JOB DESCRIPTION

Organizational Setting

According to the Global Report on Food Crises 2020, almost one million people were classified in Crisis (CH Phase 3) and Emergency (CH Phase 4) and additional 3 million were in Stressed (CH Phase 2) conditions across Chad. This corresponds to a 57 percent increase compared to 2018. Chad is the only country in the Sahel region with prevalence of undernourishment constantly above 35%. Chronic underdevelopment, insecurity and displacements, natural resources deterioration and climatic shocks are at the roots of food and nutrition insecurity in Chad. Further, Chad at the moment represent the last stronghold of relative stability in a region affected by terrorism, open conflict and massive displacement.

In this context, the Sahelian Provinces of Kanem and Bar-el-Gazhal are identified as areas where the fight against hunger is broadly perceived as struggling. After 30 years of national and international continuous efforts, food insecurity remains at the highest levels with almost 200,000 people in urgent need of food assistance (CH Phase 3 and above) for the last two years. Undernutrition remains a common condition for many children, migration is considered by many youths as the only option to achieve a decent future, and natural resources deterioration is broadly seen as unavoidable.

Decision-making and resources are highly centralized within the Government. While several regional governors and local leaders are ambitious and eager to engage on solutions, they generally lack the resources to contribute, or they await approval from the central Government. Technical governmental capacity is weak and the Government has requested assistance to establish a regular aid coordination mechanism.

In this context, WFP, FAO, Unicef and Ocha and the relevant clusters (Nutrition, Food Security, and WASH) supported by the Global Network Against Food Crisis are leading an all stakeholders” inclusive effort aiming at overhauling the efforts around hunger eradication in Chad (starting from Kanem and Bar-el-Gazal provinces) to achieve measurable progress against a common objective jointly defined as: reduce hunger by improving food and nutrition security.

Reporting Lines

The incumbent will work under the general supervision of the FAO, WFP and Unicef representatives (or their deputies as from arrangements in office) in the country of assignment, the technical supervision of the global Food Security Cluster Coordinator and in support to the four clusters coordinators at country level. He/she will work impartially with all members of the 4 Clusters and in close collaboration with all other relevant clusters in order to improve current joint planning within food security nutrition WASH and Health actors and with other relevant sectors and cluster. The job will ultimately aim at supporting improved operational coherence transcending the traditional divide between humanitarian and development action.

Technical Focus

Support to the establishment and the maintenance of a comprehensive hunger eradication platform rooted in the field and focused around the humanitarian, peace, development nexus including local, national and regional stakeholders.

Tasks and responsibilities

Building on the achieved results, the Hunger eradication (SDG2) focal point will support strengthened coordination along the entire programme cycle supporting the maximization of linkages and synergies between different relevant sectors as well as between humanitarian and development actions. This will include support to joint intersectoral needs analysis activities to help ensuring that solid evidence base analysis will support coherent integrated response plans. Specifically, he/she will:

• Regularly convene partners and food security and nutrition stakeholders around the exercise of an improved integrated plan built on shared solid analysis at national level and support his/her homologues in priority provinces in doing so in the field;
• Assist partners in overcoming differences, build and implement commonly agreed “programmatic adjustment plans” for improved convergence;
• With the technical support of the global team and the technicians from individual partners set-up a common monitoring framework and a monitoring plan supporting the collective action;
• Using the common monitoring framework support collective advocacy on commonly identified priorities for action being this related in programmatic adjustments from partners or/and on additional funding required;
• Support partners on the identification of geographical priorities for replication and adaptation of the approach in other provinces of Chad.

  CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

  Minimum Requirements

• Advanced university degree in food security, economics, relevant social or natural sciences, or other related discipline relevant to the mandate of the Organization;
• Minimum of 5 years of proven knowledge and experience in post disaster emergency and rehabilitation assessment and programming, and other relevant technical experience;
• Working knowledge of English or French and limited knowledge of any other official language of the Organization (Arabic, Chinese, Spanish and Russian).

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;
• Ability to convene and chair meeting supported by a solid experience of what the cluster system is and how the humanitarian and development architectures work;
• Familiarity with different food security and nutrition theoretical frameworks, assessment tools and programmatic tolls, methodologies and practices;
• Experience in formulation, coordination, implementation, data analysis and interpretation, and reporting for assessment and analysis processes;
• Experience in performing response planning and response analysis;
• Experience in coordinating a large number of stakeholders;
• Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written;
• Effective team leadership and decision making skills with strong individual planning capacity;
• Sound knowledge of humanitarian principles.