Knowledge Management, Learning and Systemic Capacity Development Specialist

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• FAO is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality, background and culture.
• Qualified female applicants, qualified nationals of non-and under-represented Members and person with disabilities are encouraged to apply;
• Everyone who works for FAO is required to adhere to the highest standards of integrity and professional conduct, and to uphold FAO's values
• FAO, as a Specialized Agency of the United Nations, has a zero-tolerance policy for conduct that is incompatible with its status, objectives and mandate, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination　　
• All selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks
• All applications will be treated with the strictest confidentiality

FAO’s commitment to environmental sustainability is integral to our strategic objectives and operations.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) contributes to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda through FAO Strategic Framework by supporting the transformation to MORE efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems, for better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind.

Organizational Setting

The Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment (OCB) work to ensure that countries and stakeholders respond to the challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. OCB provides a cross organizational coordination role on these issues and is the focal point to major multilateral environmental agreements including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conferences (UNFCCC), and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The Office also assists FAO Members in their responses towards the interlinked challenges of food security, climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation including through facilitating access to climate and environmental financing such as the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF). In addition, OCB hosts the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) Programme, the Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture as well as FAO’s work on environmental safeguards and leads the Programme Priority Areas on Climate Change (PPA BE1) and Bioeconomy for Sustainable Food and Agriculture (PPA BE2).

FAO’s OCB is seeking specialists to transform Knowledge Management (KM), learning, and capacity development into strategic products. These specialists will help capture lessons learned, develop learning products, and translate technical experience into practical tools across climate, biodiversity, environmental and agrifood programmes. The goal is to strengthen replicability, institutional effectiveness and facilitate durable, large-scale impact.
Depending on the specific needs, the work may involve knowledge audits, stakeholder consultations, development of knowledge and learning strategies, design of knowledge products and portals, support to communities of practice, preparation of learning events and capacity development materials, documentation of innovations and results, and support to monitoring, evaluation, reporting and communication processes.

Through this call for expression of interest, FAO aims at capturing, systematizing and disseminating knowledge derived from initiatives in the nexus between sustainable food systems and climate change, biodiversity, and environment.

Reporting Lines

The specialist will report to OCB supervisor and will work under the technical supervision of programme managers, technical officers, project management units and decentralized offices, as appropriate to each assignment.

Technical Focus

The Knowledge Management, Learning and Systemic Capacity Development Specialist will support OCB in strengthening knowledge generation, learning, experience capitalization and systemic capacity development across its thematic units and portfolio of projects and programmes.

Tasks and responsibilities

• Develop an OCB-customized experience capitalization methodology to systematically capture good practices, distill lessons learned, support continuous learning, and enable the development of global public goods within and across OCB projects and programmes.
• Conduct inclusive knowledge management and learning audits, needs assessments and stakeholder consultations to identify the status, gaps, opportunities and risks related to KML across OCB projects and programmes, and translate the findings into practical recommendations for project and programme-level KML strategies.
• Assess existing knowledge-sharing and learning platforms and support the establishment or strengthening of platforms and Communities of Practice within OCB projects and programmes, with a view to maximizing South-South, North-South and gender-sensitive learning, knowledge exchange and innovation scale-up.
• Support OCB projects and programmes in establishing and operationalizing KML working groups or similar coordination mechanisms, composed of relevant focal points, technical specialists and partners, to facilitate regular experience exchange, peer learning, harmonization of approaches and coordinated delivery of KML outputs.
• Develop, or support the development of, project and programme-level KML strategies, including workplans, timelines, coordination arrangements, implementation tools and year-one delivery plans, ensuring alignment with OCB priorities, FAO standards and donor requirements.
• Develop monitoring frameworks, including performance indicators, to track the effectiveness, uptake and results of learning, knowledge-sharing and capacity development activities within OCB projects and programmes at global, regional, national and sub-national levels.
• Provide methodological quality assurance for training materials, learning packages, guidance documents and other capacity development products to ensure effective knowledge transfer, practical uptake and relevance for target audiences.
• Support OCB projects and programmes in integrating systemic capacity development approaches that go beyond individual skills, knowledge and competencies, with stronger emphasis on organizations, institutions, networks, collective action mechanisms, multi-stakeholder processes and enabling policy environments.
• Conduct systemic capacity needs assessments across people, organizations, institutions and policy frameworks; design fit-for-purpose capacity development interventions; and support the monitoring of results, uptake and long-term sustainability.
• Review project-level KML and capacity development approaches, ensuring alignment with relevant programme strategies, OCB objectives, FAO corporate priorities and donor requirements. Provide technical feedback, identify common risks and opportunities, and develop standard guidance, templates and reference materials for country and project teams.
• Design methodological frameworks for identifying, validating and disseminating good practices, best management practices and scalable innovations, including through literature reviews, expert consultations and participatory validation processes.
• Develop and support plans for twinning, learning exchanges, peer-to-peer support and other structured learning modalities to foster South-South, North-South and interregional knowledge exchange across OCB programmes and regions.
• Support the development, deployment, testing and improvement of knowledge portals, digital platforms and online repositories, including project pages, knowledge centres, data visualization tools, good practice archives, technical resources and links to relevant international knowledge sources.
• Work closely with communications specialists, web developers and creative service providers to ensure that KML products are accessible, visually coherent and aligned with programme and institutional communication standards, including through visual identities, templates for printed and digital materials, multimedia products and dissemination packages.
• Support the design, production and dissemination of global, regional and country-level knowledge and communication products, including case studies, learning briefs, videos, webinars, stories of change, technical notes and gender-transformative examples.
• Ensure close alignment with relevant FAO and OCB programmes, including Integrated Programmes where applicable, and contribute to coordination mechanisms, learning events, workshops and international fora, as required.
• Contribute to OCB-wide KML initiatives, working groups and institutional learning processes, ensuring that outputs, tools and lessons generated by individual projects and programmes are effectively disseminated to relevant OCB staff and partners and contribute to enhanced and durable OCB impact at scale.

