Programme Associate (Hubs Team) at the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)

The United Nations World Food Programme 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. Every day, WFP works worldwide 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.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Programme Associate (Hubs Team)

Requisition: 107728
Location: Maiduguri, Borno

Organizational Context

• The WFP Humanitarian Hub Teams are deployed in a deep field location in Borno state in North East Nigeria (Bama, Monguno, Ngala, Dikwa, Gwoza, Banki or Damasak).   The WFP Humanitarian Hub Teams increase WFP’s presence in deep field operations through long term field presence (10 days out and 4 days off) in Humanitarian Hubs.
• The Hub Teams provide continuous engagement with humanitarian actors, the Government, security agencies, community leaders and affected populations, (including internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the host community). This enables WFP to improve coordination, provide more oversight over its programmes, enhance support to cooperating partners, and monitor the changing operational and security context to adapt interventions.
• The Hub Team Associate reports to the Hub Team Leader and in some cases when the Team Leader is out of post may assume temporarily duties as overall coordinator. The Hub Team Associate is expected to demonstrate responsibility and initiative to respond independently to various issues with general guidance.  The Associate is required to use judgement in dealing with unforeseen operational problems on a daily basis.

Job Purpose

• To provide technical and coordination support to the effective function of WFP’s cooperating partners in ensuring that WFP field operations are run smoothly and to a high level of quality.

Key Accountabilities (not all-inclusive)

• Provide technical support and assist in the development and implementation of WFP activities in the area of the specific hub location where assigned
• Contribute to high quality analytical reports of hub deployments and provide inputs to the Hub team incident tracker, monitoring issues that emerge in the specific hub location, the root causes and partners involved and the follow up.
• Analyse data/reports coming from other WFP staff deployed to the hub location in order to develop an overall understanding of issues (develop tracking systems, or briefs to support as needed)
• Enhance coordination of WFP field movement to response to operational priorities.
• Strengthen oversight and quality control of partners and provide real time corrective actions when need arises;
• Liaise with WFP counterparts in all relevant functional areas to support effect collaboration and implementation of WFP activities.
• Coordinate and communicate with local partners, agencies, NGOs and government to ensure efficient and effective delivery of WFP programmes
• Develop a stakeholder analysis, keep it up to date and ensure complete and accurate contact lists
• Carry out physical inventory of partner stocks (in collaboration with Programme Unit) as at when needed.

4Ps Core Organisational Capabilities
Purpose:

• Understand and communicate the Strategic Objectives: Coaches team in the most effective ways to communicate WFP’s Strategic Objectives to WFP team and partners in the field.
• Be a force for positive change: Implements new methods or tools to improve team’s work processes and productivity.
• Make the mission inspiring to our team: Maps team’s activities and tasks to specific successes in beneficiary communities to showcase positive impact.
• Make our mission visible in everyday actions: Explains to teammates how each unit contributes to the overall WFP mission.

People:

• Look for ways to strengthen people's skills: Identifies skill development opportunities such as training modules or on-the-job experiences for self, colleagues and direct reports.
• Create an inclusive culture: Facilitates team building activities to build rapport in own unit.
• Be a coach & provide constructive feedback: Facilitates the pairing of junior colleagues with coaches within own team.
• Create an “I will”/”We will” spirit: Proactively anticipates potential challenges and develops mitigation plans to ensure that team meets goals and targets.

Performance:

• Encourage innovation & creative solutions: Identifies opportunities to be creative in own work and to help team be more innovative and accurate in their respective tasks and areas of work.
• Focus on getting results: Monitors team’s deliverables and provides feedback to ensure outcomes are delivered consistently and accurately.
• Make commitments and make good on commitments: Provides accurate guidance to team on expected responsibilities and tasks, whilst also upholding own commitment to the team.
• Be Decisive: Sets an example and provides guidance to junior team members on when to escalate issues when faced with challenging issues in the workplace or in the field.

