DRR Programme Associate

The United Nations World Food Programme is the winner of the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize. WFP is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

Jordan faces a plethora of challenges in water availability, land productivity, and climate variability, as well as in systematically anticipating and reducing the impact of crisis. Agriculture plays a significant role in Jordan’s national economy and is critical in ensuring food security as well as generating employment. However, the sector faces critical challenges due to a complex interplay of structural, economic, and resource constraints. Jordan is one of the most water scarce countries in the world, forcing agricultural producers to rely on increasingly expensive and poor-quality water sources. The sector grapples with lack of up-to-date technical knowledge, high opportunity cost, land fragmentation, water scarcity, limited supporting services, rangeland degradation and increasing temperatures.

At the same time, while the national strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) provides a general framework for coordination of relevant sectors, in practice there are identified gaps in the operationalization of the strategy. Efforts are needed to ensure readiness and operational response coordination and well as the systematic and intersectoral use of sustainable tools and mechanisms for early warning and anticipatory action.

Under is DRR activities, WFP Jordan works in collaboration with the National Center for Security and Crisis Management (NCSCM). With WFP's support, NCSCM is seeking advancement of a Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (MHEWS) in line with the UN’s Early Warnings for All Initiative. For this purpose, WFP Jordan has made substantial investments with NCSCM related to drought hazards while also expanding plans for other climatic hazards. Recently, WFP Jordan and the United Nation’s Development Programme (UNDP) have joined forces in supporting the government develop MHEWS plans and possible financing arrangements.

Further, WFP Jordan works closely with line ministries and agencies that make up Jordan’s National Drought Committee (NDC). The most active ministries and agencies that make up the NDC include the Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MWI), Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), National Agricultural Research Institute (NARC), Jordan Meteorological Department (JMD). Additionally, the Ministry of Health (MOH), the Department of Statistics (DOS) and the University of Jordan hold membership in the NDC.

Over the past few years WFP Jordan and headquarters experts have been working to build drought monitoring capacity within the above-mentioned institutions, with NCSCM being the lead agency. WFP’s corporate tool, Platform for Real-time Impact and Situation Monitoring (PRISM) has been configured for drought monitoring in Jordan and institutionalized within several of these institutions. With drought monitoring capacity established, in 2025 WFP began institutional capacity building on seasonal forecasting. Going forward, WFP Jordan seeks to consolidate and expand the monitoring and seasonal forecasting systems strengthening and capacity building done to date. In the near term, WFP Jordan seeks to help build an anticipatory system for drought rather than the current reactive system. The anticipatory action module is intended to be institutionalized within the PRISM platform.

Under the direct supervision of Climate Resilience National Officer, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:
1. Assist the climate resilience team in coordinating and implementing the existing Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) work plan including seasonal forecasting capacity building, PRISM upgrading, data blending, Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) development with Government of Jordan (GOJ) entities, joint proposal for early warning system with UNDP, etc.
2. Assist in gathering and analysing climate and hazard data to support the upgrade of an existing risk visualization platform for drought monitoring and the early warning system.
3. Support WFP Jordan in its coordination with national counterparts and develop a mapping with key GOJ stakeholders and their specific roles, responsibilities, procedures in place and gaps required to be filled for a functional Anticipatory Action- drought system.
4. Contribute to preparation of progress reports, donor updates, and briefs on DRR interventions.
5. Support technical workshops and training sessions with GoJ and other relevant stakeholders on seasonal forecasting, anticipatory actions, and relevant DRR thematic needs.
6. Support the country office in monitoring, research, analysis and monitoring related to DRR workplan and interventions.
7. Support the collaboration with colleagues in the Social Protection team to ensure linkages between DRR and anticipatory action and the support to shock responsive social protection.
8. Other related tasks as assigned.


During the first month of the assignment, the UN Volunteer will work closely with his/her direct supervisor to finalize an agreed-upon work plan. The work plan should outline key objectives and activities and include regular check ins with the supervisor to review progress and receive performance feedback.