FAO Standards and guidelines:

• Liaison with OCC will be maintained, either directly or through an agreed focal point/coordinator, to ensure compliance with OCC standards, aligned messaging, and appropriate review and clearance processes.
• All communication materials will follow FAO clearance processes and comply with FAO standards, including:
FAO Strategic Framework 2022-31: https://www.fao.org/strategic-framework/en
FAO social media policy and guidelines: https://www.fao.org/2/socialmedia
Social Media Branding Guidelines: https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/cb5044en
FAOSTYLE https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/cb8081en
FAO terminology http://www.fao.org/faoterm
FAO Names of Countries https://www.fao.org/nocs/en
Story guidelines, Story template, UN map standards, FAO logo policy and related branding guidelines (available to staff).
• Further guidance regarding FAO communications, policies and procedures can be found through the FAO intranet, OCC section.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• For Consultants:
Advanced university degree from an institution recognized by the International Association of Universities (IAU)/UNESCO in social sciences, knowledge management, communication, adult learning, rural development, organizational development, institutional development, environmental governance, natural resources management, public policy, or another relevant field. Consultants with a bachelor's degree need two additional years of relevant professional experience.
For PSAs:
University degree from an institution recognized by the International Association of Universities (IAU)/UNESCO in social sciences, knowledge management, communication, adult learning, rural development, organizational development, institutional development, environmental governance, natural resources management, public policy, or another relevant field.
• For Consultants/PSA Cat C, a minimum of one year; for Consultant/PSA Cat B, a minimum of five years of relevant experience progressively responsible professional experience in knowledge management, learning, systemic capacity development, and/or organizational or institutional development, preferably in the context of environment, climate change, biodiversity, natural resources management, agrifood systems or sustainable development programmes.
• Working knowledge (proficiency level C) of English.

FAO Core Competencies

• Results Focus
• Teamwork
• Communication
• Building Effective Relationships
• Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

• Work experience in more than one location or area of work
• Proven experience in designing or quality-assuring practitioner manuals, training materials, learning packages, facilitation tools, guidance documents and/or other knowledge management and capacity development products for diverse audiences.
• Ability to conduct field work and work effectively in multidisciplinary and multicultural teams, establishing constructive working relationships with national and local stakeholders, technical experts and institutional partners
• Strong communication, writing and facilitation skills, including the ability to translate complex technical content into clear, practical and user-oriented knowledge products.
• Good knowledge of digital knowledge-sharing, collaboration and outreach platforms, including online repositories, learning platforms, social media, Trello or similar project coordination and communication tools.
• Proven experience in facilitating inclusive stakeholder analysis, consultations and engagement processes and familiarity with participatory approaches, including rural participatory appraisal, community-based learning, co-creation processes or similar methodologies, would be considered an asset.
• Working Knowledge (proficiency level C) of one of the other languages of the Organization (Arabic, French, Chinese, Russian, Spanish) is considered an asset.

Please note that all candidates should adhere to FAO Values of Commitment to FAO, Respect for All and Integrity and Transparency

HOW TO APPLY

• To apply, visit the recruitment website at Jobs at FAO and complete your online profile. We strongly recommend that your profile is accurate, complete and includes your employment records, academic qualifications, and language skills
• Candidates are requested to attach a letter of motivation to the online profile
• Once your profile is completed, please apply, and submit your application

• Please note that FAO only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU) / United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed at http://www.whed.net/. These qualifications should be in alignment with the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) mappings.

• Candidates may be requested to provide performance assessments and authorization to conduct verification checks of past and present work, character, education, military and police records to ascertain any and all information which may be pertinent to the employment qualifications
• Incomplete applications will not be considered
• Personal information provided on your application may be shared within FAO and with other companies acting on FAO’s behalf to provide employment support services such as pre-screening of applications, assessment tests, background checks and other related services. You will be asked to provide your consent before submitting your application. You may withdraw consent at any time, by withdrawing your application, in such case FAO will no longer be able to consider your application
• Only applications received through the FAO recruitment portal will be considered
• Your application will be screened based on the information provided in your online profile
• We encourage applicants to submit the application well before the deadline date.

If you need help or have queries, please create a one-time registration with FAO’s client support team for further assistance: https://fao.service-now.com/csp

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