Communications Officer (NOB) (Translator) - Sana'a

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. Assisting 91.4 million people in around 83 countries each year, the World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organization saving Lives and changing lives, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience.

In 2019, WFP is scaling up its Yemen operations aiming to provide 12 million people with monthly food assistance through direct food distributions, vouchers or cash and nutritional support to nearly 3 million pregnant and nursing women and children under 5.

For more on WFP and what we do, please watch this video. 

Communications Officer (translator) will play a key role supporting WFP’s emergency response in Yemen by leading the translation unit to provide high-quality translation and interpretation services from English to Arabic (and vice versa).

1. Guide and supervice a team of translators to provide high quality translation and interpretation services to the Country Office, including the planning and management of skills development, staff rota. Act as a point of referral for all team members and supporting them with queries and development.
2. Ensure the quality of translation of WFP internal documents, including messages, minutes, circulars, SOPs, reports, texts for bulletins, UN rules, regulations and guidelines, any other internal texts as required. The translated text to be delivered in MS Word, PowerPoint or Excel files, as required.
3. Ensure the quality of translation of WFP external documents including letters, press releases, media advisories, publications, reports, and official correspondence with authorities. These texts could be for print publications, broadcast or web. The translated text to be delivered in MS Word, PowerPoint or Excel files as required.
4. Provide simultaneous interpretation for senior management and visiting senior officials for high level meetings and field visits, including during evenings, weekends and other holidays.
5. Ensure that all translated texts are technically, linguistically and grammatically correct and error free and completed to the highest standards, and support more junior staff to produce high quality translation work.
6. Oversee and perform terminology research to ensure accurate and appropriate translations. Support the development of guidelines and style guides to ensure consistent use of language and phrases in English and Arabic. Compile information, such as technical terms used in legal settings into glossaries and terminology databases to be used in translations.
7. Follow standard emergency preparedness practices to support WFP with quick feedback in the delivery of tasks.
8. Maintain strict confidentially of all translation work and support more junior staff with queries to this end.
9. Provide advice and guidance within area and level of expertise, in order to ensure that all translated materials meet desired standards of consistency, quality and impact
10. Manage and support translation activities that enable informed decision making and ensures consistency of information presented to the media and other stakeholders.
11. Support capacity building of WFP staff on all aspects of translation, provides advice and guidance within area and level of expertise, in order to ensure that all activities meet desired standards of consistency, quality and impact. For example the design and review of training materials.
12. Liaise and interact with WFP staff and external counterparts to support aligned activities and a coherent approach to communications within WFP.
13. Complete the work within the agreed timeline and submit the final translation in both soft and hard copy.

Education: Advanced University degree in Translation, English Language, and Communications or other relevant field, or First University degree with additional years of related work experience and/or trainings/courses.

Experience: 3 or more years of postgraduate professional post-graduate experience in a relevant field of work. For internal: (Administrative/GS experience is not counted except years holding G6 positions or above – each year is counted at 50%).

Language: Fluency (level C) in English language. Fluency (level C) in Arabic language.
 

Purpose

• Understand and communicate the Strategic Objectives: Understands WFP’s Strategic Objectives and the link to own work objectives.
•  Be a force for positive change: Flexibly adapts individual contributions to accommodate changes in direction from supervisors and internal/external changes (such as evolving needs of beneficiaries, new requirements of partners).
•  Make the mission inspiring to our team: Recognizes and shares with team members the ways in which individual contributions relate to WFP’s mission.
•  Make our mission visible in everyday actions: Sets own goals in alignment with WFP’s overall operations, and is able to communicate this link to others.

People

• Look for ways to strengthen people's skills: Assesses own strengths and weaknesses to increase self-awareness, and includes these in conversations on own developmental needs.
•  Create an inclusive culture: Participates in open dialogue, and values the diverse opinion of others, regardless of background, culture, experience, or country assignment.
•  Be a coach & provide constructive feedback: Proactively seeks feedback and coaching to build confidence, and develop and improve individual skills.
•  Create an “I will”/”We will” spirit: Participates in accomplishing team activities and goals in the face of challenging circumstances.

Performance

• Encourage innovation & creative solutions: Shows willingness to explore and experiment with new ideas and approaches in own work.
•  Focus on getting results: Consistently delivers results within individual scope of work on time, on budget and without errors.
•  Make commitments and make good on commitments: Commits to upholding individual accountabilities and responsibilities in the face of ever-changing country or functional priorities.
•  Be Decisive: Makes rational decisions about individual activities when faced with uncertain circumstances, including in times of ambiguity regarding information or manager direction.

Partnership

• Connect and share across WFP units: Seeks to understand and adapt to internal or cross-unit teams’ priorities and preferred working styles.
•  Build strong external partnerships: Demonstrates ability to understand and appropriately respond to and/or escalate needs of external partners.
•  Be politically agile & adaptable: Portrays an informed and professional demeanor toward internal and external partners and stakeholders.
•  Be clear about the value WFP brings to partnerships: Provides operational support on analyses and assessments that quantifies and demonstrates WFP’s unique value as a partner.

• WFP is an equal opportunity employer.
• WFP does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process.
• The applicant should be a Yemeni national
• Only candidates who are short-listed will be contacted
• Applications must be submitted online with:

1. Use English language only.
2. Indicate all your job TOR.
3. Indicate clear years of experience with each job (month/year)

• WFP staff who are still under probation period are not eligible to apply for another FT position.

• WFP staff on FT contracts must have completed one year in the current position to be eligible to apply for another FT position.

• By submitting your application, you have read the Terms of Reference for this position and agree that any false, wrong or incomplete information might lead to your disqualification in this recruitment process.

04 February 2020

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.