Vulnerability Analysis & Mapping and Monitoring & Evaluation Officer (NOB)

Area of expertise : Programme & policy

Country : Liberia

Type of contract : Long term opportunities

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.

ABOUT WFP

The World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organization fighting hunger worldwide, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. WFP assists 80 million people in around 80 countries each year. In emergencies, WFP is often first on the scene, providing food assistance to the victims of war, civil conflict, drought, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, crop failures and natural disasters. When the emergency subsides, WFP helps communities rebuild shattered lives and livelihoods. WFP development projects focus on social protection and safety nets for the vulnerable through nutrition interventions, smallholder agricultural livelihood promotion and market support, school meals and investing in strengthening national capacities to develop and manage sustainable food and nutrition security programmes.

Through its capacity strengthening activities, WFP provides support to enhance government capacity to conduct vulnerability analyses and price monitoring with the aim to strengthen identification of vulnerable households and support the evolution of government-led food assistance activities. This includes support systems, procedure and corresponding policy for a strong nationally led food security monitoring system including the establishment of an institutional and policy framework for a functioning food security system.

In line with the above, WFP is seeking to strengthen its Vulnerability Analysis & Mapping Team capacity through the recruitment of a Vulnerability Analysis & Mapping Officer with the proven experience to support the unit in meeting its objectives.

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Experience:

• Minimum of eight years of relevant professional work experience in international development or humanitarian work.

• Minimum of four years of experience in managing complex monitoring and/or evaluation activities spanning a range of policies and programme initiatives.

• Experience in managing diverse teams of VAM/ staff.

Education:

• Advanced University degree in social sciences, statistics, development economics, performance management, monitoring and evaluation or other related fields, or First University degree with additional years of relevant work experience and/or training/courses.

Language:

• Fluency (level C) in oral and written English language.

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

These roles are found in Headquarters (HQ), Regional Bureaux (RBs) or Country Offices (COs). Job holders operate independently and are involved in operational activities and related analytical work.

JOB PURPOSE

To contribute to the VAM evidence-base studies that support food security and nutrition policies and programmes (e.g. needs assessment and situation analyses, programme design, targeting, cost effectiveness, and operational efficiency).

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

1. Coordinate a team of technical VAM and M&E staff, providing coaching and guidance to enable high performance and support career development.

2. Coordinate the development and implementation of VAM and Monitoring, Review, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning operational plans that will provide the most relevant and strategic information to manage progress towards achieving expected results as set out in the Country Strategic Plan;

3. Ensure that adequate VAM and M&E costs are budgeted for, and advocate for both appropriate financial and human resourcing.

4. Lead the development of a CO VAM strategy, aligned with corporate strategies, standards and guidelines.

5. Advise and support evidence-based analysis and decision-making on programme design and implementation, notably through making monitoring, review and evaluations findings accessible, and developing innovative, user-friendly and informative products such as quick reference databases, dash-boards, etc.

6. Build Monitoring, Evaluation and VAM capacity of WFP staff and partners, through the design and delivery of training and information-sharing. Manage and mentor junior staff members and guide them as required to enable their high performance.

7. Contribute to the development and implementation of national government and inter- agency monitoring, reporting and evaluation frameworks, including United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) aligned with nationally-owned sustainable development goals.

8. Represent WFP at national/inter-agency meetings and contribute to technical discussions, exchange of best practices, identify opportunities for strengthening national monitoring and evaluation capacity and develop strategic partnerships.

4Ps CORE ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITIES

Purpose

• Understand and communicate the Strategic Objectives: Understands WFP’s Strategic Objectives and the link to own work objectives.

• Be a force for positive change: Flexibly adapts individual contributions to accommodate changes in direction from supervisors and internal/external changes (such as evolving needs of beneficiaries, new requirements of partners).

•  Make the mission inspiring to our team: Recognizes and shares with team members the ways in which individual contributions relate to WFP’s mission.

•  Make our mission visible in everyday actions: Sets own goals in alignment with WFP’s overall operations, and is able to communicate this link to others

People

• Look for ways to strengthen people’s skills: Assesses own strengths and weaknesses to increase self-awareness, and includes these in conversations on own developmental needs.

•  Create an inclusive culture: Participates in open dialogue, and values the diverse opinion of others, regardless of background, culture, experience, or country assignment.

•  Be a coach & provide constructive feedback: Proactively seeks feedback and coaching to build confidence, and develop and improve individual skills.

• Create an “I will”/”We will” spirit: Participates in accomplishing team activities and goals in the face of challenging circumstances.

Performance

• Encourage innovation & creative solutions: Shows willingness to explore and experiment with new ideas and approaches in own work.

•  Focus on getting results: Consistently delivers results within individual scope of work on time, on budget and without errors.

