Programme Associate GS6- Thanamalwila, Monaragala,Sri Lanka - For Sri Lankan Nationals Only

WFP seeks candidates of the highest integrity and professionalism who share our humanitarian principles.

Selection of staff is made on a competitive basis, and we are committed to promoting diversity and gender balance.

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.

To implement the resilience-building project, WFP is seeking a competent Programme Associate to be based on the DS Division of Thanamalwila of Moneragala district to facilitate project implementation, coordinate training and perform monitoring of the project activities with a nutrition-sensitive and gender-transformative approach through integrated resilience-building activities.

The resilience-building activities are implemented through rehabilitation of productive assets such as community irrigation schemes and agricultural infrastructure at household level for commercialised farming for sustainable income through market linkages, skills training for livelihood diversification as well as capacity building for the vulnerable communities, community-based organisations and farmers' organisations, project partners to ensure successful project implementation.

The job holder is required to work closely with the WFP team in Colombo as well as and relevant stakeholders in the district (District Management Unit known as DMU) and DS Divisional levels to provide support and guidance on the resilience-building project activities under the Activity 6 of the current WFP Country Strategic Plan 2018-2022;

As an island nation, Sri Lanka remained highly vulnerable to climate change, being the second most climate-change-affected country according to the Global Climate Risk Index. Weather events and recurrent natural disasters, such as droughts, floods and landslides, adversely impact socio-economic progress. Long-term impacts of climate change affect public health, nutrition, agriculture and infrastructure development, including hydropower, impacting women, men, girls and boys differently. 

Since 2016, Sri Lanka experienced the worst drought in 40 years, which resulted in a significant decline in rice paddy production - the lowest in the last ten years. The drought impacted 20 out of 25 districts and led to overall significant crop losses, increased debt levels, and reduced agricultural labour opportunities. The effects were detrimental to food security and nutrition, income levels and access to water cultivation, particularly amongst hardest-hit communities. 

Resilience building for the vulnerable affected by shocks to improve food security and nutrition is one of the significant outcomes of the WFP Sri Lanka’s Country Strategic Plan for 2018-2022. This outcome will be achieved by enabling shock-affected communities to benefit from the strengthened capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather and other disasters to mitigate the impact of shocks and stresses.

The main objective is to enable the affected vulnerable to have access to sustainable, productive assets for commercialised production and market linkage for income generation purposes. The objective of the resilience-building project is also to help the project beneficiaries become an agro-based entrepreneur and contribute to the creation of employment in the project areas.

The resilience-building project is implemented with nutrition and gender-sensitive approach and seeks to integrate with other projects that WFP jointly has with other UN agencies such as UNFPA in the same district on gender, community nutrition activities and social and behaviour change communication to improve the nutritional status of the project beneficiaries.

The resilience-building project will be implemented for three years (2019-2021) in the DS Division of Thanamalwila of Moneragala district.

• Coordinate with the local government partners and the community and finalise project sites and beneficiaries of the assigned GN divisions of the DS Division in the district
• Coordinate sub-project formulation process, including activity proposal, review and field appraisal and final submission
• Coordinate field activities implemented by the local partners, including designated government, and CBOs
• Collect baseline and relevant data on the project intervention in the given formats with the support of the grass-root officers and timely submission of them to the County Office
• Maintain updated qualitative and quantitative information to assist the M&E unit of the County Office (CO) for regular monitoring of the project activities
• Organise training and awareness programmes to the beneficiaries/community with the WFP experts and local partners
• Support nutrition relates activities at the field level, such as surveys, community nutrition activities, social behaviour change communication, and gender-related work
• Ensure the provision of technical guidance to the project beneficiaries in close interaction with the relevant District Departments and WFP experts
• Collect, analyse and report on routine data as per the overall logical framework and M&E system of the project
• Maintain a result-oriented database of all project information and results of the district accessible to the CO

Completion of secondary school education. A post-secondary certificate in the related functional area. First university degree in Agriculture, Rural Development, Social Science or relevant field is desirable. In addition, the following competencies are required: 

• Strong interpersonal and collaboration skills and proven ability to be flexible in a team-oriented approach with diverse groups of people
• Strong analytic and problem-solving skills
• Excellent planning, organizational and time management skills
• Proven ability to efficiently and effectively handle multiple tasks at the same time
• Strong written and oral communication skills
• Good command in English – level C (both speaking and writing), and good presentation skills
• Sinhala must be the mother tongue. Knowledge in Tamil is a value add
• Computer literate

Purpose

• Understand and communicate the Strategic Objectives: Coaches team in the most effective ways to communicate WFP’s Strategic Objectives to WFP team and partners in the field.
•  Be a force for positive change: Implements new methods or tools to improve team’s work processes and productivity.
•  Make the mission inspiring to our team: Maps team’s activities and tasks to specific successes in beneficiary communities to showcase positive impact.

People

• Look for ways to strengthen people's skills: Identifies skill development opportunities such as training modules or on-the-job experiences for self, colleagues and direct reports.
•  Create an inclusive culture: Facilitates team building activities to build rapport in own unit.
•  Be a coach & provide constructive feedback
•  Create an “I will”/”We will” spirit

Performance

• Encourage innovation & creative solutions: Identifies opportunities to be creative in own work and to help team be more innovative and accurate in their respective tasks and areas of work.
•  Focus on getting results: Monitors team’s deliverables and provides feedback to ensure outcomes are delivered consistently and accurately.
•  Make commitments and make good on commitments
•  Be Decisive

Partnership

• Connect and share across WFP units: Facilitates partnerships with other WFP units to accomplish missions in the field.
•  Build strong external partnerships: Sets an example and provides guidance to team on how to build relationships with external partners.
•  Be politically agile & adaptable
•  Be clear about the value WFP brings to partnerships

• A confirmed list of irrigation schemes for rehabilitation during 2019-2021 for the district on an annual basis
• A confirmed list of beneficiaries for project assistance during 2019-2021 for the district on an annual basis
• Detailed Implementation Plan for each implementation year for the district
• Monthly and quarterly progress reports of the assigned DS divisions in the given formats
• Quarterly schedule for community awareness sessions on nutrition and gender
• Quarterly summary report for nutrition and gender-related outreach events
• New initiatives and materials to promote nutrition-sensitive agriculture
• Monitoring reports in the format given at regular intervals
• Timely monthly cash transfer request and reconciliation report submission

• At least 5 years continuous and relevant working experience in the fields of agriculture/livelihood development in the dry zone districts
• Ability to conduct surveys and assessment among the community
• Working experience in development projects of the target areas
• Familiar with rural development, participatory approaches, and gender and environmental issues
• Working experience with International Agencies and UN Agencies would be an advantage

Please refer attached TOR

Qualified Female applicants are especially encouraged to apply

WFP has zero tolerance for discrimination and does not discriminate on the basis of HIV/AIDS status.

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.

17 November 2019