Cash Assistance for Asset Consultant (CST I), Dushanbe, Tajikistan

.

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 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 United Nations World Food Programme's (WFP) Tajikistan Country Strategic Plan (CSP) 2023-2026 focuses on supporting livelihoods, improving agricultural production, strengthening value chains, improving health, education, and nutrition outcomes, and strengthening national institutions and systems. The CSP is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) for Tajikistan (2023-2026) and the Government of Tajikistan National Development Strategy (NDS) through 2030. These frameworks aim to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals).

JOB PURPOSE

Tajikistan Country Office is implementing ‘Tajikistan Food Security Safety Net Activity (TFSSNA)’ project supported by USAID. The project will support vulnerable beneficiaries through cash transfers in exchange for work for developing or rehabilitating productive, protective, and resilient community/household assets. These activities will help to build the capacity of vulnerable beneficiaries to mitigate future shocks and stressors, manage their assets to diversify their income sources. The TFSSNA project targets to register 8000 beneficiaries by June 2024. From beginning of 2024, the CO is scaling up the FFA component of TFSSNA in other 12 districts covering additional 14,500 beneficiary in 2 years. 

WFP Tajikistan is looking for consultant to oversee the implementation of the cash-assistance for asset, and cash-assistance for training activities under the TFSSNA project. In short-term, the consultant will support acceleration of the ongoing cash-for-asset activities of the project and lead the planning of the scaling up phase of the project involving completion of inception activities, development of workplan, stakeholder engagement, finalize implementation modality, and selection of cooperating partner. 
 

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

Reporting directly to the Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Building (CCARB) Coordinator with the overall guidance of the WFP Tajikistan Head of Programme, the incumbent is expected to perform the following duties and responsibilities: 

Implementation and Coordination
•    Provide oversight, management, and support in planning and implementing TFSSNA project, plans and processes, in alignment with WFP and Government of Tajikistan policies and guidance.
•    Review the project implementation modality, identify gaps, and suggest the changes for accelerate the field implementation by increasing efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of WFP’s support.
•    Lead the inception activities of the scaling up phase, develop annual workplan, implementation modality, staffing structure, and selection of cooperating partners.  
•    Develop detail implementation plan by district and contract the cooperating partners for project implementation. 
•    Set up the mechanism for documenting the beneficiary targeting process and develop tools and guidelines for staffs and cooperating partners for effectively using SCOPE system. 
•    Ensure all project team members, including self, conduct regular field visits for capacity development, oversight, and general knowledge gathering/sharing and provide concise back-to-the-office reports following such visits. 
•    Ensure the preparation of accurate and timely reports (especially using primary data from monitoring) on project activities that enable informed decision making and consistency of information.

Capacity Development
•    Ensure staff are cognizant of WFP policies and procedures, providing guidance and advice as required.
•    Provide strong strategic guidance, technical support, advice, and direction with respect to cash for asset creation and resilience building programmes, analysis, and reporting.
•    Identify trainings needs for partners, develop training materials, and provide capacity building trainings to the partners for smooth implementation.
•    Support the capacity building of project staffs, partners, and stakeholders to prepare to enable high performance.
•    Provide support to relevant partners to enable sharing of experience, lessons learned and best practice.

Team Management
•    Create an inclusive work environment through respectful and constructive communication and holding self and other team members accountable for their actions.
•    Hold regular meetings and/or use other innovative and effective ways to ensure proper information sharing and communication within the team/staff members of the project, including the staffs at field offices.
•    Manage underperformance through regular conversations, providing support/coaching, documenting as required, and proactively seeking second level supervisor and HR advice.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES CONT'D

External coordination and Programme development 
•    Establish collaboration and coordination with project stakeholders, including both government and non-government stakeholders.
•    Ensure documentation of stakeholder discussions through official minutes (for discussions with government counterparts) or key highlights (for other coordination meetings), to be shared with the CCARB team, supervisor, and management and duly archived. 
•    Contribute to expansion of cash assistance for assets projects in Tajikistan, by identifying programming opportunities linking cash for asset interventions in areas of food systems transformation, smallholder agricultural market support and climate change adaptation. 

Cross-Cutting
•    Support the implementation of the WFP Tajikistan Country Strategic Plan by ensuring cross-cutting efforts such as nutrition-sensitivity, gender, and diversity inclusion (including disability), protection and accountability, and linkages with other activities are integrated into the project.
•    Coordinate with WFP’s community-feedback mechanims (CFM) unit for ensuring strong community feedback system is implemented in the project.  
•    Support in the development of and ensure proper use of a structured information management and archival system for the project team, which links to the CCARB, programme unit and country office systems. 
•    Provide technical assistance for increasing efficiency of cash assistance for asset activities of other projects under CCARB and country office.
•    Other functions as identified by the consultant from the review of capacity assessment of country office for accelerating implementation of the cash for asset activities in WFP Tajikistan as agreed by the supervisor.
   
 

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education:  

Advanced University degree in International Development, Natural Resource Management, Social Science or other fields related to international assistance 

Experience: 
•    At least 4 years of experience in managing international development projects with component of improving food security and livelihoods in rural areas, 
•    Experience of planning and implementing cash-assistance for asset approaches in programme cycle, experience of managing cash-assistance for asset projects in WFP will be an advantage.
•    Strong experience on project planning including providing leadership in inception phase for project start-up.
•    Expertise in cloud-based digital platform and digital tools for beneficiary database management and monitoring and evaluation.
•    Excellent communication and interpersonal skills   

Languages:

Required fluency (level C) in oral and written English. Skills on Tajik or Russian will be an advantage.

All WFP Employees are expected to demonstrate the competencies and standards of behaviour aligned with our core values and defined in the WFP LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORK, namely:
•    Leading by example with integrity,
•    Driving results and delivering on commitments,
•    Fostering inclusive and collaborative teamwork,
•    Applying strategic thinking,
•    Building and maintaining sustainable partnerships
 

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

No later than Friday 12 April 2024 (11:59pm Local Tajikistan Time Zone)

.

WFP has a zero-tolerance approach to conduct such as fraud, sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to WFP’s standards of conduct and will therefore undergo rigorous background verification internally or through third parties. Selected candidates will also be required to provide additional information as part of the verification exercise. Misrepresentation of information provided during the recruitment process may lead to disqualification or termination of employment

Qualified female applicants and candidates with disabilities are highly encouraged to apply

WFP will not request payment at any stage of the recruitment process including at the offer stage. Any requests for payment should be refused and reported to local law enforcement authorities for appropriate action.