CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING SPECIALIST

Organizational Setting

The Office of Emergencies and Resilience, OER is responsible for ensuring FAO’s efforts to support countries and partners in preparing for and effectively responding to food and agricultural threats and crises. It is responsible for coordinating the development and maintenance of corporate tools and standards to enable Decentralized Offices to assist member countries to prepare for, and respond to emergencies. OER ensures humanitarian policy coordination and knowledge, liaison with the InterAgency Standing Committee as well as with humanitarian resource partners, co-leadership with World Food Programme of the global Food Security Cluster, organizational preparedness, surge capacity and response to large-scale emergencies. OER supports food and nutrition security assessment and early warning activities related to emergency and humanitarian analysis and responses. OER plays a major role in the development and leadership of the Organization’s programme to increase the resilience of livelihoods to food and agriculture threats and crises.

Reporting Lines

Under the general oversight of the Director, Office of Emergencies and Resilience and the direct supervision of the OER Enabling Environment Team Leader, the Consultant will work in close collaboration with the various experts in the Office and other Capacity Development and Training Consultants.

Technical Focus

The Consultant will contribute to strengthening the capacities of FAO personnel and partners through the design and delivery of adult learning programmes in support of the FAO Strategic Framework Programme Priority Areas of Agriculture and Food Emergencies and Resilient Agri-food systems. More specifically, the consultant will work with other OER capacity development personnel and FAO subject matter specialists to design and structure a range of online and in person (face to face) training events primarily targeting FAO personnel to strengthen capacity for a range of functions in support of emergency and resilience programming, ensuring principles of adult and participatory learning are applied, innovative techniques used, blended approaches introduced.

The Organisation is already engaged in the use of contemporary methods for development and delivery of interactive, largely simulation-based trainings focused on emergency response preparedness. The Consultant will join a team committed to training approaches that build on internal FAO expertise by developing the skills of internal facilitators to lead self-directed learning, peer-to-peer reflection and self-assessment.

Tasks and responsibilities

Two roles are being sought under this vacancy; the first role is at a strategic level and is aimed at the creation and management of a range of high quality learning and development initiatives; the second is focused on the facilitation and management of specific training programmes.

Learning and Development Advisor (Category A):

• Identify new L&D programs on an ongoing basis to support changing strategic objectives, including development of learning strategies and action plans;
• Lead overall design process for development of (largely virtual) training modules, ensuring the applications of trends, tools and technology that support learning and development for a wide range of FAO personnel;
• Develop learning objectives framework, capacity needs assessment to inform design of training based on competencies and identified needs;
• Lead design process for new trainings across a range of formats and virtual/online modalities and advises on relevant and appropriate approaches for a range of training needs and training modalities, matched to learning objectives;
• Formulate impact measurement framework to be built into design and delivery of training and capacity development initiatives;

Training Advisor (Category C and/or B):

• Manage/support training delivery process including scheduling, liaison with FAO field offices, planning and logistics, facilitation team selection and briefing;
• Co-lead delivery of range of trainings, the majority of which will be online/virtual sessions;
• Oversee development of simulation scripts and injects packages;
• Manage table-top simulation exercises;
• Ensure metrics for trainings are gathered, analyzed and presented;
• Develop or refine internal process guidance related to simulations and other training formats;
• Engage with relevant internal and external stakeholders to identify new trainings needs and opportunities.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• University degree in a subject related to the work of the Organization;
• For consultancy at category A: at least 12 years of professional experience in leading and developing training events for international organizations operating in humanitarian and/or development contexts with specific experience in developing organizational normative guidance and designing processes related to emergency preparedness and response;
• For the consultancy at category B: at least 5 years of professional experience in developing training for international organizations operating in humanitarian and/or development contexts;
• For the consultancy at category C: at least 1 year of professional experience in emergency preparedness and response programming/operations, systems and tools with a focus on strengthening institutional, team and individual capacities to prepare to respond to emergencies;

• Working knowledge (level C) of English or French and limited knowledge (level B) of any other official language of the Organization (Arabic, Chinese, Spanish or Russian).

FAO Core Competencies

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

Technical/Functional Skills

• Experience in developing and running online/virtual and simulation-based trainings in humanitarian contexts;
• Experience in coaching and mentoring approaches;
• Practical experience in developing humanitarian team capacities in resource-limited contexts;
• Work experience in instructional design (assessing training needs, writing training/learning objectives, designing training, running table-top simulations, evaluating training, assessing participant learning);
• Ability to coordinate and facilitate multi-day trainings with large multi-cultural groups;
• Experience with peer-to-peer learning and self-assessment;
• Work experience with an international humanitarian or development organization;
• Experience designing and delivering field programmes is desirable;
• Strong communication and presentation skills;
• Ability to work both with minimal supervision and as part of a team;
• Ability to deliver outputs by agreed deadlines, sometimes at very short notice;
• Ability to establish effective working relations with persons of different national and cultural backgrounds.