Project Coordinator (Agriculture Technologies Specialist)

FAO seeks gender, geographical and linguistic diversity in its staff and international consultants in order to best serve FAO Members in all regions.

• FAO is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality, background and culture
• Qualified female applicants, qualified nationals of non-and under-represented Members and person with disabilities are encouraged to apply
• Everyone who works for FAO is required to adhere to the highest standards of integrity and professional conduct, and to uphold FAO's values
• FAO, as a Specialized Agency of the United Nations, has a zero-tolerance policy for conduct that is incompatible with its status, objectives and mandate, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination　　
• All selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks
• All applications will be treated with the strictest confidentiality
• FAO staff are subject to the authority of the Director-General, who may assign them to any of the activities or offices of the Organization.

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 incumbent directly reports to the Head of FAO Mindanao Sub-Office and under the overall guidance of the FAO Representative of the Philippines. He/will work with technical guidance of the Lead Technical Officer (Social Protection Officer, FAORAP), and in close coordination with the National Food Security and Nutrition Specialist and the National Farming Systems Specialist.

Technical Focus

One of the specific recommendations in the National Dialogue on the Food Systems Summit is the engagement of youth in the food systems. Specifically, it has been recognized that there is a need to improve programs that incentivize youth participation in agriculture, providing livelihood opportunities to graduates of agricultural courses through provision of free access to land, passing of the Magna Carta for Young Farmers in Congress. This project envisages to contribute to these recommendations. Furthermore, FAO Philippines, in collaboration with partners, works to help to end child labour in agriculture and promote decent work opportunities for youth taking a multisectoral approach to eliminate child labour in agriculture through decent youth employment promotion, school feeding programmes, adequate natural resource management, women’s empowerment, cash-transfers and digitalization, among others and identified ways to step forward efforts to prevent child labour in all agriculture subsectors.

The proposed project aims at youth empowerment through capacity development of youth to get engaged in agri-food system and enable environment development that youth has places to participate in/take a lead in agri-food system for healthy diet and healthy nature in Bangsamoro. Target beneficiaries would be youth aged between 15-40 years and youth groups.

Tasks and responsibilities

The incumbent will carry out the following tasks:

• Support supervision of the project implementation and coordination with relevant partners such as the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Agrarian Reform (MAFAR), Bangsamoro Youth Commission (BYC) and the National Nutrition Council (NNC) in BARMM, Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), among others;
• In collaboration with the main government partner (MAFAR), lead in the preparation of the Inception Meeting and other relevant coordination activities for the project;
• In collaboration with government partners, CSOs, and other relevant partners including UN agencies, establish technical working group(TWG) to validate the various methodologies, findings and project outputs;
• Contribute to periodical TWG meetings coordination;
• Contribute to the drafting of the design for the training needs assessment of youth beneficiaries and identify possible Service Provider to conduct the assessment;
• In collaboration and agreement with MAFAR, develop guidelines on selection of project sites, formulation of detailed criteria for selection of beneficiaries/participants to various training to fit youth needs, among others;
• Support the planning, implementation, supervision and monitoring of the project activities, with guidance from the FAO Country office and the Lead Technical Officer (LTO);
• Establish an input distribution and training plans covering the whole duration of the project, in close coordination with project implementing partners;
• Provide guidance and technical inputs to trainings among youth, related to agricultural technologies identified during the needs assessment;
• Introduce agriculture technologies that are applicable in the BARMM context and initiate knowledge transfer among agriculture officers;
• Develop technology transfer scheme that may be applied for Sustainability of the initiatives;
• Coordinate with other project staffs/s and partners to ensure coherence of work vis-à-vis the project design and logframe, as well as the achievement of intended outputs;
• Prepare training concept notes/modules and technical specification of agricultural inputs and technologies for technical review and clearance by the relevant technical officers;
• Ensure that the technical quality of the inputs to be distributed comply with the technically-cleared specifications;
• Prepare Letters of Agreement (LoAs) for Service Provider and facilitate their review/clearance by the project’s Lead Technical Officer (LTO), and other relevant colleagues at the Representation Office, up to their final approval;
• Serve as resource person during the conduct of trainings relevant to his/her expertise;
• Assist in preparing and conducting post-training evaluation of participants at least 3 months after the completion of the training to document good practices and results;
• Monitor the progress of the LoAs, as well as, the distribution and use of the inputs and ensure proper use;
• Conduct an endline project assessment to compare with baseline information;
• Prepare and submit project terminal report and an end-of-assignment report in English according to FAO's guidelines;
• Contribute to the creation of a positive image and overall credibility of FAO as a technical organization; and
• Perform any other tasks/functions that may be assigned by the Head of Mindanao Sub-Office and FAO Philippines.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• The candidate must have a Master's degree (or equivalent) in Agriculture (with Major in Horticulture or Agronomy), agricultural extension or other related fields with complementary knowledge in agricultural development planning and technologies;
• The candidate must have at least seven (7) years relevant and progressive experience in agricultural project implementation at the field level and involvement with youth development is an asset;
• A national of the Philippines or with a regular working permit in the Philippines.
• Working knowledge (Level C) of English

FAO Core Competencies

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

Technical/Functional Skills

• Resident of Mindanao or familiar with the local rural setting in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is an advantage;
• Professional experience in project management especially in Agriculture trainings;
• Strong background in planning and implementation of development projects with responsibilities for project monitoring and evaluation, reporting and documentation.
• S/he must have a good experience in participative training and methodologies, agriculture and youth issues.
• Demonstrated capability of providing high-level technical assistance and recommendations related to youth programs;
• Knowledge and skills on MS Office applications

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