Programme Associate (Financial Inclusion) Temporary

WFP is recruiting a Programme Associate (Financial Inclusion).

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.

Standard Minimum Qualifications

Education: Completion of secondary school education. A post-secondary certificate in the related functional area.

Language: Fluency in both oral and written communication in the UN language in use at the duty station and in the duty station’s language, if different.

Organizational Context

The R4 Rural Resilience Initiative (R4) is a strategic partnership between Oxfam America (OA) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). R4 was initiated in 2011 to respond to the challenges faced by food insecure communities enduring increasingly frequent and intense climate disasters and other shocks. The initiative combines improved resource management (risk reduction), insurance (risk transfer), livelihoods diversification and microcredit (prudent risk taking), and savings (risk reserves).

In Mozambique, the R4 programme has provided a solid foundation for the WFP country office to develop an integrated climate risk management approach that is intended to reach the provinces of Gaza, Tete, Zambezia, and Nampula. WFP will implement closely with private and public sector actors, making links to other national initiatives promoting financial risk management.

Job Purpose

To provide effective specialized support and technical analyses to policy and programme activities that effectively meet food assistance needs, the Financial Inclusion Associate will report to the Resilience and Climate Change Coordinator, and work closely with the WFP insurance team at Regional and Global level and with the relevant Field Office (FO).

Key Countabilities (not all-inclusive)

Specifically, he/she will be responsible for the following duties:

• Act as primary resource person for the insurance component of the R4 programme in Mozambique;
• Coordinate and manage the technical assessments for the insurance component;
• Support the design of the insurance component by insurance companies and specialized research institutions, but also the development of insurance policies, and design and implementation of technical assistance to delivery channels;
• Support various stakeholders including cooperating partners, insurance companies, and the Meteorological Institute (INAM) in the fine tuning and implementation of the index insurance component and related activities;
• Advise, develop, support and oversee the integration of weather index insurance with other R4 components (asset creation, savings and credit, linkages to markets, appropriate seeds and agricultural practices, climate services);
• Support technically and operationally the saving and credit components, including working closely to identify suitable partner financial institutions;
• Advise on the possible expansion of weather index insurance within other programmes;
• Analyze insurance participation in country and assess insurance-specific bottlenecks for the scale up of the project;
• Build a network and enhance the capacity of key insurance and risk transfer stakeholders, bringing together stakeholders at international, national and local level from public and private sector;
• Support the development of adequate technical, economic, and legal mechanisms and contracts to allow for insurance set-up, registrations (e.g. digital registration), premium payments and payout delivery (e.g. ecocash payouts);
• Ensure the documentation of insurance related processes and contribute to the preparation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and workplans for insurance in Mozambique;
• Support the identification of an adequate index design platform and support mechanisms that would allow for the scale up of index insurance at national level;
• In collaboration with cooperating partners and the insurance company, oversee the development of index design training/financial education activities and curricula for communities, local partners at government and private sector level, and WFP National staff;
• Develop, manage and maintain a database of insurance participants and all key information related to insurance across the whole timespan of the project (sum insured, insurance premiums, area insured);
• Be responsible for regularly reporting progress of activities and potential management issues to R4 management at CO and Global level;
• Support the development of R4-related reporting and communications materials focusing on insurance and financial services components.

4Ps CORE Organizational

Purpose

• Understand and communicate the Strategic Objectives: Coaches team in the most effective ways to communicate WFP’s Strategic Objectives to WFP team and partners in the field;
•  Be a force for positive change: Implements new methods or tools to improve team’s work processes and productivity;
•  Make the mission inspiring to our team: Maps team’s activities and tasks to specific successes in beneficiary communities to showcase positive impact;
•  Make our mission visible in everyday actions: Explains to teammates how each unit contributes to the overall WFP mission.

People

• Look for ways to strengthen people’s skills: Identifies skill development opportunities such as training modules or on-the-job experiences for self, colleagues and direct reports;
•  Create an inclusive culture: Facilitates team building activities to build rapport in own unit;
•  Be a coach & provide constructive feedback: Facilitates the pairing of junior colleagues with coaches within own team;
•  Create an “I will”/”We will” spirit: Proactively anticipates potential challenges and develops mitigation plans to ensure that team meets goals and targets.

Performance

• Encourage innovation & creative solutions: Identifies opportunities to be creative in own work and to help team be more innovative and accurate in their respective tasks and areas of work;
•  Focus on getting results: Monitors team’s deliverables and provides feedback to ensure outcomes are delivered consistently and accurately;
•  Make commitments and make good on commitments: Provides accurate guidance to team on expected responsibilities and tasks, whilst also upholding own commitment to the team;
•  Be Decisive: Sets an example and provides guidance to junior team members on when to escalate issues when faced with challenging issues in the workplace or in the field.

Partnership

• Connect and share across WFP units: Facilitates partnerships with other WFP units to accomplish missions in the field;
•  Build strong external partnerships: Sets an example and provides guidance to team on how to build relationships with external partners;
•  Be politically agile & adaptable: Articulates to colleagues or direct reports the value of contributing to other WFP teams and agency partnerships in fulfilling WFP’s goals and objectives;
•  Be clear about the value WFP brings to partnerships: Organizes, monitors, and prioritizes own and team’s efforts to ensure that they will fulfil the needs of internal and external partners.

Funcional Capabilities

Programme Lifecycle & Food Assistance

• Demonstrates ability to identify key variables and contextual factors that affect food assistance problems and programmes throughout the lifecycle to inform quality programme design or re-design;

Transfer Modalities (Food, Cash, Vouchers)

• Demonstrates ability to implement, under guidance, food assistance programmes deploying the full range of transfer modalities with an understanding of basic principles guiding modality selection and implementation;

Broad Knowledge of Specialized Areas

• Understands basic technical concepts and data and their relevance to food assistance programmes;

Emergency Programming

• Displays capacity to provide inputs into the development, implementation and realignment of high quality emergency programmes;

Strategic Policy Engagement w/Government

• Understands and applies basic principles of engagement with government counterparts at the national or local level.

Other Specific Job Requirements

Education

• Completion of secondary school education;
• A post-secondary certificate in economics, finance, environmental sciences, agriculture, insurance, disaster risk management or the related functional area;
• A university degree will be an advantage.

Experience

• Minimum 6 years with Secondary School or 3 years with Bachelor’s degree in agricultural and/or rural insurance and financial services;
• Index Insurance, agricultural credit and/or microfinance experience is an advantage;
• Experience in the establishment of partnerships with public and private sector actors; understanding of policy issues.

Language

• Fluency in both oral and written communication in English and Portuguese.

Desired Experiences

• Excellent work planning and project management skills, ideally demonstrated in a humanitarian or development context;
• Good communication skills, and excellent ability to coordinate across multiple units and organizations;
• Understanding of food security vulnerability and ability to link analysis to programme design, in the context of WFP programmes;
• Ability to facilitate workshops, negotiate agreements and contracts, and write publishable reports;
• Excellent skills in word processing, power point, excel and data analysis software;
• General knowledge of UN system policies, rules, regulations and procedures governing administration, is considered an advantage.