Programme Research Assistant (70669)

Programme Research Assistant

Location: Brasília, Brazil

Application Deadline: 26th November, 2017

Type of Contract: Service Contract (SC)

Duration: 12 months

Post Level: SB-3

Background

The World Food Programme (WFP) is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. Finding long-term and sustainable solutions to chronic hunger is also a part of the WFP mandate. The WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger located in Brazil was launched in November 2011 and has been created as international centre of excellence. The Centre is a partnership between WFP and the Brazilian government, and its aim is to promote south to south cooperation, and provide support to governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America in capacity development in the areas of School Feeding, Nutrition and Food Security.

The Centre is an innovation that seeks to respond government demands for technical support to strengthen their national capacities and knowledge on sustainable school feeding and to support them in the design and management of healthy and sustainable national school feeding and other hunger programmes.

The poupose of the Programme Research Assistant job is to perform specialized and/or standardized policy and programme-related processes and activities to support the effective delivery of assistance programmes.

The Programme Research Assistant reports to the Head of Programme.

Duties and Responsibilities

Accountabilities: Within delegated authority, the Programme Assistant will be responsible for the following duties:

• Support accurate communication and timely follow-up of a range of operational queries within programme and policy research, development and learning activities with local partners, UN agencies, NGOs, research centres, universities, and government institutions;
• Conduct the organization of publications about the Centre of Excellence, South-South and triangular cooperation and Food Security with articles to be provided by high-level stakeholders and general call for papers, which includes contacting collaborators, accompanying production of texts, revising first drafts, liaising with review committee and other activities related to the production of the publication;
• Establish accurate, timely recording and analysis of specific research and development agendas and programmes, conduct and follow data gathering to build evidence on food assistance systems ensuring that rigorous quality standards are maintained;
• Support the analysis of policy and operational issues, prepare reports and briefs to make recommenations to WFP Centre supervisors’ and senior colleagues’ liaison with WFP system-wide and HQ, other UN agencies and governmental stakeholders for development of policies, programmes and activities in School Feeding, Social Protection, South-South and triangular cooperation and Food and Nutrition Security Programmes;
• Organize incoming study visits by preparing  documentation, planning and liaising with different Brazilian stakeholders and international partners;
• Prepare and apply monitoring and learning assessment surveys for missions and events for confection of M&E reports;
• Follow-up and provide remote assistance for partner countries and respective WFP COs and RBs programmes, policies, documents, projects, and reports in School Feeding, South-South cooperation and Food and Nutrition Security Programmes;
• Provide specialised assistance and technical analysis to WFP and WFP CoE policy and programme preparing and working on documents to adequately meet South-South and triangular cooperation for food assistance and country capacity stregnthening needs;
• Support the liaise with Brazilian and focus country governments, WFP COs, ensuring good execution of projects, missions and events;
• Provide support for new partnerships with universities and for knowledge production opportunities;
• Prepare timeframes, workplans, project documents, concept note and other documents related to the activities of the Programme Unit;
• Assess project performance including utilization of resources and achievement of planned goals and support other knowledge management activities;
• Carry out advocacy and information related tasks for project/programme activities such as making interventions and presentations in meetings, workshops, seminars, missions, etc.;
• Perform policy support on activities, analysis and assessments that qualifies, quantifies, and demonstrates WFP, WFP CoE, and Brazil as partners of choice for cooperation for development;
• Prepare documentation and specific concepts for WFP Centre events and provide general office support following established targets and WFP Centre strategies for events and external interventions;

• Provide internal contract management support to knowledge and learning hub activities;
• Perform other related duties as required.

Minimum qualifications

Education: University degree in International Relations, development, social and political sciences or other related field. Master in related areas will be considered an asset.

Experience: At least two years of progressively responsible experience with research and documentation. Experience with cooperation policies and programmes, and experience with the Brazilian and other Global South social policies, specially food and nutrition security, school feeding and/or nutrition policies, preferably within the context of South-South cooperation. Previous experience in the UN system is an asset.

Knowledge: Experience utilizing computers including word processing, spreadsheet and other software packages. Experience in writing and/or publishing reports, concept notes, research policy papers and scientific articles.

Language: Fluency in both oral and written communication in Portuguese, English and French. Working knowledge in Spanish will be considered an advantage.

Desirable skills: Training and/or experience using WFP softwares; knowledge of WFP regulations and rules, and WFP policies and procedures in the area of work.

4Ps Core Organizational Capabilities

4P Theme	Capability Name	Description of the behaviour expected for the proficiency level.
Purpose	Be a force for positive change	Suggests potential improvements to team’s work processes to supervisor.
	Make our mission visible in everyday actions	Articulates how own unit’s responsibilities will serve WFP’s mission.
People	Create an inclusive culture	Seeks opportunities to work with people from different backgrounds.
	Be a coach & provide constructive feedback	Serves as a peer coach for colleagues in same area of work.
	Create an “I will”/”We will” spirit	Tracks progress toward goals and shares this information on a regular basis with supervisor.
Performance	Encourage innovation & creative solutions	Explores ways to consistently be more efficient and accurate in own areas of work and shares new methods of work with colleagues.
	Focus on getting results	Focuses on getting results and tracks trends in completion rates for own tasks to identify opportunities for efficiency.
	Make commitments and make good on commitments	Takes responsibility for own tasks and notifies supervisor as soon as possible of potential delays in meeting deadlines or commitments.
Partnership	Connect and share across WFP units	Suggests opportunities for partnering with other units to supervisor.
	Build strong external partnerships	Identifies opportunities to work with colleagues and partners in the field towards common goals.
	Be politically agile & adaptable	Develops an understanding of the value of WFP’s teams and external partners in fulfilling team’s goals and objectives.
	Be clear about the value WFP brings to partnerships	Aligns own activities with supervisor’s priorities to fulfill internal and external partner needs.

Functional Capabilities

Capability Name	Description of the behaviour expected for the proficiency level
Programme Lifecycle & Food Assistance	Can facilitate implementation of food assistance programmes under guidance using basic understanding of principles and good practices of programme design, implementation and monitoring.
Knowledge of Specialized Areas	Understands basic technical concepts and data andtheir relevance to food assistance programmes.
Strategic Policy Engagement w/Govt	Understands and applies basic principles of engagement with government counterparts at the national or local level.

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