Summary
Date Posted: Tuesday, November 10, 2020 , Base Salary: Not Disclosed

JOB DETAILS:
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.
ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT
The WFP Regional Bureau for Eastern and Central Africa (RBN) is based in Nairobi and provides strategic direction, technical guidance, resource mobilization and management support to WFP operations and activities in nine countries: Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda.
JOB PURPOSE
The World Food Programme (WFP) is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. The Regional Bureau for East Africa has secured funding to accelerate climate change adaptation in 3 WFP countries in the region, through a change management process that comprises several analytical strands of work and the delivery of products designed to accelerate change adaptation efforts.
Climate change multiplies existing threats to food security, hunger and malnutrition. The corrosive effects of climate change on the food system and on the food security of the most vulnerable populations that WFP serves are outpacing adaptation efforts on the ground. Expected impacts of climate change include an increase in the number and intensity of climate-related disasters, increased food scarcity, reduced access to land and water, and reductions in agricultural productivity. These impacts will be felt disproportionally by the most vulnerable people, the majority of whom live in fragile areas prone to natural hazards, ultimately putting hundreds of millions of people at risk. WFP approaches the challenge of climate change from the point of view of its impact on hunger and under nutrition.
WFP Country Offices in the region require extra support to effectively leverage their human resources, tools and networks to scale-up proven strategies and approaches that improve adaptation and ecosystem restoration at the local and community level, and to unlock badly need climate finance. Given the organization’s commitment to building resilience, and the new policy frameworks that consider the need for environmental sustainability and the mainstreaming of climate risk management approaches, RBN is seeking a climate change adaptation specialist to support priority countries and coordinate implementation of a grant from WFP’s 2030 Fund to accelerate adaptation efforts in the region. .

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)
Reporting to the Regional Advisor for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience, and working in close coordination/collaboration with Activity Managers and Heads of Programme in the target countries, actions enabled by this grant will allow for a robust climate country analysis in each country, which will in turn inform the strategic and operational repositioning of select WFP COs, complement ongoing programming and will support the brokering of new partnerships. Given the different levels of engagement in adaptation and climate risk management activities in each country, the type of analysis may vary in typology and methodology. Ongoing Country Strategic Plan activities will then be mapped against this analysis. The outputs of this consultancy will increase CO in-house capacity and the level of technical knowledge in the area of climate work, and accelerate CO adaptation efforts in the following ways:
• Harnessing the latest science: increase the CO level understanding of climate change impacts on food systems and food security in the three priority countries, as well as the optimal adaptation options available for each context
• Closer alignment with national adaptation plans and strategies: enable WFP COs to respond to national adaptation needs and leverage potential entry points in line with their comparative advantage, revising CSP activities if needed
• Identifying and brokering strategic partnerships in specialized technical areas: allowing COs to widen their scope of influence and capacity, making them stronger candidates and potential accredited entities for receiving support from bilateral, multilateral and international financing facilities and entities.

DELIVERABLES
Each output will be developed for each country context with details to be agreed between the consultant, the regional bureau and the country office.
• Stakeholder mapping and consultation: Complete a mapping of in-country traditional and nontraditional climate-resilience actors on behalf of the country office, with related recommendations for WFP engagement. This output should enable the WFP Country Office to initiate and sustain tactical relationships with specialized entities in the climate change adaptation space, including donor and technical partners. The consultation should inform a deeper, evidence-based understanding of needs and opportunities, which the CO can then use to explore the possibility of long-term agreements with specialized agencies that to meet highly specific operational needs that may arise in the implementation of their climate-related activities.
• Analysis and mapping of National Adaptation Plans: Review National Adaptation Plans and Nationally Determined Contributions, with emphasis on the identification of possible entry points for WFP and partners. Develop related programmatic and operational recommendations for engagement for the Country Office.
• Climate-resilience approach paper: Based on an activity-level, targeted country climate analysis, and linked to the previous outputs, conduct a programmatic review of each offices’ country strategic plan, for contribution (or potential contribution) to environmental safeguarding and sustainability, mitigation of the negative effects of climate change and acceleration of adaptation efforts, including updating of and unpacking the linkages with the Zero Hunger Strategic Reviews, where useful and feasible.

Job Qualifications: Not Specified

Education:
• Advanced University degree in agriculture, food security, environmental sciences, earth sciences, geography, disaster risk /reduction/management, climatology, environmental sciences, natural resource economics or related fields.

Experience:
• Experience conducting climate risk analysis, vulnerability assessments, especially in countries with an operational WFP presence
• Minimum of 7 years’ experience working in climate change adaptation, ecosystem regeneration or natural resource management
• Demonstrated, progressively responsible work experience on designing and implementing interventions at national or community levels focusing on climate change adaptation;
• Experience with food security, Community-based Adaptation (CbA) and Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) approaches, as well as participatory appraisals;
• Understanding of climate change adaptation and climate risk management approaches at both global and national levels, including and how they affect food security and nutrition,
• Experience working with or as part of a WFP Country Office team is a strong asset
• Experience in providing policy support to national governments developing policies and plans (such as NAPAs, NAPs, NDCs, etc.) to address the impact of climate and disaster risks on food security and nutrition is an asset;
• Knowledge and previous engagement in global policy processes on climate change and development of policy support materials, position papers and guidance;
• Strong interpersonal and coordination skills, ability to work in a team and to communicate clearly and diplomatically with a wide range of stakeholders from diverse backgrounds;
Languages: - Working knowledge of English (proficiency/level C) and intermediate knowledge (intermediate/level B) of another UN official language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish) is preferable.

Work Hours: 8

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