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Job Title: Programme Policy Officer (Agriculture Market Support)

Organisation: United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)

Duty Station: Moroto, Uganda

About US:

United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) 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. In emergencies, WFP gets food to where it is needed, saving the lives of victims of war, civil conflict and natural disasters. After an emergency, WFP uses food to help communities rebuild their lives. On average, WFP reaches more than 80 million people with food assistance in 80 countries each year. The organization has the global footprint, deep field presence and local knowledge and relationships necessary to provide access to food and contribute to lasting solutions, especially in many of the world’s most remote and fragile areas.

Job Summary: The Programme Policy Officer (Agriculture Market Support)  will be responsible for supporting the implementation of a range of smallholder livelihood and resilience-building activities, and is expected to strengthen agriculture markets in Karamoja sub-region to increase the earnings of smallholder farmers by reducing constraints to production, strengthen private sector engagement, improve market access for farmers, and increase economic opportunities for women and youth in agricultural value chains.  Additionally the incumbet will be expected to ensure that smallholder farmers (SHF) are achieving food security at the household level, and that through improved productivity and market access, they will be guaranteed sustainable income increase, as well as availability of nutritious food in local markets.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Provide technical support in designing, planning, and implementing initiatives that optimize value creation and commercialisation opportunities with a specific focus on climate-smart agriculture and post-harvest loss management along priority value chains in Karamoja sub-region.
• Coordinate farmer organisation development in collaboration with District Local Governments (DLGs) and other relevant stakeholders through undertaking profiling exercises, identifying, and recommending capacity strengthening needs and supporting District Production & Marketing Departments (DPMD) and District Commercial Offices (DCOs) to design and implement tailored capacity strengthening initiatives.
• Collaborate with the partners to ensure regular community dialogues and sensitisation meetings on agricultural issues including agri-nutrition, climate-smart agriculture, post-harvest management, and storage, strengthening farmer extension systems and establishing community seed banks.
• Provide specialised support to cooperating partners to ensure that the various activities are performed within the established targets following WFP’s policies and procedures.
• Facilitate needs assessments of target smallholder farmers, farmer groups and aggregators/lead farmers, using standardized tools and approaches.
• Facilitate WFP supported farmer organisations and farmer-friendly aggregation entities to access agricultural services by coordinating with key value chain stakeholders e.g. aggregators, micro-finance instiutions.
• Facilitate linkages of farmer groups to private sector entities for access to on and off farm equipment like the post-harvest handling equipment.
• Monitor and assist cooperatives, farmer organisations and groups, and other aggregation entities to adhere to terms of produce delivery contracts facilitated by WFP.
• Propose ways to strengthen the integration of gender, youth, nutrition, and climate action in all activities being implemented under Agriculture Market Support (AMS) programme.
• Promote agriculture financing through establishment of Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLAs) and facilitate smallholder farmers’ financial inclusion through training and promotion of innovative digital financial services
• Work and exchange information with internal counterparts to support effective collaboration, implementation, and monitoring of ongoing AMS activities.
• Prepare a range of reports and data analysis (e.g., programme status, performance) and highlight trends/issues ensuring deliverables adhere to corporate standards and quality control.
• Prepare a range of reports and data analysis, ensuring comprehensive reporting and documentation, based on data collected. This includes regular programme performance status, documentation, and communication of best practices to inform scale and bad practices for learning, highlighting of trends/issues while ensuring deliverables adhere to corporate standards and quality control.
• Liaise with internal counterparts across functional units to support effective collaboration, implementation, and monitoring of ongoing project activities. (Process and Outcome monitoring)
• Facilitate cross-functional engagements to ensure alignment across the Karamoja programme portfolio, and promote integration with Supply Chain, Nutrition, School Feeding, Resilience & Livelihoods, and Shock Responsive Systems Strengthening, among other programmatic areas.
• Suppport implementation of the corporate Local and Regional Food Procurement (LRP) Policy to increase integration across WFP programmes and promote market access to SHF by leveraging public and private procurement that include programmatic considerations, developmental objectives and analysis of local food value chains.
• Design and coordinate execution of value chain assessments (VCAs) and other complementary assessments in Karamoja sub-region taking into consideration market dynamics with neighbouring regions in Uganda and Kenya.
• Provide support to establish strategic partnerships and collaboration. This would include mapping of key partners to engage based on smallholder, trader, and processor needs.
• Conduct training of trainers of partner staff, as well as ensure quality monitoring of all programme beneficiary related capacity building activities.
• Support the capacity building of WFP staff, cooperating partners, and local government within specific AMS technical areas.
• Perform any other duties as required.

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Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

• The ideal applicant must hold a University degree qualification from a recognised university (certified by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – UNESCO) in Uganda in one of the following fields: Agriculture Economics, Agricultural Extension, Agronomy, Plant Sciences, Rural Development, Agribusiness Development, Post-Harvest Management, Agriculture & Food Systems, Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Management, Livestock, Rural Development, Environment and Natural Resource Management, Watershed Management, Food Transformation or another relevant technical field.
• Responsible and relevant work experience in a humanitarian and development organisation and dealing with livelihoods, resilience building, market system development approach, nutrition, food security analysis, market linkages and etc. Experience in working with smallholder farmers on climate- smart agriculture and post-harvest management support at scale.  Working with small and medium enterprises (SME) in development.
• Particular focus on selected value chains is required, with extensive experience working with value chain actors (including financial institutions, aggregators, government institutions, processors, and many others).
• Experience working in such technical areas as livelihoods, resilience building, market system development approach, nutrition, food security analysis, market linkages, etc.
• Demonstrated responsibility and initiative to respond independently to various queries with only general guidance and ability to use judgment in dealing with unforeseen operational problems.

Competencies

• Programme Lifecycle & Food Assistance: Ability to facilitate implementation of food assistance programmes using understanding of principles and good practices of programme design, implementation and monitoring.
• Transfer Modalities (Food, Cash, Vouchers): Ability to facilitate food assistance programme implementation that deploys full range of transfer modalities with an understanding of principles guiding modality selection and implementation.
• Knowledge of Specialized Areas: Ability to understand technical concepts and data and their relevance to food assistance programmes.
• Emergency Programming: Display capacity to provide inputs into the development, implementation and realignment of high quality emergency programmes.
• Strategic Policy Engagement with Government: Ability to understand and apply principles of engagement with DLG counterparts..

How to Apply:

All candidates who wish to join the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in the aforementioned capacity should apply online at the online portal link below.

Click Here

Deadline: Friday 17th February 2023

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