Partnership:

• Connect and share across WFP units: Facilitates partnerships with other WFP units to accomplish missions in the field.
• Build strong external partnerships: Sets an example and provides guidance to team on how to build relationships with external partners.
• Be politically agile & adaptable: Articulates to colleagues or direct reports the value of contributing to other WFP teams and agency partnerships in fulfilling WFP’s goals and objectives.
• Be clear about the value WFP brings to partnerships: Organizes, monitors, and prioritizes own and team’s efforts to ensure that they will fulfil the needs of internal and external partners.

Functional Capabilities
Capability Name- Description of the behaviour expected for the proficiency level:

Programme Lifecycle & Food Assistance:

• Demonstrates ability to identify key variables and contextual factors that affect food assistance problems and programmes throughout the lifecycle to inform quality programme design or re-design.

Transfer Modalities (Food, Cash, Vouchers):

• Demonstrates ability to implement, under guidance, food assistance programmes deploying the full range of transfer modalities with an understanding of basic principles guiding modality selection and implementation.

Broad Knowledge of Specialized Areas:

• Understands basic technical concepts and data and their relevance to food assistance programmes.

Emergency Programming:

• Displays capacity to provide inputs into the development, implementation and realignment of high quality emergency programmes.

Strategic Policy Engagement w/Government:

• Understands and applies basic principles of engagement with government counterparts at the national or local level.

Standard Minimum Qualifications

• Education: Completion of secondary school education. A post-secondary certificate in a relevant functional area. University degree in International Affairs, Economics, Nutrition/Health, Agriculture, Environment Sciences of other field relevant to Emergency Response or International development would be an advantage.
• Language: Fluency in both oral and written English. Knowledge of local languages would be an advantage (Hausa, Kanuri, Shua Arab)
• Location: Assigned to Maiduguri, Nigeria, but based in one of the Humanitarian Hub locations (Dikwa, Gwoza, Ngala, Bama, Monguno, Banki or Damasak) on a cycle of 10 days deployment-4 days break

Other Specific Job Requirements:

• Support capacity strengthening of Cooperating Partners and government at local level, including beneficiary programme management committees
• Maintain steady continued dialogue with affected communities (IDP host communities and populations in camps), traditional leaders, military, civil and traditional authorities and other local stakeholders to:
  • Gain thorough knowledge and understanding of the local context
  • Ensure good understanding of WFP presence and operations, consolidate partnerships and support in order to serve affected populations at best.
• Monitor/develop an understanding of beneficiary numbers, especially new arrivals and returnees and ensure that this information is effectively reported to AO
• Applying checklists and standards monitor quality control of WFP operations
• Support basic fact finding related to any fraud, SEA or protection issues in close coordination with management, compliance and protection partners on ground and in the AO.
• Provide site specific expertise to support donor or high-level missions visiting the specific hub location including providing inputs to briefing papers, coordinating ground transportation, cooperating partners focus groups etc.

Desired experiences for entry into the role:

• Experience working with beneficiary populations, partners and government officials, including conducting focus groups and interviews
• Experience with field operations in emergency context in conflict environments, preferably implementing food security programmes
• Experience working in high risk/high stress deep field environments, experience in hub locations in NE Nigeria would be an advantage
  

Terms and Conditions

• Only Nigerian nationals or holders of valid residence and work permits are eligible to apply for this position
• Applications are to be submitted and recieved online and in English language only.
• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.  Canvassing is strictly prohibited. Canvassing of any sort will lead to automatic disqualification of the concerned applicant.
• Selected candidate will be employed on a fixed-term contract with a probationary period of one year. WFP offers an attractive compensation package. For more details please visit International Civil Service Commision website: http://icsc.un.org  (link: htttp://www.un.org/Depts/OHRM/salaries_allowances/salaries/nigeria.htm).

Application Closing Date
8th November, 2019.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Note

• WFP will apply a rigorous and transparent selection process including thorough assessment of technical skills to ensure the best candidates are selected for the job.
• Please ensure that your application contains accurate and complete information on academic qualifications, employment record and language skills.
• Only successful candidates will be invited for an interview.