Programme Assistant

The World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organization saving lives and changing lives, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. As the international community has committed to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition by 2030, one in nine people worldwide still do not have enough to eat. Food and food-related assistance lie at the heart of the struggle to break the cycle of hunger and poverty. For its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict, WFP was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020.

Matam Region is located in the north of Senagal. Northern Senegal is grappling with severe climate risks that threaten both food security and livelihoods. Approximately 70% of the population relies on rain-fed agriculture and livestock, making them particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, and increasingly frequent extreme weather events. Since the Sahelian climate began to dry out in the late 1960s, the region has faced escalating desertification, which depletes essential resources such as arable land, biomass, and water. The loss of these critical elements directly jeopardizes the ability of communities to meet their food and nutritional needs.
The 2024 lean season projections from the Cadre Harmonisé (CH) reveal a concerning outlook: over 506,000 people classified as “Phase 3” (Crisis food insecurity levels) across Senegal, face significant food access challenges and resort to harmful coping strategies that threaten their long-term resilience.

WFP Senegal, through its Sub-Office in Matam, is actively implementing initiatives in Northern Senegal to reduce the region's heavy reliance on rain-fed agriculture and enhance food security for communities. WFP places a strong emphasis on community-led soil rehabilitation efforts. In 2019, WFP launched the Integrated Resilience Initiative, which focuses on community mobilization and food-for-assets (FFA) activities aimed at rehabilitating degraded and abandoned land. Using the half-moon technique, 41 hectares were successfully reclaimed at the Diandioli site in the Matam Region.

In 2022, this rehabilitated land allowed for the production of rainfed sorghum for the first time in more than 40 years. Building on these encouraging results, WFP installed two solar-powered boreholes equipped with water towers, enabling beneficiary populations to engage in market gardening on the reclaimed land.

This year, WFP is implementing a Resilient Terroir concept, the overall objective of which is to contribute to the establishment of "resilient terroirs" by strengthening the increased resilience of communities to climatic, environmental and economic challenges while strengthening social cohesion and community solidarity to achieve food security.

Under the direct supervision of Maimouna CISSE, Head of Matam Sub Office, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:

Actively participate in the extension of the agroforestry site to the Diandioly half-moon site as well as in all other activities implemented on the site

Monitor market gardening activities at the Diandioly site and the women's gardens of the villages polarized by the site

Write activity reports

Participate in joint missions of resilience activities with partners and write reports

Support communities and partners in the establishment of forest and fruit nurseries and reforestation

Supporting communities in the establishment of vegetable nurseries