Regional Digital Assistance Services Officer, Operations

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.

DUTY STATION:              Bangkok, Thailand

CONTRACT TYPE:          International Regular Consultancy - Level I

DURATION:                      11 months (maximum)

WFP offers a competitive compensation package that will be determined by the contract type and selected candidate’s qualifications and experience.

Please visit the following websites for detailed information on working with WFP. http://www.wfp.org Click on: “Our work” and “Countries” to learn more about WFP’s operations.

VA CLOSING DATE: 15 December 2019

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.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is well known for its ability to deliver food assistance rapidly to people in need. To continue responding effectively to challenging contexts while also contributing to longer-term efforts to end hunger, WFP’s Strategic Plan focuses on better understanding of national food and nutrition security challenges and reshaping its engagement through support to national safety nets and social protection systems, to help host governments with their hunger-fighting strategies.In emergencies, WFP is often first on the scene, providing food assistance to the victims of war, civil conflict, drought, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, crop failures and natural disasters. When the emergency subsides, WFP helps communities rebuild shattered lives and livelihoods. WFP also works to strengthen the resilience of people and communities affected by protracted crises by applying a development lens in our humanitarian response. WFP development projects focus on nutrition, especially for mothers and children, addressing malnutrition from the earliest stages through programmes targeting the first 1,000 days from conception to a child’s second birthday, and later through school meals.

Asia Pacific Region
As the Asia-Pacific region continues its dynamic transformation, WFP is assessing its relevance and repositioning its role in the region. This is imperative not only due to the transition of many countries to Lower Middle/Middle Income status in the Asia Pacific region, but also because of the recurring and increasing ferocity of natural disasters. Against this background, the emerging post-2015 sustainable development agenda and other global frameworks at play, call for a shared vision and common goals, with communications, advocacy and partnerships taking centre stage. 

The Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific (RBB) provides strategic guidance, technical support and direction to WFP country operations in the region. RBB supports operations in the region and in line with the strategic shift to national capacity building to achieve zero hunger, provides technical assistance to staff and managers in the Asia Pacific region to test and apply new innovative programmatic approaches – including the broadening of transfer modalities, increased focus on resilience-building and national capacity-development. Towards this, RBB promotes innovative methods and tools to meet new information needs for evidence-based decision-making. At the end of 2018, WFP in the Asia Pacific region has completed the strategic shift in its portfolio and has identified several priorities to pursue regionally, in support of country offices and in terms of establishing regional partnerships and thematic activities.
 

The World Food Programme has developed and is continuing to enhance and maintain a set of digital solutions to help in managing:
•    the identities and entitlements of its beneficiaries,
•    the operational parameters of the programmes that transfer benefits to them, and
•    the assurances and insights to ensure related risks are properly managed.
    
This includes SCOPE, WFP’s beneficiary and transfer management platform that supports the WFP programme intervention cycle from a technical perspective. The SCOPE platform is a web-based application used for beneficiary registration, intervention setup, distribution planning, transfer and distribution reporting.  

Under the overall responsibility of the lead Regional Digital Assistance Services Officer (DASO), the incumbent will be responsible to support country offices (COs) in the operationalization of SCOPE and related DAS for WFP and/or partners in the region. This will include analyzing new requirements and functionalities for COs, the programmatic needs. The incumbent should expect frequent missions to countries with SCOPE/DAS operations.  
 

• Coordinate the implementation and operations of SCOPE/DAS in the region, ensuring involvement of all relevant stakeholder units at CO, RB and HQ as required;
• Engage with CO management and colleagues to support in identifying requirements and the operational design, budgeting, planning and deployment of technology solutions and systems to support SCOPE/DAS in their given contexts, particularly with respect to cash-based transfers;
• Consolidate, analyze and report on regional SCOPE/DAS operational information;
• Capture, document and analyze (i.e. through diagrams, flowcharts, data models, user experience designs, storyboards) CO business requirements for DAS and either identify workable existing solutions or escalate to HQ and follow up for potential consideration (e.g. change request);
• Test and analyze SCOPE/DAS solutions and document the match against business requirements for quality and accuracy;
• Through the appropriate channels, support the efforts of technical teams on outstanding operational issues and changes relevant for the region;
• Support COs to conduct appropriate IT assessments in order to assist management in making informed SCOPE/DAS-related operational decisions;
• Deploy as needed to COs to support on-ground testing, roll-out and/or operations of SCOPE/DAS as required;
• Identify learning needs and support capacity building initiatives for SCOPE/DAS and new related functionalities, aimed at building solid digital assistance expertise amongst cross-functional colleagues in the region;
• Where relevant, support the CO in extending their operational support to partners for the use of WFP’s SCOPE/DAS;
• Support the management of change brought about by the use of technology in CO/Programme processes;
• Act as deputy/OiC to the Regional Digital Assistance Services Officer
• Perform any other duties as required.

Education:

• Advanced University degree in business management, computer science, telecommunications engineering or social sciences with 4 years of related work experiences, or Bachelor's degree with 6 years of relevant work experiences in humanitarian aid operations and/or business systems analysis, design and development.

Experience:

• Experience in client-facing roles in either technology implementation projects or in the planning, design and implementation of humanitarian or development programmes. Experience in collaborating with different humanitarian actors or different service providers to design and decide on payment mechanisms and instruments, and capacity building to coordinate the delivery of assistance in humanitarian contexts.

Language:

• Proficiency in English communication skills, both oral and written; andIntermediate knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Portuguese and Spanish) will be added advantage.

• Knowledge of and hands-on experience in cash-based transfers (CBT) programming in humanitarian contexts; awareness of technologies used in the delivery of cash and vouchers in humanitarian contexts; and training and knowledge of business analysis and project management philosophies and methodologies would be an asset.
• Possession of a combination of broad business skills and IT experience including: General management skills in business and public sector contexts; Business analysis including creation and review of functional and non-functional business requirements for IT solutions.
• Ability to operate in distributed / decentralised teams, engage with and support partners;
• Perform under pressure, to multi-task, to navigate through multiple priorities and conflicting requests;
• Work independently through appropriate personal initiative and regular follow-ups;
• Capacity to work in difficult and insecure environments;
• Highly-developed written and oral communication skills with the ability to influence and adapt communication styles to different situations and individuals;
• Collaborative hands-on team member and relationship-builder with a facilitative nature and strong business partnering skills towards colleagues and stakeholders;
• Detail-oriented; Ethics & Values; Client Orientation.

Female applicants and qualified applicants from developing countries 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.