Consultant - Public Policy & Strategy Consultant at World Food Programme (WFP)

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education:

A master’s degree or PhD in a field related to Public Policy (Public Policy/Administration economics, social sciences, public policy, Political Science/International relations or development policy).

Experience:

A minimum of 10 years work experience in facilitating processes for, or creating, establishing policies and strategies, plans, regulations in social and economic development, including legal, policy and economic governance.

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

As part of WFP’s capacity strengthening work, WFP intends to procure the services of a consultant to guide the process of developing smallholder procurement strategies for Baringo and Turkana county governments. This in line with WFP’s commitments to increasingly promote smallholder procurement to increase production and increase incomes of this majority in Kenya’s agricultural production.

JOB PURPOSE

The objective of this consultancy is to support the Baringo and Turkana county governments to develop a guiding and implementation strategy for preferred public procurement of smallholder produce. The strategy should provide the practical steps and the legal environment to enable the county government to legally mandate food procurement as a percentage, or mandating specific programmes for ECDE, health or relief programmes to buy food only from smallholder farmers (groups).  

The scope and focus of the assignment are to provide technical, strategic and facilitation support to drafting the policy and strategy (implementation framework). After the initial document and current policy review, the consultant will develop an analysis framework and work plan to guide the assessment and the development of the plan.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

• Lead the mapping of the current public preferred purchases programmes/policies of the government and distil their provisions, with lessons from the Kenya national level or other preferred/ dedicated procurement programmes including those focusing on smallholders in other countries; 
• Map out other policies and legislations in the other sectors that might require harmonization with the proposed strategy
• Lead the development and refine the financing and purchase options for strategy
• Identify obstacles to adoption of the strategy and make clear recommendations for addressing them
• Develop/recommend/capture the most appropriate institutional arrangement for the delivery of smallholder preferred procurement at both levels of government.
• Conduct and provide technical assistance for the holding of consultation workshops at regional level with key stakeholders, to agree on an outline as well as components of a smallholder procurement strategy
• Convene workshops of/with relevant county technical staff to finalise a draft strategy by providing technical and strategic assistance;

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (Continued)Long Description

• Lead and manage the development of a clear and sustainable implementation plan for the strategy;
• Align the strategy to the to the county policies, programmes and priorities;
• Convene and facilitate a stakeholder validation with a wider audience of technical staff, and a buy-in workshop with relevant county political leaders to take their input and refine the strategy
• Make representations to the relevant departmental committee for adoption of strategy
• Finalise strategy brief ready for presentation to the county

4Ps CORE ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITIES

Purpose

• Understand and communicate the Strategic Objectives: Coaches team in the most effective ways to communicate WFP’s Strategic Objectives to WFP team and partners in the field.
•  Be a force for positive change: Implements new methods or tools to improve team’s work processes and productivity.
•  Make the mission inspiring to our team: Maps team’s activities and tasks to specific successes in beneficiary communities to showcase positive impact.
•  Make our mission visible in everyday actions: Explains to teammates how each unit contributes to the overall WFP mission.

People

• Look for ways to strengthen people's skills: Identifies skill development opportunities such as training modules or on-the-job experiences for self, colleagues and direct reports.
•  Create an inclusive culture: Facilitates team building activities to build rapport in own unit.
•  Be a coach & provide constructive feedback: Facilitates the pairing of junior colleagues with coaches within own team.
•  Create an “I will”/”We will” spirit: Proactively anticipates potential challenges and develops mitigation plans to ensure that team meets goals and targets.

Performance

• Encourage innovation & creative solutions: Identifies opportunities to be creative in own work and to help team be more innovative and accurate in their respective tasks and areas of work.
•  Focus on getting results: Monitors team’s deliverables and provides feedback to ensure outcomes are delivered consistently and accurately.
•  Make commitments and make good on commitments: Provides accurate guidance to team on expected responsibilities and tasks, whilst also upholding own commitment to the team.
•  Be Decisive: Sets an example and provides guidance to junior team members on when to escalate issues when faced with challenging issues in the workplace or in the field.

Partnership

• Connect and share across WFP units: Facilitates partnerships with other WFP units to accomplish missions in the field.
•  Build strong external partnerships: Sets an example and provides guidance to team on how to build relationships with external partners.
•  Be politically agile & adaptable: Articulates to colleagues or direct reports the value of contributing to other WFP teams and agency partnerships in fulfilling WFP’s goals and objectives.
•  Be clear about the value WFP brings to partnerships: Organizes, monitors, and prioritizes own and team’s efforts to ensure that they will fulfil the needs of internal and external partners.

FUNCTIONAL CAPABILITIES

Working Relationships: The consultant will work under the overall supervision of the Food Systems and Resilient Livelihoods Outcome Manager and direct supervision of the Activity 4 Manager (Market Access and Supply Chain Support).  Additionally, for this purpose, the County government will constitute a Technical Working Group of stakeholders led by the Department of Agriculture that will provide oversight and guidance and will endorse outputs and final deliverables

OTHER SPECIFIC JOB REQUIREMENTS: Methodology & Process

• Submit to WFP a concept note on the strategy including details about critical issues and the methodology he/she will use to conduct this assignment. The concept note shall include the methodology that he/she will have adopted.
• The methodology should consist of document review, interviews, analysis and synthesis presented in report, workshop facilitation and strategic plan drafting. The consultant will first familiarize him/herself thoroughly with the legal and policy framework at international, national county levels to fully understand the current provisions for smallholder or other preferred public procurements schemes

OUTPUTS / DELIVERABLES

• An approved inception report for the entire process including (i) minutes of the inception workshop and (ii) revised methodology and (iii) an approved work plan
• Draft version of a smallholder procurement strategy based on in depth consultations with all involved key stakeholders and reading and synthesis of related policy in Kenya and lessons from other countries with functional smallholder procurement policies/strategies  
• Convening and facilitating 3-5 stakeholders’ meetings/workshops
• Final version of county smallholder procurement strategy and its implementation plan

DESIRED EXPERIENCES FOR ENTRY INTO THE ROLE

• Previous experience in strategic planning in development sector including development of plans, policies and strategies and policy development or program implementation at a national level,
• Ability to work independently and respond to feedback in a timely and professional manner,
• Experience and leadership of public policy development process with national and county governments;
• Previous research experience on poverty aid/development, experience in quantitative or qualitative data collection and analysis,
• Sound team and workflow management and effective facilitation skills.
• Previous work experience working with and advising with public sector counterparts in national, regional government levels
• Capacity to hold policy dialogue with, and influencing and collaborating with different actors;
• Specific agriculture policy experience and understanding of smallholder farmer needs, agriculture markets development is an added advantage;
• Advanced research, analytical and report writing skills and ability to clearly present findings and drawing practical conclusions and implementable recommendations
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English are required.  Knowledge of Kiswahili is an advantage.