Organizational Setting

The Office of Emergencies and Resilience (OEis 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 Members to prepare for and respond to emergencies. OER ensures humanitarian policy coordination and knowledge, liaison with the InterAgency Standing Committee as well as with humanitarian resource partners, coleadership with World Food Programme of the global Food Security Cluster, organizational preparedness, surge capacity and response to largescale 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.

Acting early before the impact of forecast hazards is critical: it can save lives and protect livelihoods while increasing the resilience of communities over time. FAO’s Anticipatory Action (Awork is focused on supporting highrisk countries with developing capacities to implement AA based on a forecast and upon an early warning to anticipate and mitigate the impact of shocks on agriculture and food security. To this end, FAO provides technical and operational support to strengthen: risk monitoring and early warning systems; setting of triggers for the activation of AA; AA programming; and the mainstreaming of an anticipatory approach into national climate and disaster risk management frameworks. FAO works in coordination with a large number of organizations engaged in implementing anticipatory actions worldwide and is a member of global, regional and national technical working groups and partnerships on AA.  In FAO, this area of work is supported by a number of resource partners including the EU, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Canada, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States, among others.

Reporting Lines

The Anticipatory Action Specialist will work under the overall supervision of the Programme and Policy Team Leader and the direct supervision of the Emergency and Rehabilitation Officer (Anticipatory Actio, OER.

Technical Focus 

The Anticipatory Action Specialist will support the further development of FAO’s Anticipatory Action programmes, including technical support to decentralized offices on AA programming, institutionalization, advocacy, evidence and learning.

Tasks and responsibilities

The Anticipatory Action Specialist will:

•    Support the implementation of a corporate approach for the scale up of anticipatory action, working with relevant FAO teams to link capacities for risk analysis, flexible financing and implementation;
•    Support the strengthening of country, regional and global early warning systems, including the identification of triggers for anticipatory action based on a thorough understanding of risk dynamics, risk modelling and impactbased forecasting in agriculture (e.g., identification of most impacted areas, vulnerability analysis and prioritization, interrelation with food security analysis etc.);
•    Support governments and FAO Country Offices with the development and implementation of AA systems, formulation of anticipatory action proposals, activation of funds and timely implementation, liaising with all relevant internal and external actors;
•    Support governments and other key stakeholders with integrating anticipatory action within broader disaster risk financing strategies and related risk transfer instruments.
•    Contribute to the broader agenda on anticipating humanitarian crises including by facilitating discussions and consultations with key partners;
•    Support impact analyses (including Return on Investmenstudies on anticipatory action in collaboration with relevant FAO teams, and use the results to advocate for a scale up of an anticipatory approach to food crises;
•    Support the collection, categorisation and dissemination of innovative anticipatory action good practices in agriculture, in partnership with FAO’s technical teams and external expert entities, supporting crosslearning between different country contexts;
•    Support capacity building efforts on anticipatory action, including through the design and implementation of normative guidance and training materials at country, regional and global level;
•    Support the reinforcement of links with other FAO data and analysis systems and technical expertise contributing to the effective mitigation and prevention of food crises;
•    Support the development of partnerships in anticipatory action with key actors at local, regional and global level including through joint risk analysis, programming and advocacy.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

•    University degree in Agriculture, Food Security, Economics, Natural Resources Management, Rural Development, International Relations, Social/political Sciences, or related fields;
•    At least 2 years (Category , 5 years (Category or 10 years (Category of relevant experience in emergency and resilience programming for the humanitarian/agricultural/food security sectors, including work experience with national and international NGO’s, UN agencies, governments, donors;
•    Working knowledge (level of English or French.

FAO Core Competencies

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

Technical/Functional Skills 

•    Specific experience in early warning and anticipatory action will be valued positively;
•    Work experience in more than one location or area of work, particularly in conflictaffected and emergency contexts;
•    Extent and relevance of experience in emergency and resilience programming for the humanitarian/agricultural/food security sectors;
•    Excellent research, report writing, analytical and communication skills;
•    Demonstrated ability to analyse problems, make appropriate recommendations, effective decisions, including in emergency settings;
•    Ability to plan and organize own work, deliver results, and meet deadlines, within a multidisciplinary team.

Selection Criteria 

•    Knowledge of Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, or Russian is an asset.