Senior Programme Associate-Smallholder Agricultural Market Support Full-Time

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. In Mozambique, WFP’s Country Strategic Plan (CSP) 2017-2021 supports the national Government’s commitment to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically SGD 2: end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture and SDG 17: partnership strengthening among sectors. Through implementation of its Country Strategic Plan 2017-2021, WFP in Mozambique aims to increase smallholder productivity and income (Strategic Result 3 of the CSP and SDG target 2.3) and to enhance livelihoods of targeted smallholder farmers in northern and central Mozambique (Strategic Outcome 5 of the CSP). This will be achieved through two outputs: (i) targeted smallholder farmers (SHF) benefit from WFP value chain support to improve access to profitable markets and increase their incomes; and (ii) targeted smallholder farmer households benefit from improved knowledge in nutrition, care practices and healthy diets to improve their nutrition status.

 Over the past years, WFP in Mozambique has implemented a range of initiatives targeting smallholder farmers in efforts to enhance the aggregation, marketing and decision-making opportunities of smallholder farmers, with a focus on women, while improving access to profitable markets and increasing incomes. These initiatives include Purchase for Progress (P4P), Purchase from Africans for Africa (PAA Africa), the UN Joint Programme involving WFP, IFAD and FAO (Building Commodity Value Chains and Market Linkages for Farmers’ Associations, the EU funded Support to Accelerate Progress Towards MDG1c in Mozambique (MDG1c Project); and Cartier Foundation funded Zero Post Harvest Loss project. Through these projects, WFP supported the formation/creation of more than 20 farmers organisations in Tete, Manica, Zambezia and Nampula provinces (around 30 thousand farmers) including capacity building (through trainings focusing on the production cycle, from pre- to post-harvest as well as commercialization and marketing and the provision of labour-saving technologies) to improve the quality of agricultural produce and increase income from their surplus harvest. Other interventions included facilitating a series of price negotiation workshops between farmers and buyers to build farmers confidence to receive better prices for their produce. Furthermore, WFP Mozambique has invested in women farmers to ensure their meaningful participation in these organisational structures, has demonstrated the cost-benefit of using hermetic storage to reduce postharvest losses, improving grain quality.

Improving market access will require upgrading the infrastructure network for post-harvest with respect to storage, conservation and processing of products, marketing, and improving information management systems. To support smallholder farmers to overcome such obstacles, WFP has developed a digital solution to connect farmers to markets called the Virtual Farmers’ Market (VFM). The VFM serves to link smallholder farmers to markets, providing an opportunity for farmers to virtually access markets and sell their produce. WFP is partnering with a private sector to pilot a virtual platform in Mozambique. The platform was conceptualized based on field experience of WFP in Zambia,  and is becoming an Agro-Digital transformation solution for farming solutions for the future to: (i) Allow digital procurement,(ii) Bring about predictability to the crop yields with analytics-based advice, (iii) Ensure timely supply and purchasing of inputs, (iv)Plug crop wastage by streamlining supply chain, (v) Assure profitability and self-sufficiency to the farmers and (vi) ensures ready credit and insurance avenues for the farmers. WFP will implement a 3-year pilot project (2020-2023), in which the private sector company obtains record of income and expenditure of individual farmers. Analysis of those transaction data enables them to provide credit to the farmers. Through the platform, this project aims to promote and strengthen market linkages among smallholder farmers and traders by facilitating the establishment of partnerships to support smallholder farmers’ access to vital information on market prices, weather forecasts, availability of agricultural inputs and services through a virtual market place. This project fits within the context of the strategic outcome 5, activity 6 of the WFP Country Strategic Plan: Enhance the aggregation, marketing and decision-making capacities of smallholder farmers, with focus on women. Strategic outcome 5 is aligned with WFP Strategic Result 3, SDG target 2.3, priority 2.

WFP seeks a Senior Programme Associate to technically support the implementation of this project and provincial and district levels. The Senior Programme Associate will provide effective coordination and support to a full range of project activities.

1. The Senior Programme Associate will work under the direct supervision of the Head of the Sub-office, while technical guidance related to project activities will be provided by the Programme Policy Officer (Project Coordinator) and will be responsible for the following duties:
2. Support efficient coordination and project management to ensure that project activities at province and district level are performed within the established targets and following WFP’s policies and procedures;
3. Coordinate, provide guidance and training to field monitors, to ensure individual and team objectives are delivered to agreed standards and deadlines;
4. Organize meetings to identify the potential buyers of the agricultural products and understand their requirement to procure from the smallholder farmers (SHF);
5. Support SHF in agricultural marketing to meet the quantity and quality required by the market;
6. Conduct awareness raising on program objectives and procedures, interaction with programme stakeholders (such as Government and other WFP partners, as well as within WFP units);
7. Lead and ensure accurate, timely recording of project data and consistency of information presented to stakeholders at district and provincial levels;
8. Carry out frequent field missions to targeted districts: assess programme outputs, and recommend best practices for project improvements;
9. Organize coordination meetings at provincial level and provide updates to the relevant stakeholders.

Follow up data gathering and monitoring systems ensuring that rigorous quality standards are maintained. Includes research and analysis of policy and operational issues to support activities, as well as carry out frequent field missions to targeted districts and assess programme outputs; and draft regular monitoring report on status of implementation and progress and contribute to the data analysis.

Prepare a variety of elaborated reports and substantial analysis (e.g., resource utilisation, programme status, performance) and make recommendations to supervisor(s), ensuring deliverables adhere to corporate standard and quality control;

Prepare technical documents necessary for the execution of the project in coordination with the project team and in accordance with the approved plans;

Foster relationships and support partnership-building with local partners, agencies, NGOs and government institutions to perform accurate analysis and to ensure efficient project delivery;

Act as an escalation point for complex query resolution on all matters within the area of responsibility;

Perform other functions that, within their specialty, are required.

Education:

• Completion of secondary school education. A degree in Agriculture, Rural development, Agribusiness or related fields is desirable.

Experience:

• At least 2 years of experience field work with community engagement, smallholder farmers, agricultural production;
• Experience in smallholder farmers marketing support is desirable;
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with a wide range of partners with varying interests and priorities;
• Exposure to the agricultural marketing environment in Mozambique;
• Understanding of the food security and nutrition context, gender inequalities and agriculture development in Mozambique.

Language: Working knowledge (proficiency/Level C) of English is required; Fluency in Portuguese is essential; Fluency in Macua is an added value.

• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with a wide range of partners with varying interests and priorities;
• Excellent inter-personal, communication and facilitation skills;
• Ability to work independently in a timely and organised manner
• Ability to develop and maintain networks with a variety of stakeholders;
• Flexibility and adaptability to shifting goal posts and evolving client needs;
• Analytical, problem solving, communication, and interpersonal skills;
• Willingness to explore and experiment with new ideas and approaches in own work

• Has participated in implementing technical programs (i.e. nutrition, etc.);
• Has implemented programmes with increased level of responsibility;
• Has provided input to policy discussions.