•  Make commitments and make good on commitments: Commits to upholding individual accountabilities and responsibilities in the face of ever-changing country or functional priorities.

• Be Decisive: Makes rational decisions about individual activities when faced with uncertain circumstances, including in times of ambiguity regarding information or manager direction.

Partnership

• Connect and share across WFP units: Seeks to understand and adapt to internal or cross-unit teams’ priorities and preferred working styles.

•  Build strong external partnerships: Demonstrates ability to understand and appropriately respond to and/or escalate needs of external partners.

•  Be politically agile & adaptable: Portrays an informed and professional demeanor toward internal and external partners and stakeholders.

•  Be clear about the value WFP brings to partnerships: Provides operational support on analyses and assessments that quantifies and demonstrates WFP’s unique value as a partner.

FUNCTIONAL CAPABILITIES

Capability Name Description of the behaviour expected for the proficiency level

Food Security Analysis Leverages in-depth understanding of the food security challenges at household and community level to help implement holistic solutions ranging from preventive to resilience building interventions. Provides strategic direction for problem identification and analysis that underlies programme response.

Food Security Monitoring Leads management, design and implementation of food security monitoring systems. Ensures that such analysis is timely and responsive to programmatic needs and adjustments.

Technical Specialized Knowledge (e.g., Economics, Statistics, Public Health, Remote Sensing, GIS, etc.) Demonstrates holistic understanding of inter-disciplinary linkages underlying food security concepts and their application. Provides leadership and guidance for building food security information systems that track changes at the global, regional, national and community level, linking results to key decisions and internal and external actors.

Food Security Assessment Manages independent, multi-agency and multi-sector assessments to ensure appropriate coverage of food security topics. Ensures analytical rigor, relevance of the findings and timeliness of the report.

Strategic Operational Understanding Leverages thorough understanding of operational needs and food security analyses to ensure evidence based policy formulation and programmatic response at the country level.

OTHER SPECIFIC JOB REQUIREMENTS

Specific to VAM function

• Provide expert advice to country offices and support WFP and its partners on matters pertaining to food security, markets, monitoring frameworks and nutrition and resilience strategies, and ensure the timely and productive use of related outputs.

• Contribute to the development of systems and tools for the assessment and monitoring of vulnerability to food insecurity and malnutrition in line with innovative methodologies and best practice.

• Coordinate complex food security, nutrition, markets and resilience analysis and oversee the preparation of timely reports in line with wider VAM and Monitoring corporate guidance, policies, procedures and standards to enable effective programme and policy decision-making and contribute to the development of Country Strategies and plans.

• Provide technical advice and quality assurance to the country office to ensure that programmes are designed based on the best information available and sound assessment and monitoring systems are built in.

• Take responsibility for incorporating gender perspectives in all areas of work, to ensure equal participation of women and men.

• Act in an assigned emergency support capacity as required to meet emergency food assistance needs.

Specific to the Monitoring function

• At the Country Strategic Plan (CSP) design stage, support the development of a Theory of Change outlining how the expected results are likely to occur and listing key assumptions and risks.

• Ensure that CO monitoring systems and tools are in place and compliant with corporate standards, including the minimum monitoring requirements (MMR), standard operational procedures (SOPs) and establishment of baselines and targets in alignment with the updated corporate result framework (CRF).

• Coordinate and oversee the production of monitoring and operational reports, clearly showing results and implementation progress.

• Lead mid-term reviews and support thematic reviews, intended for internal learning, strategic and operational decision-making.

• Ensure that CO makes timely and accurate input of required data into COMET

Specific to the Evaluation function

• Provide oversight and ensure effective management of decentralized evaluations to high professional standards, in line with WFP Evaluation Policy and Decentralized Evaluation Quality Assurance System (DEQAS). This entails managing evaluation processes from planning to completion; engaging stakeholders appropriately in the evaluation process and managing communications and budgets.

• Contribute to and support centralized evaluations managed by the Office of Evaluation, joint UNSDCF evaluations and donor-led evaluations in country.

DESIRED EXPERIENCES FOR ENTRY INTO THE ROLE

• Experience building strategic partnerships in Monitoring, Evaluation and VAM with multiple stakeholders, including governments, multilateral, bilateral and academia.

• Leading multi-functional and diverse teams.

• Management of complex Monitoring and/or VAM activities, spanning a range of policies and programme initiatives.

• Cultivating constructive and sustainable relationships with national authorities, UN agencies, NGOs, donors and academia.

• Developing recommendations to senior leaders on ways to improve timely access to food assistance.

• Field based experience implementing household M&E surveys; excellent IT skills (MS Office, Access) and SPSS; ability to design and develop effective M&E databases;

• Excellent report writing skills; ability to communicate clearly both orally and in writing;

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: 9 December 2019

Female applicants and qualified applicants from developing 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.