Sudan: Capacity Development: Gap and Needs Assessment Consultant

Background:

The mission of WFP is to end global hunger ensuring that the poorest and most vulnerable, particularly women and children, can access nutritious food in the quantity and quality needed to lead healthy lives. WFP’s current Strategic Plan and the preceding Plans outline the associated goals of reducing risk and vulnerability to shocks, breaking the cycle of hunger, and achieving sustainable food security and nutrition, which are in line with the United Nations Secretary-General’s Zero Hunger Challenge. WFP pursues its mission of eradicating hunger using two approaches: by providing direct food assistance when national capacity is missing or inadequate; and by strengthening national capacity for hunger governance.

Hunger Governance is defined as the obligation of nations to their citizens to guarantee freedom from hunger, undernutrition and harm caused by disasters, through a broad process of formulating and managing public policy to guarantee citizens the right to food and economic opportunities and creating enduring institutions to promote coordination and cooperation to achieve the desirable, positive-sum, outcomes of protecting the lives as well as improving the well-being of citizens. In addition to the Strategic Plan, WFP policies on capacity development, safety nets, and disaster risk reduction emphasize strengthening partnerships and developing national capacity to reduce and eliminate hunger. As WFP engages more strategically with capacity development, it is time now to better understand what the commitment entails, what constitutes capacity strengthening interventions, and how to measure progress – defining the starting points and what our end goals will be.

In the context of WFP Sudan’s transitioning of programme activities from emergency operations to relief and early recovery in 2015, in-depth knowledge of cooperating partners and government counterpart capacity in planning, implementing and reporting on such activities has historically proven to be a challenge. As such, WFP’s Executive Board has recommended that WFP Sudan pursue a national Capacity Gaps and Needs Assessment to understand national capacity building needs and draw up a strategy to implement the recommendations, after which WFP’s on-going Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation (PRRO 200808) would be adjusted to incorporate a dedicated national capacity development and augmentation budget element.

Following this recommendation, WFP and UNICEF has initiated a capacity gap and needs assessment in December 2015 that assesses hunger governance, response and local capacity, among other items. Following the results to be available in January, a dedicated expert would be required to follow up on the preliminary results and conducting desk reviews with key government ministries and national partners to have this translated to into activities and implemented in a variety of operational contexts reflecting differing stages of national capacity to combat hunger. The results would also be reflected as a critical element in the WFP-supported National Strategic Review process, as a first step to WFP’s 5-year Sudan Country Strategic Plan to be finalized tentatively by the end of 2016.

Supervision:

The Consultant will be liaising primarily with the Head of M&E and Performance Management Unit, under the overall supervision of the Head of Programme.

Responsibilities:

· Conduct a desk review of the data generated from the WFP-UNICEF questionnaire (February).

· Conduct a desk review of relevant self-capacity gap analysis of relevant ministries (February).

· Facilitating a government-driven process, liaise with WFP’s key government ministry counterparts and cooperating partners to follow up on self-analysis and questionnaire above to identify areas for capacity building elements and possible WFP intervention within the overall framework of WFP’s mandate, policies and strategic priorities in Sudan (February).

· Facilitate the process on setting up a technical team (government, WFP, other relevant partners) to arrive at a baseline to make decisions on capacity development priorities and interventions under the PRRO and the Country Strategic Plan process, as well as corresponding indicators to measure progress against a baseline (with the relevant methodology), and validate through an internal workshop. (February-March).

· Prepare for and facilitate a validation workshop of findings, baseline and indicators and WFP’s plan of action with key government counterparts and national partners (April).

· Draft a final report highlighting of national institutional, policy and programmatic capacity and gaps, as well as possible WFP intervention entry points, to feed into Strategic Review process for WFP’s Sudan Country Strategic Plan (April).

· Following the above, work with the WFP country office and area offices to propose a feasible budget to cover WFP capacity development and augmentation activities for national entities (April-May).

· Building on the above, carry out a rapid WFP Country Office capacity assessment and gaps analysis as relevant to delivering against the above country capacity strengthening proposal (April-May)

· Perform other related duties as required.

Deliverables:

· Final report highlighting of national institutional, policy and programmatic capacity and gaps, indicators, as well as possible WFP intervention entry points, to feed into Strategic Review process for WFP’s Sudan Country Strategic Plan (March-April).

· Budget and implementation/action plan for the above

Education:

· Masters degree in Policy, International Affairs, Economics, Nutrition/Health, Agriculture, Environmental Science, Social Sciences or other field relevant to international development assistance, or First University Degree with additional years of related work experience and/or trainings/courses as described below.

Desired work experiences:

· At least 5 years of postgraduate progressively responsible professional experience in international humanitarian or development work or other related fields, including at least a few years of direct experience related to country capacity strengthening and related capacity assessment and gaps analysis in challenging/fragile contexts.

Capabilities/Technical Skills & Knowledge

· Knowledge of key country capacity strengthening concepts and principles relevant to humanitarian/emergency contexts.

· Knowledge of effective models for country capacity strengthening and knowledge transfer.

· Experience working on and/or reviewing national policies and institutional structures.

· Experience in establishing contacts and liaising with partner organisations/companies.

· Ability to explain projects to field counterparts and to communicate with Government and partners clearly and effectively.

· Strong understanding of WFP’s mandate and intervention modalities, programme and project lifecycle tools, implementation and monitoring and evaluation.

· Demonstrated data collection and analytical writing skills.

· Demonstrated ability to analyse and consolidate quantitative and qualitative information to understand national capacities across a wide range of policy and programme areas and identify gap and needs, as well as WFP’s entry points.

· Displays ability to grasp the main hunger problem at the national or subnational level to design context-specific country capacity development programmes.

· Demonstrates ability to draft a realistic budget for WFP’s proposed interventions with national partners.

· Flexibly adapts individual contributions to accommodate changes in direction from colleagues and internal/external changes

· Participates in open dialogue, and values the diverse opinion of others, regardless of background, culture, experience, or country assignment.

· Shows willingness to explore and experiment with new ideas and approaches in own work.

· Ability to establish priorities and to plan, coordinate and monitor own work plan and consistently delivers results within individual scope of work on time, on budget and without errors.

· Commits to upholding individual accountabilities and responsibilities in the face of ever-changing country or functional priorities.

· Demonstrates ability to understand and appropriately respond to and/or escalate needs of external partners.

· Portrays an informed and professional demeanor toward internal and external partners and stakeholders.

· Good operational, analytical and problem solving skills.

· Strong facilitation skills for strategic/analytical workshops and group discussions.

· Demonstrated ability to produce high-quality written outputs on the topic and ability to present them in English.

· Moderate to proficient computer literacy.

Languages:

· English language is the working language of WFP Sudan for the post advertised. Fluency in Arabic is a strong advantage.

Applications must be submitted online.
Application procedures:

To view the job description and apply to this vacancy please go to:
http://i-recruitment.wfp.org/vacancies/15-0020188

• Step 1: Create your online CV
• Step 2: Click on “Apply” to submit your application (please note that you must complete step two in order for your application to be properly submitted).

Only short-listed candidates shall be contacted.