Environmental Peacebuilding Association

Italy: Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus (HDPN) Advisor

Nov 28, 2023 | Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN
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The Office of Emergencies and Resilience (OER) is responsible for ensuring FAO’s efforts to support countries and partners in preparing for and effectively responding to food and agricultural threats and crises. It is responsible for coordinating the development and maintenance of corporate tools and standards to enable Decentralized Offices to assist member countries to prepare for, and respond to emergencies. OER ensures humanitarian policy coordination and knowledge, liaison with the InterAgency Standing Committee (IASC) as well as with humanitarian resource partners, co-leadership with World Food Programme (WFP) of the global Food Security Cluster (FSC), organizational preparedness, surge capacity and response to large-scale emergencies. OER supports food and nutrition security assessment and early warning activities related to emergency and humanitarian analysis and responses. OER plays a major role in the development and leadership of the Organization’s programme to increase the resilience of livelihoods to food and agriculture threats and crises.

FAO is mainstreaming a Humanitarian, Development, Peace Nexus (HDPN) approach throughout its strategic positioning and programmatic design and implementation at country and regional levels. The HDPN approach means providing humanitarian assistance when necessary, development support where possible, and using peace-responsive approaches to ensure long-lasting solutions. The objective is to enable activities that meets people’s immediate humanitarian needs while at the same time reducing risk and vulnerability by working together towards collective outcomes over multi-year timeframes, based on comparative advantages of different actors in each context. The HDPN is an expression of the New Way of Working, which falls within the Agenda 2030 commitment to “leave no one behind”. It is critical that these commitments are operationalized at country level through concrete initiatives to work more coherently across humanitarian, development and peace-responsive efforts.

In 2021 FAO completed an external ‘Evaluation of FAO’s contribution to the humanitarian–development–peace nexus 2014–2020’. The overarching message from the evaluation is that FAO is ideally placed to invest in a corporate effort to mainstream and adopt HDPN ways of working as part of its organizational DNA. Creating an enabling organizational environment that promotes the adoption of a HDPN approach is necessary to build on existing and new partnerships to achieving the SDGs.

The overall aim of this consultancy is to support strengthening the use of the HDPN approach in the design and implementation of FAO’s emergency and resilience agenda and programming to inform an evidential base that helps underpin and support the strategic objectives of the Organization through application of an HDPN approach.

Reporting Lines

The HDPN Advisor will report to the Technical Officer (Protracted Crises), Lead Conflict and Peace Unit (CPU), OER, under the overall supervision of the Programme and Policy Team Leader, OER.

Technical Focus

Provide technical advice and inputs to the development of a corporate understanding of the HDP Nexus within FAO, including drafting of a FAO Corporate Position Paper, as well as supporting interagency efforts to advance the adoption of the Nexus.

Tasks and responsibilities

Support implementation of recommendations agreed in the Management Response and related follow-up report to the 2021 Evaluation of FAO’s role in the HDPN, including leading preparation of a FAO Corporate Position Paper on the HDPN, outlining respective roles and accountabilities, identifying ways of working, good and promising practices, capacity development needs, lessons learned and recommendations;
Support the incorporation and strengthening of the HDPN approach in FAO’s emergency and resilience projects and programmes, linking with OER’s overall Programme Approach;
Promote evidence-based learning on HDPN promising practices to inform country, regional and global processes, working to capture them with relevant units, such as Knowledge for Resilience (KORE) also supported by and feeding into the work of the Global Network against Food Crises (GNAFC), as appropriate;
Help prepare for and facilitate awareness-raising and capacity-development activities on the HDPN approach for FAO staff;
Identify opportunities, and provide support to new and existing mechanisms and platforms, to strengthen joint approaches and planning across the HDPN with a variety of partners at different levels, reflecting the principles of the OECD-DAC Recommendation on the HDP Nexus;
Liaise with the GNAFC Technical Support Unit (TSU) to promote GNAFC objectives on the HDPN in food security and agriculture and food systems more broadly, including:
- Contribute to HDPN mapping analysis including definition of common priorities in a number of food crisis countries;
- Participate in GNAFC-led strategic dialogues and events at global, regional and country levels around HDPN solutions to food crises;
- Contribute to GNAFC-related country engagement processes including promotion of strategic dialogues around HDPN approaches.
Liaise with the Fighting Food Crises along the HDP Nexus Coalition Secretariat, deriving from the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit, and support the FAO Co-Chair in engagement with the HDP Nexus Coalition;
Support FAO’s engagement in the IASC Task Force on Humanitarian and Development Collaboration and its Linkages with Peace (TF4) and its successor, as appropriate, and complementary work streams such as development of HDPN related tools and guidance developed by/through the Global Food Security Cluster;
Lead work on exploring two thematic areas of climate, peace and security, and durable solutions for forcibly displaced populations through an HDPN lens, to highlight how an HDPN approach underpinning food security and agriculture can be framed and developed, building on FAO’s comparative advantages within its mandate;
Performs other duties as required.

Candidates will be assessed against the following:

Minimum Requirements

University degree in Development Studies, International Relations, Social Sciences, Conflict and Peace Studies, Public Policy or other relevant fields;
At least 7 years (Category B) or 12 years (Category A) experience in multi-stakeholder coordination, analysis, planning and programming; positions of increasing responsibility in developing recovery and peacebuilding plans or strategies; humanitarian coordination including in fragile or crisis contexts;
Working knowledge (level C) of English and limited knowledge (level B) of any other official language of the Organization: Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish, or Russian.

FAO Core Competencies

Results Focus
Teamwork
Communication
Building Effective Relationships
Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

Demonstrated in-depth understanding of the HDP Nexus from a variety of humanitarian, peacebuilding and development perspectives;
Work experience in more than one location or area of work, with field experience, particularly in protracted crises contexts;
Extent and relevance of experience in working within or with multi-lateral or bi-lateral organisations such as UN organisations, development agencies, diplomatic missions, and/or International and local NGOs;
Extent and relevance of experience in the context of food security and nutrition, resilience and agricultural livelihoods issues and natural resource management particularly in protracted crisis;
Demonstrated ability to research and formulate clear and practical recommendations;
Ability to relate different issues and perspectives to concrete field programmes;
Excellent English writing skills and experience of drafting documentation for a variety of purposes;
Excellent analytical and conceptual skills;
Ability to work both with minimal supervision and as part of a team;
Ability to deliver outputs by agreed deadlines, sometimes at very short notice;
Ability to establish effective working relations with persons of different national and cultural background;
Excellent communication skills (written, verbal, interpersonal and intercultural).

Please note that all candidates should adhere to FAO Values of Commitment to FAO, Respect for All and Integrity and Transparency

See original job posting for Additional Information.

How to Apply

To apply, visit the recruitment website at Jobs at FAO and complete online profile. FAO strongly recommends that applicant profile is accurate, complete and includes employment records, academic qualifications, and language skills. Candidates are requested to attach a letter of motivation to the online profile. Once applicant profile is completed, please apply, and submit application. Candidates may be requested to provide performance assessments and authorization to conduct verification checks of past and present work, character, education, military and police records to ascertain any and all information which may be pertinent to the employment qualifications. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Personal information provided on application may be shared within FAO and with other companies acting on FAO’s behalf to provide employment support services such as pre-screening of applications, assessment tests, background checks and other related services. Applicants will be asked to provide applicant consent before submitting application. Applicants may withdraw consent at any time, by withdrawing the application, in such case FAO will no longer be able to consider the application. Only applications received through the FAO recruitment portal will be considered. The application will be screened based on the information provided in online profile. FAO encourages applicants to submit the application well before the deadline date.