Business Support Assistant SC5 - Programme Support, Coordination and Knowledge Management

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

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 World Food Programme 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 extreme weather shocks.

At WFP, people are at the heart of everything we do and the vision of the future WFP workforce is one of diverse, committed, skilled, and high performing teams, selected on merit, operating in a healthy and inclusive work environment, living WFP's values (Integrity, Collaboration, Commitment, Humanity, and Inclusion) and working with partners to save and change the lives of those WFP serves.

To learn more about WFP, visit our website: https://www.wfp.org and follow us on social media to keep up with our latest news: YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok.

WHY JOIN WFP? 

• WFP is a 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
• WFP offers a highly inclusive, diverse, and multicultural working environment.
• WFP invests in the personal & professional development of its employees through a range of training, accreditation, coaching, mentorship, and other programs as well as through internal mobility opportunities.
• A career path in WFP provides an exciting opportunity to work across the various country, regional and global offices around the world, and with passionate colleagues who work tirelessly to ensure that effective humanitarian assistance reaches millions of people across the globe.
• We offer an attractive compensation package (please refer to the Terms and Conditions section of this vacancy announcement).

REPORTING

Reporting to the Business Support Associate, the Business Support Assistant will deliver standard business support processes for the Programme Unit including Field Offices to facilitate effective and efficient service delivery.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive, nor exhaustive):

1.           Integrated portfolio planning and coordination

• Consolidated Programme workplan: Maintain a centralized, programme-wide workplan with an activity tracker to track overall implementation timelines and operational milestones;
• Activity calendar: Manage a real-time calendar tracking all planned field activities/missions, workshops/trainings/launches/conferences, donor engagements, meetings with external stakeholders including Government and Cooperating Partners, and reporting deadlines. This is critical to ensure seamless collaboration across teams for activity implementation and prevent overlaps in activity dates and team composition.
• Meeting calendar: Schedule and track recurring, strategic and cross-functional Programme meetings
• Work planner/tracker: Maintain, monitor and ensure update of task-execution for mission preparation within agreed timelines, and follow-up tracking of escalation decisions.
• Management action tracker (OneNote): Ensure log in, monitoring and follow up on outstanding action items arising from required management decisions/directives.

2.        Workflow coordination

• Concept Note workflow facilitation: Overseeing the end-to-end serial allocation, quality check, and review/approval routing across management levels – Head of Programme, Deputy Country Director (where required), and Country Director.
• Note for Record (NFR) Processing: Quality-check and track NFRs through execution and appropriate filing.

• Letters and Correspondence Management: Reviewing, quality control and maintaining continuous tracking of official letters and correspondence requiring HoP clearance and CD approval, and subsequent dispatch. Ensure receipt of letters by relevant stakeholders, while responsibility for bilateral follow-up remains with technical teams.
• Approval routing: Direct documents through appropriate clearance and approval channels
• Deadline tracking: Monitor workflow lead times and operational deadlines across all submissions. Ensure proactive follow up by serving as the primary operational contact to ensure mission reports, BTORs and routine operational deliverables are submitted within corporate lead times.
• Action follow-up to completion: Proactively tracking all pending actions across all relevant units to ensure end-to-end transaction and operational closure.
• Providing day-to-day business-process guidance to Programme and Field Office colleagues and serving as a first point of reference for established business processes, approval workflows and documentation requirements.

3.        Programme Knowledge Management and Systems utilization

• Authoritative document repository: Managing and governing the central Programme document repository (MS Teams/SharePoint) to preserve all critical programme documentation, ensuring complete traceability and support institutional continuity through maintenance of accessible, standardized and complete Programme records, enforcing access controls/permissions as appropriate.
• Filing architecture: Maintain a standardized directory structure, ensuring systematic filing for easy retrieval of documents
• Naming and version control: Enforce standard naming conventions and strict document versioning protocols.
• Programme document standardization and Quality Assurance: Maintaining standardized and quality-controlled Programme templates and tools, including concept notes, NFRs, official correspondence, meeting documentation and other common business products, ensuring compliance with WFP branding and policy guidelines.
• Current guidance and SOPs: Maintain an updated library of relevant corporate policies, SOPs, and operational guidelines
• Programmatic and Partnership records archive: Systematically archive, organize and preserve all core operational documentation including fully approved Concept Notes, Field Level Agreements (FLAs), mission reports, and finalized Back-to-office reports.
• Key correspondence records: Coordinating Programme correspondence and maintaining visibility over documents requiring HoP/CD review, clearance or signature. This also involves ensuring preservation of all official Programme-related incoming and outgoing communications to external stakeholders including Government and Cooperating Partners.
• Meeting records: Ensure preservation of all agendas, minutes, and supporting documentation for all key meetings with external stakeholders including Technical Working Groups (TWGs), Cooperating Partner Groups (CPGs), PNCC, DDCCs, DNCCs, etc.

