National Senior Policy Specialist

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FAO seeks gender, geographical and linguistic diversity in its staff and international consultants in order to best serve FAO Members in all regions.
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Qualified female applicants and qualified nationals of non-and under-represented member countries are encouraged to apply.

Persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply.

All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.
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Organizational Setting

For more than four decades, FAO has been working with the Government of the Philippines, civil society, community-based organizations and the private sector to address challenges in the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sector. Joint efforts have included increasing sustainability in agricultural production, promoting value-adding practices, improving post-harvest management, enhancing productivity and increasing the resilience of agriculture-based livelihoods to natural disasters, climatic hazards and armed conflict.

Reporting Lines

The National Senior Policy Specialist will be under the overall guidance of the FAO Representative of the Philippines ad interim, direct supervision of the Assistant FAO Representative (Programme), day to day guidance of the National Food Security and Nutrition Specialist and technical supervision of the Lead Technical Officer (LTO).

Technical Focus

FAO is implementing a project entitled Strengthening the enabling environments to address malnutrition and hunger in support of the development for a National Food Policy. One of the main gaps of food security policy making is the lack of a multi-sectoral approach to ensure that all dimensions, such as availability, accessibility, utilization and stability, are covered. Relatedly, the importance of mainstreaming a nutrition-sensitive approach is deemed necessary, to ensure that the development interventions will be able to support diet diversity and proper nutrition. However, there is limited capacity in the national government on this aspect and technical assistance is needed. This proposed project will examine the roles of relevant institutions in strengthening as well as ensuring a sustainable food systems through inter-sectoral linkages and synergies of policies. This proposed project is envisaged to contribute to SDG 2 - End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition by creating better enabling environments to address hunger and malnutrition at national and sub-national levels.

Tasks and responsibilities

The National Senior Policy Specialist will be responsible for providing comprehensive policy recommendations in support of the ongoing development of the government’s National Food Policy (NFP) and implementation of existing related government frameworks and policies.

Specifically, the Specialist will carry out the following tasks:

• Develop in consultation with relevant stakeholders, the conceptual design for analysing the emerging gaps of enabling environments relevant to strengthening the food systems based on existing frameworks;
• Review and analyse existing policies, frameworks and programs in relation to achieving food security and nutrition and provide recommendations for improvement and coherence in relation to the NFP;
• Facilitate the inception meeting, consultations with relevant stakeholders, capacity building workshops;
• Assist in the development of a multi-sectoral strategic plan in consultation with relevant stakeholders
• In coordination with the Inter-Agency Task Force on Zero hunger, through the Office of the Cabinet Secretary and National Nutrition Council, provide inputs to the roadmap for the enhancement of the National Food Policy;
• Provide technical support to the National Nutrition Council (NNC) with regard to maximizing cross-linkages between agencies and their programs under the Key Result Areas (KRA) of the Zero Hunger Task Force and the Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition.
• Support FAO in high-level discussions and analysis together with the Office of the Cabinet Secretary, UN member-agencies of the PFSD People Pillar and Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) UN-Donors Network and other concerned stakeholders to support the country’s achievement of targets in relation to the SDGs, particularly SDG2 on Zero Hunger;
• Assist as necessary with all technical project aspects, reporting on project progress and provide Project Steering Committee, National Project Coordinator, and others with advice regarding project approach;
• Provide inputs as necessary in the communication plan in support to the Zero Hunger Initiative;
• Facilitate mentoring session to the involved project personnel composed of representatives from partner government agencies;
• Participate in meetings, activities and other events in relation to food security and nutrition, agricultural development, among others, to ensure FAO positioning and conveyance of FAO key messaging and
• Carry out any other relevant duties within her/his technical competence as may be requested by the FAO Representative.

Minimum Requirements

• The candidate must have an Advanced University Degree in Agriculture, Nutrition, Food Security, Rural Development, Economics, Public Administration or related fields
• The candidate should have at least 10 years practical experience in dealing with national institutions on policy development related to Agriculture, Nutrition and Food Security.
• A national of the Philippines.

FAO Core Competencies

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

Technical/Functional Skills

• Language requirement: Excellent written and oral communication skills in English and Tagalog.
• Extensive experience in facilitating discussions with Senior Management in Government agencies
• Excellent knowledge of MS Office Applications (e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.)

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Please note that all candidates should adhere to FAO Values of Commitment to FAO, Respect for All and Integrity and Transparency.