Organizational Setting

The key mission of the FAO Representation in Somalia, which is led by FAO Representative (FAOR), is to assist and support the national government to develop policies, strategies and programme aimed at accelerating the Implementation and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the area of FAO’s global mandate and Strategic Objectives. More specifically, FAO’s response aims to address national needs and priorities in achieving food security, reducing hunger and malnutrition, developing agricultural, fishery and forestry sectors, and ensuring the sustainable use of environmental and natural resources and respond to recurrent emergencies. The current portfolio of activities of the FAO Representation in Somalia includes a wide scope of technical support interventions ranging from policy support through livestock and crop production, to natural resource management, Nutrition, value chain, food security analysis and water and land information management. FAO is also implementing several emergency, resilience-building, and development interventions, with the support of its five field offices and close to 400 staff in partnership with the Federal and State line ministries.

Reporting Lines

The position is under the overall supervision of the FAO Representative in Somalia, the direct supervision of the Head of Information and Systems Management.

Technical Focus

The incumbent will implement changes to the existing software as directed in line with industry best practice standards as well as FAO Software development standards.
In close coordination with the Head of ISMU, oversee implementation and support of client software developed by the ISMU team. This will entail working closely with team members to review current systems for improvement, producing detailed system specifications, preparing training manuals for end-users and maintaining systems once they are up and running.
Upgrade of the BiMo ecosystem (BiMo/TiMo/Middleware) UI interface to match current industry standards as well as improve user experience and performance. This work will include overhaul of the existing interface and Development of a new user interface to keep up with android material design industry standards and expansion of the current target device list. Continued Improvement to be able to handle larger payments faster over intermittent network conditions.
Implement an application to do beneficiary deduplication which will help in rooting out beneficiaries who have been registered more than once in the BiMS system. This will aid in faster disbursement processing and improve database algorithms which will process data much faster.
Development and implementation of beneficiary remote voice verification which will help in verification of beneficiaries remotely. The Remote Verification System will be used to remotely call beneficiaries and verify the captured beneficiary voice prints against their stored voice templates without the beneficiary having to travel to implementing partners’ verification location.

Tasks and responsibilities

•    Oversee implementation and support of client software developed by the ISMU team.
•    Work closely with team members to review current systems for improvement.
•    Produce detailed system specifications.
•    Prepare training manuals for end-users and conducting trainings.
•    Maintain client systems once they are up and running.
•    Provide group and individual coaching and provide the supervisor with a regular forecast of future needs for the client team.
•    Monitor ISMU systems and proactively address any concerns or issues that may arise.
•    Run quality assurance checks to measure acceptable standards of operation in ISMU systems.
•    Deal with complex client scenarios and escalations and identify areas to improve efficiencies to reduce repeat escalations and complains.
•    Overhaul of the existing interface and Development of a new user interface to keep up with android material design industry standards and expansion of the current target device list.
•    Explore addition of partial redemption feature to the BiMo application.
•    Incorporate a BiMo support hotline and chat features to handle support requests.
•    Implement a facial verification feature using the BiMS photo since the fingerprint verification is being faced out.
•    Systematically enforce BiMo facial verification feature for all future verifications.
•    Device preparation (BiMO app update, License allocation & activation etc.).
•    Allocate DAs in preparation for verification or entitlement distribution.
•    Monitor payments and provide support to implementing partners.
•    Upgrade TiMo application to adopt the XLSForm standard which is a standard for building forms in Excel. XLSForms are simple to get started with and can represent complex forms.
•    Implement automatic saving and cloud sync capability.
•    Integrate TiMO with CoCo for reports viewing.
•    Develop ODK biometrics integration for beneficiary registration.
•    Improve FiMO by adding additional feature to verify the beneficiaries’ voice template on registration to know whether template was captured correctly.
•    Implement cloud integration capability for seamless and end-to-end registration and verification using ViMO.
•    Explore use of microphones during registration to improve quality of voice templates captured and reduce the rate of failure during verification.
•    Explore possibility of verifying beneficiaries using the beneficiaries’ photos captured on ODK/KOBO without having the need to register their face biometric template through FiMo.
•    Develop a portal for fetching beneficiary data to be scheduled for remote voice verification.
•    Create modules for posting beneficiary data for verification and as well as checking on the status of the entire process.
•    Create a windows service for conducting the actual verification automatically without need for any human intervention.
•    Create APIs for integration to mobile money service providers for remote voice verification.
•    Create services for automatic posting of verification data into BiMS.
•    Design and create a portal to setup deduplication parameters e.g. running time, sample size etc.
•    Design a module to display reports:
–    Add/Edit/Disable users.
–    View/Check highlighted beneficiaries that have been flagged as duplicates.
–    User access and roles management.
•    Create a windows service that will be scheduled and ran in the background to conduct the actual deduplication.
•    Design and create a session-based login module to facilitate creation of portal users and utilize privileges to assign different users’ different privileges.
•    Design and create a new BiMo login feature for token authentication rather than http authentication for improved security.
•    Develop tablet management module to assist in the device care including Add/Edit/Delete/Disable field devices, DA allocation/de-allocation.
•    Create a reports module that will show real time reports of tablet and portal activity for consumption by management users.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements 

•    University degree in information communication technology (ICT), computer science or computer engineering or a related field is required.
•    At least 5 years of relevant experience in projects involving database programming and web, mobile and desktop application development, database administration using PHP, Java, Android, and MySQL.
•    Working knowledge (level C) of English, French or Spanish and limited knowledge (level B) of one of the other two or Arabic, Chinese, Russian for COF.REG. Working knowledge of English (level C) for PSA.SBS.

FAO Core Competencies

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

Technical/Functional Skills 

•    Programming experience in Open-Source languages and Operating Systems (MySQL, PHP, Apache, HTML, XML).
•    Previous work experience in statistical related projects will be an advantage.
•    Previous experience working in Somalia and willingness to travel throughout Somalia will be an added advantage.
•    Ability to effectively use standard office software, such as MS Office (Windows, Word, Outlook, Excel, Exchange) etc. Ability to use accounting software and other information systems and databases to insert data, make enquiries, retrieve/define ad hoc reports and analyses, and edit results in appropriate format.
•    Systematic, well-structured, and efficient approach to work assignments. Analytical ability, accuracy, and consistency.
•    Exercise diligence and care in dealing with records and expenditures.
•    The incumbent must possess a cooperative spirit, flexibility, and openness to work in an international environment.
•    Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with people of different national and cultural background.