Food Security and Agricultural Livelihoods Assessment Specialist

Organizational Setting

Since late 2019, an outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) – an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus – has rapidly spread across the world, devastating lives and livelihoods. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is particularly concerned about the potential impacts of the virus and related containment efforts on food security and livelihoods in contexts of high vulnerability and where populations are already experiencing food crises. Within the United Nations Global COVID-19 Humanitarian Response Plan, FAO is seeking USD 350 million to protect the food security of the most vulnerable rural populations in 34 priority countries, most of which are already faced with food crisis contexts.

Under the Global Humanitarian Response Plan (GHRP), FAO, in close collaboration with key partners such as the World Food Programme, the global Food Security Cluster and the Global Network Against Food Crises, is establishing a global data and analysis facility to create a common understanding and inform programming. At the core of the data and analysis facility is a structured assessment framework which is sequenced to respond to different information needs as the crisis unfolds in high-risk countries. The assessment framework is driven by a set of questionnaires which will be administered in 34 countries on a periodic basis over the July 2020 – June 2021 period to monitor key risk factors and to understand the occurring and potential impacts on agricultural production, market chains, food security and livelihoods. At a later stage, agriculture sector damage and loss assessments will be conducted, linked to the food security and livelihood impact assessments. In addition the COVID-19 data facility is expected to pave the way for a sustainable system of data collection and analysis on food supply in food crisis countries beyond the pandemic.

The information system relies principally on remotely collected data (mobile phone and on-line), collected either by FAO offices themselves or through international service providers. Field assessments may also be conducted at a later stage using data collection tools such as Kobo or ODK.

The last Agriculture and Food security assessment was conducted between 23 April and 15 May 2018 for Rakhine State jointly with WFP. More recently, FAO in cooperation with WFP carried out a Rapid situation monitoring to assess the flood damage on the agriculture and food security (3 State/Regions in 2018 and 5 States/Region in 2019).

Presently, a joint (FAO-WFP) Covid rapid impact assessment is ongoing in 7 state/region with aim to assess Covid-19 impact on food security, food supply chains, prices and agricultural inputs flow.

Reporting Lines

Under the general guidance of the FAO Representative to Myanmar, the operational management of the Emergency and Rehabilitation Coordinator in Myanmar, in consultation with Assistant FAOR (Programme), the technical supervision of the needs assessments team of the Office of Emergencies and Resilience based in Rome and the relevant technical support from the Regional office for Asia Pacific, the incumbent shall undertake the following tasks:

Tasks and responsibilities:

• Coordinate with national stakeholders (government, UN Agencies, NGOs, food security sector) involved in food security and livelihoods assessments or surveillance, and promote multi-actors initiatives
• Collect baseline and secondary data to enable comparisons and triangulation. Secondary data can refer to food prices monitoring, agricultural inputs prices monitoring, international trade figures, food security outcomes, containment measures, social protection measures, remote-sensing-based seasonal monitoring etc.
• Define survey objectives and areas of interest based on information gaps and programmatic needs
• Assist in the choice of data collection modalities (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviews, web surveys, or face-to-face) and interfaces (international service provider, local partner, in-house call centre etc.)
• Search for existing sampling frames and consolidate lists of respondents with phone numbers
• Assist in the adaptation of generic questionnaires to context-specific circumstances and objectives
• Contribute to the programming of questionnaires into the digital data collection systems (take the lead in case of Kobo)
• Regularly liaise with the country management team and the regional assessment advisors on the progress of the survey exercise and the alignment with strategic, technical and operational requirements;
• Develop training materials and participate to enumerator training sessions
• Communicate with relevant authorities on the implementation of the surveys
• Conduct additional semi-structured interviews with key informants in order to dig for specific issues, as needed
• Contribute to the analysis and interpretation of collected data
• Discuss and validate the results with the global assessment team, regional offices and hubs, GIEWS and any other relevant FAO units
• Help draft and review monitoring reports and visual products (e.g. dashboards), using standard templates
• Communicate assessment findings and reports to other actors, through Food Security Clusters for instance
• Monitor the publication of studies and data produced by other stakeholders in the country
• Contribute to COVID-19 response and programme design as requested
• Contribute to FAO corporate learning processes and documentation about COVID-19 assessments
• When required, contribute to advising and strengthening the capacity of the Ministry of Agriculture and local surveillance systems
• Support data collection and needs assessment activities for other major crises or disasters occurring in supported countries
• Undertake travel, as necessary, and
• Perform any other related duties as requested.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• Advanced university degree in agronomy, rural statistics, agricultural economics, relevant social or natural sciences, or other related discipline relevant to the mandate of the Organization;
• Minimum of 5 years of proven knowledge and experience in assessments, surveillance systems, or monitoring and evaluation in the context of emergencies and food crises;
• Good working knowledge of English,
• Myanmar National.

FAO Core Competencies

• Results Focus
• Teamwork
• Communication
• Building Effective Relationships
• Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

• Ability to work under pressure and adapt to an evolving and complex humanitarian context and within multidisciplinary and different cultural background teams;
• Strong analytical skills and knowledge of agriculture, food security, livelihoods and value chains in the context of Myanmar;
• Experience or familiarity with food security and livelihoods assessments methodologies, including surveillance or monitoring systems, Post-Disaster Needs Assessments, Damage and Losses assessments, agricultural production assessment, market analysis, and/or value chain analysis;
• Experience in survey design, sampling, data collection, data analysis, and interpretation for assessment processes in agriculture and food security;
• Expertise in remote data collection including phone or web-based surveys and/or remote-sensing would be a plus;
• Working knowledge of advanced statistics with ability to use statistical software packages (in particular SPSS , STATA and/or R);
• Experience in using and programming questionnaires in digital data collection tools (Kobo toolbox, ODK);
• Proven data visualization and reporting skills;
• Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written;
• Coordination skills with strong individual planning capacity;
• Knowledge of humanitarian principles.

Selection Criteria

• Relevant analytical knowledge of the agriculture sector, food security and livelihoods;
• Extended working experience on food security and livelihoods assessments, and good understanding of agriculture value chain;
• Expertise in survey design, sampling, data collection, data analysis, and interpretation for assessment processes in agriculture and food security;
• Willingness and ability to travel to remote, rural locations, Team player
• Good communication, analytical and writing skills;