4.           Programme Management Support

• Programme meetings: Organizing, scheduling and supporting Programme management meetings (bi-weekly review meetings), ensuring timely drafting and sharing of agendas, compilation and dissemination of meeting documentation and translating meeting discussion into actionable outputs for follow-up through capture and systematic tracking of action or decision points to resolution.
• Management briefs: Compile consolidated briefs, notes, talking points and background materials for Management – Head of programme and Country Director.
• Follow up on decisions: Track implementation progress on actions issues by the Head of Programme and ensure delivery within agreed timelines.
• High-level mission support: Through cross-functional collaboration, supporting coordination of missions, workshops, meetings and other Programme-wide requirements; coordinate logistics, brief packs, and administrative execution for programme activities including high-level internal and external engagements (e.g. workshops, field visits)

5.           Programme workflow performance

• Process lead-time monitoring and tracking: Monitor the turnaround times and process bottlenecks for critical business processes for Programme including CNs, NFRs, letter clearances, identifying delayed reviews, resubmission post review/comments, or approvals in line with established timelines at every stage of the process flow.
• Mission execution and post-mission follow up: Tracking execution performance of missions against scheduled timelines from initial clearances and logistical planning arrangements through to post-mission BTOR submission.
• Action points: Monitor implementation rates and aging for actions originating from the Programme bi-weekly meetings, oversight findings to ensure decisions are tracked to final resolution

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

Education: University degree in Public Administration, Business Administration, International Relations, Development Studies, Information Management, Human Resource Management, Project Management or other related fields or an Advanced Diploma in the above specified fields with five (5) years of additional work experience.

Experience: Five or more years of progressively responsible work experience in the relative business stream with experience in general administrative and project management work.

• undefined

Knowledge & Skills:

• Knowledge of specialised common business practices and methods, gained through relevant technical training and experience.
• Ability to develop and maintain relationships with a range of individuals to provide a high-quality support service.
• Ability to carry out basic data analysis with a keen eye for detail and independently rectify problems requiring attention.
• Ability to monitor and record financial transactions
• Good communication skills required to give and receive information and work with a variety of individuals
• Ability to maintain confidentiality

Languages: Fluency (level C) in English.

WFP LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORK

WFP Leadership Framework guides to the common standards of behavior that guide HOW we work together to accomplish our mission.

Click here to access WFP Leadership Framework

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

NO FEE DISCLAIMER

The United Nations does not charge any application, processing, training, interviewing, testing or other fee in connection with the application or recruitment process. Should you receive a solicitation for the payment of a fee, please disregard it. Furthermore, please note that emblems, logos, names and addresses are easily copied and reproduced. Therefore, you are advised to apply particular care when submitting personal information on the web.

REMINDERS BEFORE YOU SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION

• All applications must be submitted exclusively through our online recruiting system. We do not consider CVs or applications sent by email, LinkedIn, or any other channel.

• We strongly recommend that your Workday profile is accurate and complete, and that all sections are filled in, including your employment history, academic qualifications, language skills, and UN grade (if applicable). Once your profile is completed, please apply, and submit your application.

• If you experience technical issues while submitting your application, you may contact us at global.hrerecruitment@wfp.org. Please note that this email is only for technical issues with an application - unsolicited applications or documents sent to this inbox will not receive a reply.

• At the application stage, the only required documents are your CV and Cover Letter. Additional documents (passport, certificates, recommendation letters, etc.) may be requested later in the process.

• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and invited to proceed to the next stage of the recruitment process.

All employment decisions are made on the basis of organizational needs, job requirements, merit, and individual qualifications. WFP is committed to providing an inclusive work environment free of sexual exploitation and abuse, all forms of discrimination, any kind of harassment, sexual harassment, and abuse of authority. Therefore, all selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

No appointment under any kind of contract will be offered to members of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), FAO Finance Committee, WFP External Auditor, WFP Audit Committee, Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) and other similar bodies within the United Nations system with oversight responsibilities over WFP, both during their service and within three years of ceasing that service.