Economic Empowerment Officer - SC8 - Baghdad, Iraq

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Job Title: Economic Empowerment Officer

Type of Contract: Service Contract - SC8

Unit / Division: Social Protection

Duty Station: Baghdad, Iraq

Duration: 6 months with possibility of extension

BACKGROUND:

Iraq’s Social Safety Net (SSN), implemented by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MoLSA) through the Social Protection Authority (SPA), is the country’s primary poverty-targeted social assistance programme, providing regular cash transfers to vulnerable households including widows, persons with disabilities, the elderly, and low-income families to help meet basic needs. The programme reaches an estimated 1.5 million households (around 9 million individuals), but like many social assistance systems globally, it faces challenges related to fragmentation, targeting inefficiencies, and lacks linkages to employment and livelihood opportunities. As a result, MoLSA and SPA are increasingly exploring ways to transition the SSN from a purely consumption-support mechanism into a more dynamic system that promotes resilience and self-reliance. In this context, the Government of Iraq is seeking to test the feasibility of integrating economic empowerment interventions for SSN beneficiaries, with the objective of reducing long-term dependency on cash transfers and enabling access to more sustainable and diversified sources of income. This aligns with a growing body of international evidence showing that “cash-plus” and economic inclusion programmes that combine social assistance with skills development, asset transfers, and labor market linkages can significantly improve income generation, employment outcomes, and resilience among vulnerable populations, while supporting pathways out of poverty.

In Iraq, WFP is part of an EU-funded UN Joint Programme with UNICEF and ILO on “ Leveraging Effective Response and Accelerating Reform for Social Protection in Iraq”. The programme aims to support the Government in strengthening and reforming Iraq’s social protection system by improving policy coherence, enhancing institutional capacity, and developing integrated, inclusive, and shock-responsive systems that better serve vulnerable populations. It focuses on linking social assistance, social insurance, and labour market interventions; expanding access to benefits and services for vulnerable groups. It also aims to strengthen delivery systems such as targeting, data integration, and national registries.

The Changing Lives Transformation Fund (CLTF) of WFP is a catalytic financing mechanism designed to support country offices in piloting and scaling innovative approaches that move populations from humanitarian dependence toward sustainable livelihoods and resilience. Established under WFP’s broader “saving lives and changing lives” mandate, the fund provides targeted, multi-year investments awarded through competitive calls to initiatives that strengthen national systems, promote economic inclusion, and support transitions to self-reliance. It is structured around thematic windows such as transition pathways, systems strengthening, and climate adaptation, and places strong emphasis on embedding interventions within government systems while generating rigorous evidence on impact and scalability. By combining financing with technical support and a robust measurement framework, the CLTF aims to help governments design and implement transformative programmes that improve outcomes for vulnerable populations and inform policy and resource allocation at scale. CLTF has a global research partnership with C4ED to support the robust assessment and evaluation of all CLTF-funded initiatives in order to contribute to evidence-based decision-making.

At the request of SPA, WFP will be implementing a Economic Empowerment Pathways (EEP) pilot targeting SSN beneficiaries in order to provide a proof of concept to inform a Government-led, national EEP programme. To support this request, WFP has received financing from CLTF and the pilot is also incorporated within the EU Joint Programme. The EEP pilot responds to structural challenges including poverty, unemployment, low labor force participation among women and youth, and limited access to finance. While Iraq has made progress in strengthening its Social Safety Net (SSN), existing systems remain fragmented and insufficiently oriented toward enabling sustainable livelihoods and graduation pathways.

The pilot has 3 main objectives:

1. Government Capacity Strengthening: The pilot prioritizes building the institutional and operational capacity of Government of Iraq (GOI) entities, particularly MoLSA and SPA, to design, implement, and manage integrated economic empowerment programs. This includes investing in human resource capacities at both the central and field levels (including social workers) and systems strengthening to facilitate case management, implementation, and monitoring. Crucially, the pilot is embedded within national systems, ensuring government ownership from the outset and enabling a gradual transition toward full national implementation.

2.Improving Household Livelihoods and Employment Opportunities: The pilot supports vulnerable households to diversify and increase their income sources through a sequenced package of interventions, including skills training, productive assets, job placement, and coaching/mentorship. By enhancing access to economic empowerment interventions, the pilot aims to improve household resilience over time.

3.Generating Evidence for Government-Led Scale-Up: A central pillar of the pilot is its robust research and learning agenda, combining quantitative and qualitative methods to rigorously assess outcomes and implementation effectiveness. The evidence generated will inform design tweaks prior to scale-up, provide a credible basis for budget allocation, and provide recommendations on programmatic and policy priorities.

Targeting 1,500 SSN beneficiary households in Taji district, the pilot will test two modalities:

• Self-employment / entrepreneurship, including skills training, productive assets, financial literacy, and market linkages

• Wage employment, including vocational training, job matching, wage subsidies, and private sector engagement

PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:

Under the overall guidance and supervision of the Head of Social Protection, and with the support of a EEP Technical Advisor, the Economic Empowerment Officer provide strategic, technical, and operational leadership for the implementation, coordination, government capacity strengthening and learning agenda of the EEP pilot. The Economic Empowerment Officer will work with relevant government institutions and sectoral partners/stakeholders through the Technical Working Group and Project Oversight Team to ensure alignment, coordination and a smooth implementation of pilot activities. He/She will also engage with CLTF and C4ED counterparts and provide broad oversight to ensure alignment with research and learning activities. The Economic Empowerment Officer will also play a critical role in providing capacity strengthening support to GOI institutions and staff at both the central and field levels, as well as developing documentation and learning products such as the EEP manual to be handed over to SPA at the end of the pilot.

ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:

The incumbent will be responsible for carrying out the following tasks and responsibilities:

Programme Implementation and Delivery

1.Oversee quality delivery of all EEP pilot activities across planning and implementation phases by coordinating with relevant WFP teams (including field office staff), cooperating partner(s), and stakeholders.

2.Supervise field-level implementation teams and coordinate closely with social workers, agricultural extension workers and local partners

3. Coordinate with SPA to ensure regular meeting of the Project Oversight Team (POT) and ensure proper documentation and follow up of agreed-upon actions.

4.Ensure gender-responsive and youth-inclusive delivery in line with the pilot’s design.

Stakeholder Coordination

5.Coordinate with SPA to ensure regular meeting of the Technical Working Group (TWG) and provide the Secretariat function.

6.Lead day-to-day engagement with government counterparts including at MoLSA, SPA, MoA and MoP at the central and field levels

7.Support engagement with sectoral stakeholders including World Bank. GIZ, ILO, private sector, among others

Government Capacity Strengthening and Systems Building

8.Lead engagement with MoLSA and SPA to strengthen institutional capacity for economic empowermentprogramming. Includes supporting the development and leading the implementation of the capacity strengthening plan.

9.Facilitate alignment and integration of pilot activities within government platforms (i.e. Mihan) and oversee theenhancement of government systems as part of the pilot, in coordination with relevant technical staff.

10.Oversee the cooperating partner’s support provided to government field-level staff and ensure a gradualtransfer of responsibilities over the course of the pilot

11.Ensure a gradual handover of systems and responsibilities, in line with the capacity strengthening plan, togovernment institutions.

12.Identify opportunities to strengthen government capacity strengthening and provide strategicrecommendations to the Head of Social Protection, as appropriate.

Research and Learning Activities

13.Ensure that the pilot implementation is aligned with the research and learning agenda, respecting Lead thedesign and implementation of the pilot’s learning and evidence agenda. Includes coordinating with the FieldCoordinator, Head of Social Protection, RAM and CLTF teams at the central and field levels.

14.Ensure that WFP-led monitoring activities are completed in a timely and high-quality manner in closecoordination with Field Office and RAM teams.

15.Document and communicate lessons learned of the pilot, ensuring that these are properly highlighted inknowledge management products.

Policy Engagement and Pathway to Scale

16.Lead the development of an EEP manual and EEP scale up roadmap to be handed over to the government askey knowledge management documents at the end of the pilot

17.Led the development of knowledge management documents including a case study of the pilot.

18.Organize knowledge dissemination and closure engagement and events for pilot activities engaging GOI andother relevant stakeholders.

19.Contribute to policy dialogue with GOI through the TWI on scale up considerations and evidence for scale up.Includes contributing to alignment and joint advocacy with key sectoral partners like GIZ, ILO and WB.

Financial and Operational Management

20.Under the guidance of the Head of Social Protection, maintain strong oversight over budget planning,utilization, and reporting in line with donor requirements

21.Ensure compliance with WFP and partner procedures and standards

22.Manage risks and ensure timely mitigation actions

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

Education

Advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Economics, Development Economics, Public Policy, Social Protection, Labor Economics, or a related field

Experience

•At least 5 years of progressively responsible experience in social protection, livelihoods, economic empowermentprogramming, labor market interventions, or private sector engagement.

•Demonstrated previous experience working on either the design, implementation or evaluation of livelihoods oremployment programmes in complex settings.

•Strong experience working with Iraqi government institutions, particularly MoLSA/SPA

•Proven experience implementing institutional capacity strengthening programmes with government institutions,focusing on strengthening government systems and human resource capacities

•Experience developing training materials/manuals and delivering Trainings of Trainers (TOTs) on economicempowerment, livelihoods or employment-related topics

Familiarity with social research methodologies and experience managing programmes with robust evaluationcomponents.

•Proven track record in multi-stakeholder coordination including with UN agencies, IFIs, donors, and governmentcounterparts.

•Familiarity with Iraqi context

Knowledge & Skills

•Understanding of Agenda 2030 and respective targets – particularly SDG1, SDG2 and SDG17 - and how the workof WFP can contribute to achieving them;

•Understanding of WFP’s mandate, Country Strategic Planning process, intervention modalities, programme andproject lifecycle tools, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation desirable.

•Knowledge of current thinking and developments in the field of social protection and economic empowerment;

•Knowledge of key national and regional contexts and issues;

•Problem solving and decision-making skills;

•Ability to develop and maintain relationships with a variety of stakeholders, conveying an informed andprofessional demeanour toward internal and external partners and stakeholders;

•Ability to work independently in a timely and organised manner;

•Ability to work as part of a team, participating in open dialogues and valuing diverse opinions of others,regardless of gender, culture, background, experience, or country assignment.

•Strong writing skills with the ability to author reports, briefs and policy papers.

•Proficient computer literacy.

Languages

Fluency (oral and written) in English and Arabic is required.

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REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION

WFP is committed to supporting individuals with disabilities by providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process. If you require a reasonable accommodation, please contact:  global.inclusion@wfp.org

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