Various Locations: Conflict Analysis/Conflict-sensitive Programming Specialist

Mar 17, 2024 | 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. 

The Conflict and Peace Unit (CPU) sits within OER’s Programme and Policy Team. The CPU vision is centred on providing ‘peace-responsive’ support to FAO decentralised offices, with a sub-stream of work on forced displacement and durable solutions. The CPU supports context/conflict analyses to provide an evidence base to enable strategic and targeted responses to better manage new forms of transition and turbulence and reduce the likelihood of a (re-)emergence of violent conflict, as well as to inform conflict-sensitive programming.

Context/conflict analysis provides an evidence base to enable strategic and targeted responses to better manage new forms of transition and turbulence and reduce the likelihood of a (re-)emergence of violent conflict. The systematic analysis of conflict dynamics is necessary to inform programmes and actions, through the consistent application of conflict-sensitive approaches, rooted in robust theories of change. Such conflict analyses provide an evidence base to enable strategic and targeted responses to better enable programming in insecure contexts, reduce the likelihood of FAO programming causing harm, and where possible contribute to sustaining peace within the scope of FAO’s mandate, as well as underpin food security and more resilient food systems. To this end, FAO has entered into a partnership with the international organization Interpeace, developing tools, guidance and training on conflict sensitivity and context analysis, focused on FAO's areas of work and mandate.


Reporting Lines

The specialist will operate under the overall supervision of the Technical Officer (Protracted Crises) / Lead of the Conflict and Peace Unit (CPU) within the Programme and Policy team, OER, or under the overall supervision of the relevant Sub-regional Coordinator or FAOR for a given country, or Resilience Team Leader for a given sub-region, as appropriate.


Technical Focus 

Protracted crises and conflicts; conflict analysis; conflict-sensitive programming; contributions to sustaining peace and stability; peace responsiveness; Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus (HDPN); natural resource management; conflict management.

 


Tasks and Responsibilities

  • Support FAO country offices by conducting conflict analyses (both in depth and ‘good enough’, and joint where appropriate), with particular attention to areas of FAO’s mandate, identifying policy implications and programmatic opportunities, to integrate into and inform conflict-sensitive programming, Country Programming Frameworks and Resilience Strategies, and contribute to inter-agency discussions and planning at the field level;
  • Run Conflict Sensitivity “Programme Clinics” with FAO staff and partners to tease out conflict-sensitive programming implications/recommendations, and to build capacity of FAO staff in this regard, using a joint FAO-Interpeace methodology;
  • Identify specific conflict sensitivity and peace responsive support at regional, sub-regional or local levels for the sustainable, responsible and inclusive governance of natural resources (e.g. pasture, watersheds) paying particular attention to seasonality, mobility and existing local governance structures;
  • Review concept notes and/or fully fledged project proposal(s) for FAO interventions in the sub-region to ensure conflict-sensitivity is adequately reflected;
  • Support FAO country offices to identify opportunities for multi-country or cross-border programmes and resource mobilization, and provide technical support towards the implementation of ongoing interventions;
  • Provide guidance and build capacity on conflict sensitivity and peace responsiveness to FAO staff in decentralised offices, as required;
  • Support efforts to mainstream conflict analysis and conflict sensitivity throughout FAO’s field work, in addition to providing a conflict lens on analytical and normative products, and key programme related processes (e.g. project cycle, procurement, monitoring and evaluation);
  • Work with FAO country offices to apply conflict sensitivity recommendations to FAO programming, including the development of relevant monitoring and evaluation indicators;
  • Support monitoring and documentation of country-level conflict-sensitive best practices as well as projects that have made tangible contributions towards sustaining peace;
  • At the request of country offices, identify humanitarian-development-peace nexus programming entry points, and provide technical support to the articulation of project proposals.


Candidates will be assessed against the following:


Minimum Requirements

  • University degree in Development Studies, International Relations, Social Sciences, Conflict and Peace Studies, Conflict Analysis, or other related discipline;
  • At least 1 year (Category C), 5 years (Category B) or 12 years (Category A, Consultant) or 15 years (Category A, PSA) experience in humanitarian and/or resilience programming in insecure contexts with specific experience in natural resource management, stakeholder engagement, access negotiations, conflict analysis and/or conflict-sensitive programming as well as experience in designing and delivering capacity building programmes and activities.
  • Working knowledge (level C) of English or French and limited knowledge (level B) of any other official language of the Organization: Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, or Russian. For PSA, working knowledge (level C) of English or French.



FAO Core Competencies

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


Technical/Functional Skills

  • Work experience in more than one location or area of work, with documented field experience related to conflict analysis and informing conflict-sensitive programming, 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 and/or humanitarian contexts;
  • Familiarity and experience of designing and delivering capacity building programmes and activities;
  • Familiarity and experience of development and use of monitoring and evaluation indicators on conflict sensitivity and contributions to peace;
  • 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 backgrounds.

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

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