Senior Programme Officer

Organizational Setting

FAO’s commitment to environmental sustainability is integral to our strategic objectives and operations.

FAO's Subregional Office for Central Africa (SFC) is responsible for developing, promoting, overseeing and implementing agreed strategies for addressing subregional food, agriculture and rural development priorities. It develops and maintains relations with subregion-wide institutions including Regional Economic Integration Organizations (REIOs). It assists the FAO Representations (FAORs) in the subregion with addressing subregional food, agriculture and rural development issues at country level. The Subregional office is a subsidiary of FAO's Regional Office for Africa (RAF).

The post is located in the Subregional Office for Central Africa (SFC) in Libreville, Gabon.

Reporting Lines

The Senior Programme Officer reports to the Subregional Coordinator (SFC) in close collaboration with the Senior Programme Officers at RAF and the appropriate units at the Office of Emergency and Resilience (OER). The incumbent will ensure a smooth coordination with headquarters’ technical Divisions, Offices and Centres, as well as assistanting FAO Representatives (Programme) within the SFC Subregion.

Technical Focus

Provide programmatical guidance to the SFC team and country offices on quality programmes/projects delivery with a specific focus on increasing efficiency, effectiveness and transparency towards transformation of agrifood systems. Uphold implementation of FAO's emergency and resilience agenda at subregional and SFC countries level. Ensure a coordinated technical support from Lead Technical Officers (LTOs) to country programmes and subregional projects with a view to maximizing impact. Coordinate the appropriation of regional programmes and subregional flagship projects in liaison with the concerned managers, including the corporate expected target on resilience and humanitarian work.

Key ResultsProvides leadership and technical policy expertise for the planning, development and implementation of divisional programmes of work, projects, products and services in accordance with the FAO Strategic Framework and in alignment with the Organization's Gender Policy.

Key Functions

• Plans, manages or leads highly specialized or multidisciplinary teams of assigned programmes/projects.
• Leads the preparation and/or review of Country Programming Framework (CPF) and its operationalization and work plans as well as the supporting budgets and/or resourcing strategies.
• Coordinates programme/project formulation activities.
• Leads resource mobilization activities; establishes partnerships to explore funding opportunities, leads negotiations of funding agreements and project relationships with key stakeholders throughout the project cycle, including support to implementation; facilitates monitoring and compliance issues and ensures submission of reports.
• Leads and/or participates in large, complex field missions, including provision of guidance to external consultants, government officials and other parties as well as drafting mission summaries, etc.
• Leads and/or collaborates in, provides technical backstopping to and ensures the quality/effectiveness of capacity development and knowledge sharing activities within the country such as policy support, organizational development and individual learning events, including preparation of related information, learning and on-line tools.
• Monitors programme/project activities in the country.

Specific Functions

• Supports the coordination of the LTOs team and the FAO global technical response to countries.
• Supports preparedness and quality/timely delivery of development, resilience and emergency programmes with a particular emphasis to level three (L3) countries.
• Subsidiarily supports the oversight and coordination of the subregional lead technical officers team.
• Coordinates the production and dissemination of countries’ results through a harmonized approach.
• Monitors up-to-date risk analysis dashboards from different SFC countries.
• Upholds FAO’s engagement at appropriate levels and consistent messaging in key humanitarian and resilience-related communications and coordination fora.
• Coordinates the development of advocacy strategies, briefing packages, talking points and strategic messaging around identified humanitarian and resilience priorities and processes, including subregional policy processes, etc.
• Leads strategic advocacy products demonstrating FAO's achievements and impacts in food crisis contexts.
• Coordinates and provides strategic inputs to key interagency and FAO products, processes and events.
• Liaises with relevant FAO colleagues based at headquarters, Liaison Offices and the Regional Office for Africa (RAF) to ensure that SFC is fully contributing to the global agendas and norms.
• Supports the SFC Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) function of L3 countries.
• Undertakes travel in support of FAO Decentralized Offices to provide support in interagency engagement and/or advocacy.
• Performs other duties requested by the Subregional Coordinator for Central Africa.

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CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• Advanced university degree in an area related to the activities of the Organization, i.e. agriculture, forestry, fishery, economics, social science, business administration, political science or closely related field.
• Ten years of relevant experience in project or programme management, including planning and both at national and international level.
• Working knowledge (proficiency - level C) of English and intermediate knowledge (intermediate proficiency - level B) of another FAO official language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish).

Competencies

• Results Focus
• Leading, Engaging and Empowering
• Communication
• Partnering and Advocating
• Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement
• Strategic Thinking

Technical/Functional Skills

• Work experience in more than one location or area of work, particularly in field positions, is essential.
• Extent and relevance of experience in the field of developing and managing country field programme from design to delivery (programme/project identification formulation, analysis, planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation).
• Extent and relevance of experience in the management of technical cooperation projects and programmes, including the management of emergency, recovery and rehabilitation related programmes.
• Proven track record in resource mobilization.
• Extent and relevance of experience in and ability to negotiate with senior officials in national governments, inter-governmental organizations and other institutions and in designing collaborative networks and joint programmes.
• Familiarity with UN system-wide policies and processes applying to decentralized locations is desirable.