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ABOUT 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.

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

In 2022, the world faced a historic food and nutrition crisis. Continuing in 2024, an estimated 29 million children will suffer from wasting in 15 of the worst-affected countries. In the same countries, 156 million people are estimated to face crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity, which is an 83 per cent increase from 2019 (before the global pandemic). The number of people living in emergency and catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity also saw a significant increase and represents a deterioration of the situation since 2019.

In these humanitarian contexts, continued efforts for the early detection of children with wasting, and their management remain critical; likewise essential are actions to reduce the incidence of children whose nutrition situation may deteriorate into wasting.

As a United Nations (UN) agency reaching an estimated 150 million nutritionally vulnerable and food-insecure people each year, WFP plays a critical role in multi-stakeholder efforts to address malnutrition. In 2023, over 27 million children under the age of 5 and pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls were assisted through WFP supported nutrition-specific programmes that aim to prevent undernutrition and manage moderate wasting across 52 countries.”

The 2023 WHO Guideline on the Prevention and Management of Wasting and Nutritional Oedema together with the Global Action Plan on Child Wasting (GAP) provide an opportunity to foster new program approaches to ensure that as many children as possible benefit from coordinated efforts to prevent and address wasting. WFP with its partner UNICEF has developed a joint strategic approach to accelerate programmatic shifts in humanitarian and fragile contexts based on this new WHO Guideline. WFP and UNICEF will work together to provide a combined package of interventions to address child wasting. The joint approach emphasizes the importance of addressing maternal nutrition, elevates attention given to preventive actions as part of every program response and to increasing convergence and coverage to reach those populations most vulnerable and hardest to reach.

This approach will be implemented through a phased three-year transition plan (2024-2026) in 15 priority countries (Haiti, Burkina Faso, Chad , Mali , Niger, Nigeria, Ethiopia , Kenya , Somalia , South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo , Madagascar , Afghanistan , Yemen); supporting governments and partners incorporate evidence-based programmatic shifts in alignment with the WHO Guideline.

WFP in these countries will implement shifts in programs to address child wasting and maternal malnutrition in collaboration with its key collaborators , supported through the respective Regional Bureaus and joint actions taken at global level. The global actions include evidence generation through strong monitoring and evaluation or operations research, nutrition vulnerability analysis, documentation and sharing of success and lessons learnt from new program approaches, joint advocacy and supply chain optimisation of specialised nutritious foods.

JOB PURPOSE

The overall purpose of this assignment is to steer the WFP contribution of the joint transition plan of child wasting towards its intended outcomes by engaging proactively and supporting constructively the various stakeholders involved.

The consultant will work in the Program Policy Support Unit of WFP’s Nutrition and Food Quality Service in headquarters in Rome. S/he will report directly to the lead of the Child Wasting and Maternal Nutrition team.

The consultant will work in close collaboration with a variety of stakeholders such as colleagues across the Nutrition and Food Quality Service, with WFP’s Regional Bureaux and selected country offices, and with counterparts in UNICEF at global level.

He/she will be required to travel periodically to support Regional Bureaux or high priority countries that are part of the transition plan on child wasting.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

The consultant will coordinate and manage the joint transition plan on child wasting to ensure that respective country offices are effectively supported and expected results across agreed areas of collaboration are achieved. This includes:

1. Stakeholder engagement

A) Establish clear coordination structure and streamline internal communication between Headquarter, Regional Bureau, and Country Office nutrition teams, including:

• Regularly bringing stakeholders together from the Headquarters, Regional Bureaus, and Country Offices, to exchange experiences, share information, and troubleshoot challenges. This will entail development of clear TOR of different coordination structures, setting of meeting agendas, preparation of meeting minutes, and communication across different internal stakeholders.

B) Support coordination structure and external communication between WFP, UNICEF, and other stakeholders as required., including:

• Lead and support co-facilitation of monthly coordination meetings, thematic ad hoc meetings or workshops, and face-to-face meetings with key stakeholders across organizations and at different levels within WFP. This will entail collaboration on development of agendas, input to presentations, content creation, taking of meetings minutes and bringing together teams to maximize diverse contributions to the transition plan. It will also require joint engagement on establishing formal structures on roles and responsibilities of stakeholders and development of TORs and SOPs as required.

