Senior Economist Project Manager

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Description

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The Agrifood Economics Division (ESA) conducts economic research and policy analysis and provides evidence-based support to national, regional and global policy processes and initiatives related to monitoring and analysing food and agricultural policies, agribusiness and value chain development, rural transformation and poverty, food security and nutrition information and analysis, resilience, bioeconomy and climate-smart agriculture. The Division also leads the production of two FAO flagship publications: The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) and the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI).
The post is located at FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy, in the Monitoring and Analysing Food and Agricultural Policies (MAFAP) programme within ESA. The MAFAP programme seeks to establish country owned and sustainable systems to monitor, analyse, and reform food and agricultural policies for more sustainable, effective, efficient and inclusive policy frameworks for agrifood systems. MAFAP currently focus primarily on sub-Saharan Africa, with increasing policy support to countries in the Near East and South Asia. MAFAP works with government institutions, research organizations and other partners to create sustainable policy monitoring systems and carry out a consistent set of policy and public expenditure analyses across a wide range of agricultural value chains. MAFAP analyses are used to inform targeted food and agricultural policy reforms that will result in a more conducive environment for agricultural investment and productivity growth, especially for smallholder farmers. As such, MAFAP supports most of FAO strategic objectives, and in particular those of enabling inclusive and efficient agrifood systems and helping eliminate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition.
The Senior Economist (Project Manager – MAFAP) will manage the MAFAP programme, ensuring cost-effective management of the human and financial resources allocated to the programme and that outputs and products are delivered as described in the programme’s result framework. To do this he/she will provide guidance for the MAFAP team to engage in effective policy analysis, advice and advocacy, as well as in the formulation and implementation of engagement strategies to ensure that technical analyses are used for food and agricultural policy reform in partner countries. The Senior Economist (Project Manager – MAFAP) will be extensively familiarized with quantitative techniques for policy analysis, and also with policy advice and advocacy efforts in an international development setting, preferably on agricultural and/or food security and nutrition policy issues.
Leadership and conceptual thinking for the development and implementation of comprehensive technical, statistical and/or analytical frameworks to support the programme of work and related products, projects and services in accordance with the FAO Strategic Framework.

Key Functions:

• Plans, manages, or leads highly specialized or multidisciplinary teams, leads, coordinates, and/or participates on Organization-wide, cross-divisional committees, project teams, and working groups, and/or provides technical leadership/secretariat services on technical networks and/or international technical policy and standard setting bodies.
• Analyses global and country specific requirements as well as agricultural, economic, social and environmental factors to provide critical input into the FAO Strategic Framework, Programme of Work as well as Detailed Work Plans and the supporting budgets and/or resourcing strategies.
• Implements and monitors work programmes involving the conception and development of comprehensive statistical and/or analytical frameworks including early warning, medium and long term plans and strategies, leading edge tools, methods, systems and databases, critical indicators, and/or policy models, etc.
• Oversees and reviews data collection, validation, analysis and reporting activities to support the development of technical standards, international instruments, innovation, FAO flagship publications/yearbooks, and/or on-going programme development as well as technical and/or policy advisory services.
• Provides technical and policy advice to Members and technical support to Decentralized Offices in the development and implementation of their programmes of work.
• Plans, organizes and participates in capacity development activities involving the provision of advice, technical assistance projects, training workshops, seminars, and meetings as well as oversees the development of related materials, on-line tools and information kits.
• Represents the Organization at international/inter-governmental meetings and conferences, advocates strategic partnerships, best practices, and increased policy dialogue and develops and negotiates effective working relationships/consensus and agreements with international and national partners.
• Leads and/or participates in resource mobilization activities in accordance with the FAO Corporate Strategy.

Specific Functions:

• Provides technical leadership, strategic vision, advice, and quality control during the implementation of the programme.
• Ensures a cost-effective use of the financial and human resources allocated to the programme.
• Ensures the programme provides policy monitoring on food and agriculture and carries out a consistent set of policy and public expenditure analyses across a wide range of agricultural value chains in beneficiary countries; including sectoral and cross-sectoral policy analysis to ascertain their impact on food security and nutrition.
• Leads and participates in the technical work of the project in maintaining a system of indicators to monitor food and agricultural policies in participating countries, and in further developing its scope as necessary, and in facilitating policy dialogue within and between participating countries and their development partners.
• Develops and maintains effective working relationships with senior officials from national governments, development partners, regional organizations and project partner institutions.
• Establishes contacts and seeks collaboration and synergies with other initiatives and activities within and outside FAO that are relevant to the programme and its objectives.
• Mobilizes additional resources to support and expand the activities of the project, particularly in relation to building and institutionalization of capacity within countries,
• Supports the mainstreaming and institutionalization of activities carried out by the MAFAP programme within FAO, including through establishing effective partnerships with other technical units of the Organization.
• Ensures visibility for MAFAP and its work among stakeholders, partners and donors, including at high levels.
• Performs other related duties as required.

Candidates Will Be Assessed Against The Following:

Minimum Requirements:

• Advanced university degree in economics, agricultural economics, development economics, development studies or a related field.
• Ten years of relevant experience in food and agricultural policy, including in Sub-Saharan Africa, with particular emphasis on monitoring and/or analysing food and agricultural policies, and in programme management in these areas of work.
• Working knowledge (proficient- level C) of English and limited knowledge (intermediate – level B) of one of the other official FAO languages (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish).

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 that combines administrative management and technical leadership of large programmes.
• Extent and relevance of experience in measuring and tracking food and agricultural policies, ideally incentives/disincentives that affect the prices of key agricultural commodities as well as the level and composition of public expenditure related to agriculture,
• Extent and relevance of experience managing and guiding teams that develop policy analysis using quantitative tools (economy-wide modeling, microsimulation, econometric modeling, impact assessment, or others).
• Extent and relevance of experience in supporting public policy, including comparing policy objectives, public expenditure and policy impact to identify opportunities for making policies more coherent, and priorities for investment.
• Extent and relevance of experience in supporting decision makers in developing countries in articulating costs and benefits of alternative policy options to promote suitable reforms in the food and agriculture sector.
• Extent and relevance of experience and skills in project management, resource mobilization, and leading and working successfully in multidisciplinary and multi-cultural teams.
• Extent and relevance of experience in working with senior government officials, development partners, international organizations and local institutions in developing countries.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills for diverse audiences in English (and ideally French), including publications within the field of food and agricultural policy.
• Track record of driving policy change on development issues.
• Extent and relevance of academic qualifications.

Source: https://jobs.fao.org/careersection/fao_external/jobdetail.ftl?job=2302681

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