Consultant – Procurement Officer Full-Time

About WFP

The United Nations World Food Programme 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.

On March 15 Tropical Cyclone Idai made landfall near Beira City, Sofala Province, in central Mozambique. The cyclone brought torrential rains and winds to Sofala, Zambezia, Manica and Inhambane provinces. An estimated 1.85 million people were in the path of the cyclone and are now in need of humanitarian assistance WFP’s emergency teams are currently responding to the impact.

Build WFP is seeking expressions of interest from professional humanitarian consultants wishing to be considered for emergency response consultancies. Deployment will be to Maputo and Field locations within the Country.

For more on WFP and what we do, please go to http://www.wfp.org/videos/zero-hunger

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive):

• Consolidate and analyse data from which to inform Country sourcing strategies or plan specialist procurement initiatives that support effective and cost optimising purchase decisions;
• Provide oversight, guidance and support with/to Country Offices with relatively straight forward procurement needs (moderate value commodities, delivering programmes of a similar nature) on implementing best practice procurement policies and procedures, ensuring a strategic, forward purchasing approach to procurement in compliance with wider WFP policies, standards and regulations;
• Lead the implementation of procurement projects of moderate complexity or manage operational activities for a Country Office (e.g. issue tenders, evaluate offers and negotiate/award contracts), to ensure successful procurement of food and non-food commodities or services;
• Collate information and draft appropriate responses to recommendations to support auditing of procurement activities and ensure conformity with compliance rules;
• Identify, develop and maintain strong relationships with all relevant suppliers and vendors to enable WFP to maximise the value of the service delivered;
• Manage and coordinate effective relationships with inspection and superintendent firms to ensure quality control, specification conformity, volume assessment, monitoring and verification of deliveries;
• Work in close collaboration with cross-functional counterparts to align procurement activities and promote an integrated supply-chain approach to food assistance;
• Coordinate and prepare accurate and timely reports of procurement activities to contribute to a WFP wide view that enables informed decision making and consistency of information presented to stakeholders, leading to performance optimization. 9. Manage individual procurement officers or small procurement teams ensuring appropriate development and enable high performance;
• Build capacity of WFP staff and external partners to take a strategic and proactive approach to the procurement of food and non-food commodities and services e.g., through provision of training sessions;
• Contribute to preparedness actions, providing technical recommendations and guidance and monitor the management of procurement specific risks;
• Act in an assigned emergency response capacity as required to meet emergency food assistance needs. 13. Other as required.

DESIRED EXPERIENCES FOR ENTRY INTO THE ROLE:

• Experience communicating and coordinating with UN agencies/ large international conglomerates;
• Experience working with food commodity markets (incl. experience with freight markets) as well as goods and services needed in support of WFP’s Operations and its related market intelligence;
• Experience working with vendors;
• Has experience with budgeting, pipelines and related issues in WFP Corporate Systems.

STANDARD MINIMUM ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS:

• Education: Advanced University degree in Economics, Commerce, Business Administration, Engineering, Legal or Accounting or another relevant field, or First University degree with additional relevant work experience and/or training/courses;
• Language: Fluency (level C) in English language. Intermediate knowledge (level B) of a second official UN language: Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish. Fluency (level C) in Portuguese, WFP’s working language, will be an asset.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS:

Qualified applicants will be placed in a pool and may be contacted as the needs arise for consultancy positions in Mozambique. Remuneration levels will be based on the specific terms of reference offered.  Please note that consultants would most likely be placed in the heart of the response which may involve difficult living and working conditions. Consultants are independent hires and cannot be simultaneously employed by WFP and receive income or honorarium from other organizations, governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or other. Consultants will be required to undertake a full medical clearance prior to being contracted and to undertake the UN related Security Clearances, training and WFP mandatory training on Standards of Conduct.  This pool will remain active for 6 months.

Interested individuals meeting the above requirements are requested to apply on the WFP Career Website.