Programme Support (NOB) at World Food Programme

job Description

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS
19 October 2024-23:59-GMT+02:00 Central Africa Time (Harare)
WFP celebrates and embraces diversity. It is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all its employees and encourages qualified candidates to apply irrespective of race, colour, national origin, ethnic or social background, genetic information, gender, gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, religion or belief, HIV status or disability.

ABOUT WFP
The World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity, for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

At WFP, people are at the heart of everything we do and the vision of the future WFP workforce is one of diverse, committed, skilled, and high performing teams, selected on merit, operating in a healthy and inclusive work environment, living WFP's values (Integrity, Collaboration, Commitment, Humanity, and Inclusion) and working with partners to save and change the lives of those WFP serves.

WFP Zimbabwe CO centralized its programme support functions, including Cooperation Partners (CP) management and COMET, in a dedicated Programme Support Team in 2022, to streamline and standardize CP management.

WFP Zimbabwe is seeking to hire a National Programme Policy Officer to lead the key programme support functions, including Cooperating Partners (CP) management, COMET (programme operations tool) and any other programme support areas.

This role requires outstanding organization skills, precision and attention to detail, excellent Excel, writing and budget analysis skills, outstanding ability to understand numbers and quickly spot errors, strong capacity to work with multiple internal and external stakeholders, ability to facilitate and move forward processes involving a large number of persons, and capacity to effectively manage horizontal working relationships and work towards a common goal. Previous knowledge of and experience with WFP CP management, including the corporate procedures, is an advantage.

Duties and Responsibilities

To support policy and programme activities that effectively meet food assistance needs.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive, within delegated authority):
The incumbent, under the supervision of the Lead of Cross-Cutting Issues and Programme Support Team, will be responsible for the following duties:
-Lead the full CP management cycle, from scoping the landscape, organizing CP selection and contracting processes, up to partner evaluation, supporting the programme teams, and ensuring timely start and completion of all the processes.
-Responsible for real-time tracking and updating of the CP processes status, key Field Level Agreement (FLAs) data, and invoicing status.
-Preparation of FLA cost analyses and FLA spending rates and sharing them with activity leads.
-Serving as secretariat for CP selection committee.
-Review of Request for Proposal packages and proposal scoring methodologies and matrixes.
-Review and verification of FLAs / FLA amendments and FLA budgets to ensure their coherence, verification of the calculations and check alignment with corporate requirements.
-Implement clear filing of all documents on SharePoint.
-Lead engagement with CPs, including responding to technical queries.
-Lead capacity development of both CPs and WFP staff (CO and FO) on CP management, including preparation of resource/training materials and training delivery.
-Be responsible for COMET reporting in the CO, including review and verification of COMET entries and corporate reporting relating to COMET and other corporate tools.
-Support operational planning and reporting.
-Lead a comprehensive review and update of CP management-related templates (e.g. RfP packages, CP scoring matrixes, KPI etc.)
-Co-lead the implementation of the UN IP protocol PSEA assessment.
-Spearheaded the roll-out of the CP management digital tools, such as Partner Connect.

Qualifications and Experience

Education: Advanced University degree in Economics, Development, Business, Sociology, International relations or similar relevant field; or First University Degree with additional years of related work experience and/or training/courses.

Desired experience for entry into the role:
-At least 3 years of professional-level experience in the humanitarian / development sector.
-Previous experience of working with WFP or work experience with an NGO in areas relating to programme management
-Sound experience in developing proposals, budget management and reporting.

Knowledge and skills:
-Outstanding organisational skills, capacity to effectively manage and keep track of multiple processes and outputs, and lead them towards a timely completion.
-Excellent precision, attention to detail and ability to spot errors.
-Strong capacity to work with multiple internal and external stakeholders, facilitate and move forward processes involving several persons, towards a common goal.
-Capacity to effectively manage horizontal working relationships
-Ability to work with documents and numbers.
-Strong budget analysis skills
-Outstanding computer literacy, excellent MS Excel and Word skills.
-Knowledge of COMET is an asset.
-Proactive and positive attitude, ability to work autonomously, accountability for results.