Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) Specialist

Organizational Setting

FAO Afghanistan is investing, across all 34 provinces, in resilience reinforcing actions that focus on protecting agriculture livelihoods and local ecosystems, boosting local production of nutritious foods and cash-incomes, and safeguarding critical agriculture sectoral development gains achieved over the past couple of decades through revitalizing rural markets and economy. In 2022-2023, FAO will, under the life-saving assistance Outcome (1) of the UN Transitional Engagement Framework (TEF), focus on the following four priority actions: (i) Safeguarding Wheat Seed Security, (ii) Enhancing Local Production of Nutritious Food, (iii) Livestock Protection and Dairy Sector Support, and (iv) Restoring Irrigation Structures to Boost Cash Incomes. Additionally, FAO will contribute towards resilience building activities under Outcome 2 of the TEF.

Reporting Lines

The Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) Specialist will work under the overall supervision of the FAO Representative, the direct supervision of the Emergency and Rehabilitation Officer and the technical supervision of the Head of MEAL Team.

Technical Focus

The Accountability to affected populations (AAP) Specialist will work as a member of the multidisciplinary MEAL unit to ensure that mechanisms are in place to receive feedback from beneficiaries and populations in the area of FAO’s and partners’ interventions. The AAP Specialist will also be responsible for ensuring the appropriate routing of feedback to FAO technicians, programme staff or management in alignment with FAO’s corporate guidelines.

Tasks and responsibilities

• Consult with interagency working groups to ascertain if multi-partner/multi-agency accountability mechanisms or working groups exist, how FAO’s needs may be incorporated and support the nominated colleagues to participate in such fora;
• Establish and maintain a multichannel feedback mechanism that ensures accessibility of different segments of the beneficiary and affected population;
• Establish internal and external referral mechanisms to channel feedback to the relevant FAO technical, programme or management colleagues, ensuring compliance with FAO’s procedures and policies (e.g. fraud, corruption, PSEA, whistleblower policies);
• In collaboration with MEAL unit members, maintain a database of feedback received, and responses issued, and conduct analyses on trends in feedback and the timeliness of responses to inform reports to FAO Afghanistan management about issues requiring adaptation or escalation;
• In collaboration with MEAL unit members, ensure the inclusion of accountability variables and protection considerations in data collection tools and instruments;
• Develop information sharing and sensitization materials in support of project managers to provide information about the purpose and process of FAO’s interventions, beneficiary selection criteria, scheduling of activities and ways to provide feedback;
• Develop and deliver AAP training to FAO and implementing partner staff on FAO Afghanistan’s accountability commitments, mechanisms, and processes;
• Support the MEAL unit/TPM partners in conducting accountability spot checks, where feasible, to engage with populations on their experience of receiving FAO support and to receive their feedback about FAO’s/partners’ presence in their communities;
• Perform any other related duties as required.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• Advanced (Master’s) degree or University (Bachelor’s) degree in social sciences, law, human rights, protection, international relations or relevant field.
• For advanced degree at least five (5) years of relevant professional experience.
• For university degree at least seven (7) years of relevant professional experience.
• Working knowledge (level C) of English and local languages (Pashto and/or Dari);
• National of Afghanistan.

FAO Core Competencies

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

Technical/Functional Skills

• Experience organizing stakeholder meetings or workshops with various partners;
• Experience in community engagement and sensitisation;
• Excellent writing and analytical skill in drafting various types of reports;
• Strong interpersonal and communication, reporting and presentation skills, analysis and interpretation of data, ability to work in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic environment with sensitivity and respect for diversity;
• Previous work experience with the UN is considered a strong asset;
• Strong professional command of Microsoft Office, in particular Word and Excel.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION