achieve SDG 2, including a shift to a more comprehensive, national-led framing of all strategic result areas, by supporting policy coherence. This will help the Afghanistan Unity Government to build trust and enhance its legitimacy. These shifts will also permit WFP to contribute to the broader, long-term goals of the country by operationalizing the humanitarian-development-peace nexus. This approach is directly aligned with the government’s commitment to achieve the SDGs by 2030 and with its five-year plan – the Afghanistan National Peace and Development Framework (ANPDF) – for making progress on the SDGs.
Strategic Outcome 5 in the new CSP is on Policy Coherence. In line with this shift and since policy coherence is a new area for the operation, the Country Office would like to hire a senior National Programme Policy Officer as SO5 Outcome Manager. The person will lead strategy development and manage the implementation of activities to achieve the outputs and outcomes under SO5.
KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)
- The SO 5 Outcome Manager shall be based in the WFP Country Office in Kabul, reporting to the External Relations Officer, and being guided by Senior Management and the Head of SDG 2 implementation. He/she will be the point of contact for all of WFP’s policy engagement with the Government of Afghanistan and will be expected to develop strong working relationships with all key ministries that partner with WFP, including (but not limited to): MAIL, MoPH, MRRD, MoRR and ANDMA, as well as the Offices of the President and the CEO.
- The SO 5 OM will also be expected to travel to field offices to lead consultations with WFP staff and partners on policy engagement under the CSP. Participation in HQ or regional training or workshops on policy coherence may be requested.
- He/she will focus on three broad categories of work: national policy frameworks (AFSeN-A, social protection); UN policy frameworks (One UN, UN reform); and WFP global policy work. In addition, the Policy Officer will provide support on specific policy issues such as the National Fortification Alliance and advising the programme unit on designing programme activities in line with the new WFP policy on urban programming.
- He/she will operate with a high degree of independence to ensure that SO5 objectives are achieved in full and will also be involved in a wide variety of programme and policy activities and analytical work, some of which may be of considerable complexity.
Main activities are highlighted below
- In consultation with WFP staff and partners, develop a Policy Engagement Strategy for both national policy frameworks and UN policy frameworks, including social protection.
- Work alongside the Programme Unit to help them develop engagement strategies/plans for specific issues such as the National Fortification Alliance and Urban Programming.
- Lead implementation of the Policy Engagement Strategy.
- Working with the Donor Relations unit, develop a funding strategy that supports the Policy Engagement Strategy and take responsibility for fund-raising for Strategic Outcome 5 on Policy Coherence.
- Develop and implement a plan to develop the capacity of other WFP Afghanistan staff who are engaged in work at the policy level – mostly from the programme unit in the CO.
- Monitoring and reporting on progress towards achieving these outputs and outcomes.
DESIRED EXPERIENCES FOR ENTRY INTO THE ROLE
- At least 5 years of relevant work experience with humanitarian aid/development sector, with at least 1 year of field experience in a conflict, post-conflict context.
- Demonstrated experience in policy development, Government and/or UN reform, or donor engagement in humanitarian/development settings.
- Experience in translating policy into programming, preferably within the UN system.
- Experience working with the Government of Afghanistan at the policy level .
- Strong written and oral communication skills
STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
Education: Advanced university degree in a relevant area, for example, social science, international development, international relations, public policy or political science.
Language: Fluent in written and spoken English and in Dari and/or Pashto, preferably both.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Position Title: Programme Policy Officer (Food System)
Grade: National Officer- Level C (NOC)
Contract: Fixed-Term (FT) - One-year renewable
Duty Station/travel: Kabul, Afghanistan with travel inside Afghanistan
Salary: Starting at USD 53,759.00 net per annum
Medical Plan: International valid medical plan valid also for staff, spouse and dependents children under 18 years
Annual leave: 30 working days per annum
WFP Work Environment
WFP is committed to ensuring that all its workplaces are free from abuse, offensive behaviour, harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. WFP is also committed to promoting a work culture in which every employee understands, and is able to carry out, his/her personal responsibilities for maintaining the dignity of work colleagues. WFP seeks to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women. We believe our mission of fighting global hunger worldwide can only be achieved if women, men, girls and boys are offered equal opportunities in terms of access to resources and services and participation in decision making roles.
Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS
Saturday, 9 June 2018.