Organizational Setting

The FAO Subregional Office for the Pacific Islands (SAP) was established in 1996 in Samoa to coordinate the FAO work in 13 member countries in the Pacific subregion – Cook Islands, Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and one Associate Member, Tokelau. SAP is responsible for developing, implementing and overseeing programmes and projects to address food security, nutrition, agriculture, and rural development priorities. It develops and maintains relations with subregion wide institutions and entities. The Subregional Office is a subsidiary of FAO’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAP) in Bangkok.

The objective of the assignment is to contribute to FAO’s support to the national agri-food systems transformation in Micronesian countries and the effective coordination of FAOs program portfolio, including projects implementation, resources mobilization and partnership in these countries.

Reporting Lines

The Specialist on Agrifood Systems Transformation and for Micronesian Program Coordination (it’s called “the Specialist” afterwards) will be under the direct supervision of the FAO Sub Regional Coordinator.

Technical Focus

The Specialist will provide an overall strategic vision for the successful implementation of FAO’s activities in line with UNSDCF, FAO’s Strategic Framework, and Pacific CPF. He/She will also provide critical input, technical support and decisive planning for projects activities, as well as all-embracing coordination of the projects activities in Micronesia. As the programme coordinator, he/she will be responsible of reporting and presentation of the activities to FAO Management, the donor and the Resident Coordinator’s office whenever it is needed.

Tasks and responsibilities

•    Act as FAO’s main focal point in the Northern Pacific and attend the UNCT meetings with the requests and under overall guidance of the SAP SRC.
•    Represent FAO at fora and networks, technical meetings related to agriculture, food security, emergency response and ensure close collaboration and liaison with UN MCO, organizations, regional organizations, NGOs, donors and government partners as appropriate;
•    Coordinate respondence to governments’ requests for agriculture, food security, emergency and resilience programming assistance;
•    Coordinate and support the implementation of ongoing agriculture, food security, emergency projects across the Northern Pacific sub-region.
•    Coordinate resource mobilization and partnership aimed at strengthening FAO internal capacity to address relevant partners’ needs;
•    Lead the coordination and organization of WFD celebration events from FAO’s end and contribute to the overall FAO visibility and advocacy activities.
•    Participate in the preparation and presentation of agriculture, food security, emergency project concept notes, proposals and/ or other documents for financial support to interested donors or other partners in the UN system in close collaboration with SAP MDT and relevant LTOs
•    Liaise with relevant FAO LTOs, technical units to ensure technical quality in FAO projects implementation and programmes activities in the Northern Pacific;
•    Provide necessary inputs to agriculture, food security, emergency projects and programmes to the FAO HQ, regional and subregional communication officer for newsletters, press releases, and other communication and visibility materials;
•    Support the conducting of assessments, and provide advice and support to monitoring and evaluation of FAO’s interventions across the Micronesian countries.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements  

•    Bachelor degree Development Studies, Food and Nutrition Security, Agriculture, Fisheries, Rural Development, Business, Economics, Sociology, Political Science, or a related field or relevant experience.
•    At least 7 years of experience in the development and implementation of agriculture, food security or/and resilience programming.
•    Working knowledge (level C) of English, French or Spanish and limited knowledge (level B) of one of the other two or Arabic, Chinese, Russian

FAO Core Competencies

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

Technical/Functional Skills

•    Work experience in more than one country or area of work
•    Able to work under pressure and adapt to an evolving and complex humanitarian context and within multidisciplinary and different cultural background teams.
•    Excellent organizational skills
•    Experience in formulation, coordination, implementation, data analysis and interpretation and reporting for assessment processes.
•    Good communication skills, both verbal and written.
•    Ability to work and plan at strategic as well as operational levels.
•    Understanding of the international humanitarian response architecture, including coordination mechanisms, humanitarian reform and action, and funding mechanisms.
•    Facilitation and communication: experience of high-level coordination and chairing of meetings; ability to work with a diverse group of stakeholders and develop consensus and joint working;

Selection Criteria

•    Experience in proposal/project design and implementation.
•    Experience or knowledge of agriculture, food security, rural development and institutional capacity building.
•    Work experience in more than one country or area of work
•    Experience working across Pacific Island nations or small island developing states would be well-regarded.