Organizational Setting

The Office of Emergencies and Resilience (OER) is 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 member countries to prepare for and respond to emergencies. OER ensures humanitarian policy coordination and knowledge, liaison with the InterAgency Standing Committee (IASC) as well as with humanitarian resource partners, co-leadership with the World Food Programme (WFP) of the global Food Security Cluster (FSC), organizational preparedness, surge capacity and response to large-scale 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.

The OER compliance team’s contribution to the OER vision is centred on the following areas:
•    Supporting decentralised offices’ compliance in emergency and resilience programme management in crisis context (Scale-up and Priority Countries);
•    Supporting organizational compliance processes in OER Headquarters and country offices;
•    Promoting online tools and best practices to support compliance in emergency and resilience programming for HQ and field locations.

Reporting Lines

Working under the supervision of the Senior Emergency and Rehabilitation Officer, Management Support and Compliance Team Leader, or, in the case of a field position, working under the supervision of the FAO Representative, and in close collaboration with the OER Compliance team members, other relevant OER teams, OIG, Risk Management and other relevant Oversight teams at headquarters and the regional level, the Compliance Specialist/Advisor will take on either short-term assignments or longer-term missions to support OER compliance work at country, regional or headquarters level.

Technical Focus

Provide advice and specialized support in the establishment of risk management, compliance and quality assurance activities.

The Compliance Specialist will be required to possess at least 2 years of relevant experience;
The Compliance Advisor will be required to possess at least 7 years of relevant experience;

Tasks and responsibilities

•    Support DOs in formulating and analyzing internal documents such as the Risk Log, Internal Control Questionnaire and other relevant data to review internal controls related specifically to operations and humanitarian compliance.
•    Shape the development and implementation of key compliance and quality assurance processes, particularly those focused on mitigating the risk of aid diversion and other operational risks in challenging environments, such as those with limited access and oversight.
•    Contribute to building robust risk management solutions, including drafting interim guidance and SOPs, conducting risk assessments, and proposing innovative tools and processes, in accordance with FAO risk policy and related processes.
•    Advise and recommend to the FAO Representative the appropriate strategies to strengthen controls and mitigate potential risks for adequate compliance with FAO operational rules, regulations, codes and internal policies and procedures, and monitoring the effectiveness of controls.
•    Support the FAO Representatives in implementing outstanding audit recommendations.
•    Support the establishment of processes and procedures in operations for adequate compliance with resources partner’s agreed fiduciary requirements, such as anti-terrorism clauses, implementing partner due diligence review, incident reporting, PSEA, etc.
•    Advise and recommend FAORs on the measures necessary to ensure compliance with FAO’s policy framework and responsibilities on the Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse and on Accountability to Affected People (e.g beneficiary selection and registration, activities of implementing partners and service providers, monitoring, verification and reconciliation of assistance received by beneficiaries, management of FAO monitors, Third-Party monitors, grievance/complaint feedback mechanisms, and call centers, etc. depending on office structure).
•    Support due diligence reviews of Implementing Partners and build up local capacity for this.
•    Contribute to capacity building to mitigate risk and ensure compliance.
•    Support as necessary OER headquarter compliance-related reporting and monitoring.
•    Contribute to the promotion of online guidance and good practices to support compliance in emergency and resilience programming.
•    Perform other related duties as required.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

•    University degree (Bachelor’s or equivalent) in business/public administration, economics or a closely related technical field;
•    At least 10 years (category A), 5 years (category B) and 2 years (category C) of relevant experience in administration, finance, evaluation, audit and/or in programme/ projects operations with field experience, and control functions, and with practical knowledge of operational, financial and administrative procedures of the UN;
•    Working knowledge (level C) of English;
•    Working knowledge of French is desirable.

FAO Core Competencies

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

Technical/Functional Skills

•    Able to work under pressure and adapt to an evolving and complex humanitarian context and within multidisciplinary and different cultural background teams;
•    Relevant work experience in functions related to compliance management and monitoring in the context of a large international organization operating in developing countries;
•    Negotiation skills and ability to deal confidently with tact at management level;
•    Team player with good interpersonal skills, and facilitation/motivational skills;
•    Ability to work under pressure to tight timelines and without direct supervision;
•    Strong analytical and conceptual abilities, communication skills, both verbal and in writing;
•    Knowledge of humanitarian principles.

Selection Criteria 

•    Limited knowledge (level B) of a second FAO language (English, Arabic, French, Chinese, Spanish and Russian) would be an asset.