2. Change management and project coordination

This position will strongly support change management across different levels of the organization in relation to the ways of working with UNICEF on the prevention and management of wasting and maternal undernutrition. Tasks include strategizing and implementing change, as well as coordinating projects and collaborating with stakeholders.

• Develop/refine a global project management workplan that encompasses support across the 15 countries related to transition plan initiation, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and resource mobilization. The workplan will differentiate between phase 1, 2, and 3 countries and the outcomes, outputs, and activities across Headquarter, Regional, and Country levels. This workplan will need to be developed with engagement across the Nutrition and Food Quality Service, in collaboration with other units and services at Headquarters, and with colleagues at Regional Bureaus and Country Offices.
• Oversee implementation of the global project management workplan in a systematic and organized manner across regions and countries to facilitate consistency and coherence across the entire project.
• Monitor and ensure timely course correction in collaboration with stakeholders related to challenges in progress against the workplan. Support periodic reviews with participation to allow reflections, revision to workplans, and exchange of best practices.
• Identify appropriate project management tools that facilitate smooth and coherent implementation and coordination of the different work streams ( technical support , communication and advocacy , Monitoring and evaluation , research , analytics etc)

• Follow, document and visualize progress on the transition plan with strong focus on programmatic shifts and diversity of approaches on child wasting and maternal undernutrition at country level, liaising with Regional Bureau focal points and Country Offices, as needed Support the establishment of systems and processes to facilitate coherency and inputs to donor reports across Country Offices and Regional Bureaus in collaboration with the Headquarters Strategic Engagement Unit. C Coordinate and lead the donor reporting at global level.

3. Strategic and overall support to Regional Bureaus and Country Offices

• In collaboration with Headquarter teams and Regional Bureaus, support countries’ programmatic shifts ensuring alignment with WFP’s strategic direction for wasting and WHO Guidelines , and specific to the phase each country is in i.e. phase 1 countries require more support on programme implementation, phase 2 on programme preparation and design.
• Provide strategic and any other support required to Regional Bureaus and Country Offices, and coordinate support with Headquarter team
• Identify support needs, additional guidance and tools that can facilitate implementation of the strategic and programmatic shifts for wasting and maternal undernutrition at country level and liaise with HQ teams to develop or provide these
• Contribute to conceptualizing and drafting guidance and tools, as required

4. Visibility, Communication, and Advocacy

• Follow progress, successes and challenges related to the different phases of the transition plan and jointly with the stakeholders at country and regional level, and the M&E and knowledge management team identify content to feature in communication and knowledge products
• Provide input to communications materials and draft summaries or briefs related to the experiences with the stages of the transition plan, the partnerships involved to inform management and involved stakeholders
• Deliver briefings or presentations to select stakeholders of the nutrition or food security humanitarian community to raise awareness and get buy- in for the transition plan, as needed
• Support advocacy and resource mobilization efforts and input into materials as required

5. AOB

• Support any other activities related to WFP’s strategic objectives in nutrition and related workplans as required .

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education:

• Master’s degree in nutrition, Public Health, Food Security, Food systems or other related fields, or Bachelor’s degree with additional years of relevant professional work experience.

Experience:

• A minimum of 8 to 10 years’ work experience in international nutrition programming with at least five (5) years related to fragile and humanitarian contexts.
• Solid experience with programs to prevent and manage wasting across multiple-sectors and with multiple stakeholders.
• Experience managing BHA funded projects is an advantage.
• Experience of working with UN agencies, or key international NGO in humanitarian settings; work experience with WFP is highly desirable.
• Experience with change management processes is desirable

Languages:

• Fluency in English. Working knowledge of French desirable.

SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE

• Solid knowledge of the global nutrition and food security (humanitarian) architecture.
• Strong project management skills including critical and strategic thinking and change management.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to work in multicultural settings.
• Excellent team leadership and teamwork skills.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

10 April 2024

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WFP has a zero-tolerance approach to conduct such as fraud, sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to WFP’s standards of conduct and will therefore undergo rigorous background verification internally or through third parties. Selected candidates will also be required to provide additional information as part of the verification exercise. Misrepresentation of information provided during the recruitment process may lead to disqualification or termination of employment

WFP will not request payment at any stage of the recruitment process including at the offer stage. Any requests for payment should be refused and reported to local law enforcement authorities for appropriate action.