Career Opportunities at Food and Agriculture Organization

VA-003-2017

Contract Type: Personal Service Agreement

Duty Station: Nairobi

Organizational Unit: FAO Representation Office in Kenya

Duration: 15 days when actually employed

Eligible Candidates: Kenyan nationals

Anticipated start date: April 2017

Background

Agriculture is the mainstay for many African countries; however, the agricultural sector is continuously underperforming in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is partly, due to the fact that there are substantial rural gender inequalities, whereby rural women have limited access to critical resources, inputs, services and infrastructure they need to be more productive. This continues despite the evidence that shows just by giving women the same access as men to agricultural inputs like fertilizers and improved seeds could increase production substantially. Many countries in the region, together with development partners such as FAO, are increasingly committed to accelerating rural women’s empowerment through targeted interventions. Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls lies at the centre of the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development. In addition to the targets for SDG5 “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”, it is reflected and mainstreamed across all 17 SDGs. FAO recognizes that gender equality and the empowerment of rural women is inextricably linked to the strengthening of food systems to address hunger, malnutrition, and to achieve real gains for lives and livelihoods of rural people.

In developing countries, women make up 45% of the agricultural labour force, ranging from 20% in Latin America to up to 60% in parts of Africa and Asia. Rural women’s roles span from being cultivators on their own or others’ plots – as unpaid or paid workers, employees or employers – to being wage labourers in on- and off-farm and entrepreneurs. Women play also a central role in food processing and marketing, as well as in household maintenance, caring for children and the elderly, ensuring nutrition diversity and minimizing food loss and waste. More sustained efforts to invest in rural women’s capacities as key agents of change are needed to achieve the goal of freeing the world from hunger and extreme poverty, while leaving no one behind.

Enabling and empowering rural women therefore translates into improved overall well-being for children, households and communities, which contributes to building human capital for future generations and to long-term social and economic growth. Empowering rural women and girls is therefore not only critical for agricultural development and health/nutritional improvement, but also crucial to social and economic progress, and to sustainable development overall.

Research, including the recently released 2016 Global Nutrition Report, has shown that as more women are empowered through education and skills development, the benefits translate not only into livelihood, improving the financial and social health of the family, but also to the overall wellness and nutrition status of their spouse, children and other family members thus contributing greatly to improved food security and reduction in child malnutrition.

Correspondingly, although women make up the majority workforce in the agriculture sector in the sub-Saharan Africa, they are still relegated to subsistence farming which is also compromised with the heavy un paid care and domestic workload in the households, and the inadequate access/ownership to the capital assets like land and finances which deprives them an opportunity to improve on their livelihoods. According to the Africa Human Development Report (UNDP, 2016), these burdens and deprivations drive women and the entire families into inter-generational poverty and low human development.

It is for this reason that FAO wishes to recruit a consultant to develop a regional proposal on promoting rural women’s economic empowerment in selected sites in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

Reporting line and specific tasks

Under the overall supervision of the FAO Representative in Kenya and direct supervision of the Gender and Livelihood Officer, the consultant will undertake the following tasks:

• Review/literature review of agriculture and nutrition related documents in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to identify the key rural gender inequalities and potential entry points for promoting rural women’s economic empowerment in each country. Document good practices/initiatives in the three countries on women economic empowerment focusing on rural women’s improved food and nutrition security;
  increased income and strengthened entrepreneurship and access to market opportunities;
  improved participation and leadership in formal and informal organizations and at community level;
  Gender responsive policy environment for the economic empowerment of rural women
• Carry out a stakeholder analysis in order to help FAO identify potential partners in the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women in agriculture.
• Prepare a project proposal on “Economic Empowerment of Rural women to reduce Poverty, Hunger and Malnutrition” covering the three countries and contextualizing the issues.
• Incorporate feedback and finalize the proposal with detailed budget and implementation plan.
• Prepare a project proposal on “Economic Empowerment of Rural women to reduce Poverty, Hunger and Malnutrition” covering the three countries and contextualizing the issues.
• Incorporate feedback and finalize the proposal with detailed budget and implementation plan.

Minimum Requirements

Academic Qualifications

• Advanced university degree in Sociology, Social Sciences, Economics, Development Economics, or other related disciplines

Technical Competencies and Experience Requirements

• Over 5 years of significant experience in analysing and integrating the perspective of gender equality in nutrition sensitive agriculture and programme formulation in the context of agriculture and rural development and experience in socio-economic and gender analysis
• Experience working in the Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania agriculture or rural development sector– working experience with the Ministry of Agriculture, key line ministries and related institutions in either of the countries is an added advantage
• Excellent knowledge of the key gender equality, social equity and women’s empowerment issues in the region, in the context of agriculture and rural development
• Demonstrated ability (through publications in English language) to produce written analysis of socio-economic and gender issues
• Extensive knowledge of the UN System, its working and programming mechanisms, familiarity with FAO’s work would be an asset
• Excellent oral and written English language skills

Contract Type: Personal Service Agreement

Duty Station: Nairobi

Organizational Unit: FAO Representation Office in Kenya

Duration: 10 months when actually employed

Eligible Candidates: Kenyan nationals

Anticipated start date: April 2017

Background

Under the current demographic trends, the mandate of FAO is facing challenges of paramount importance: how to supply nutritious and healthy food to city dwellers/users equally across all sectors. In the past decades the attention of development partners, including FAO has mainly focused on the supply side in the rural areas. While this remains a vital element of an overall strategy for enhancing the food and nutrition security, it is however not sufficient to address the particular intrinsic factors associated with food security in cities. This is a real concern, recognized at international level, given the urbanization rate encountered today, with estimates indicating that two thirds of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050. The New Urban Agenda (NUA), that is the new global political commitment to the sustainable development of towns, cities and other human settlements for the next two decades, adopted during the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), held in Quito in October 2016, clearly recognizes the centrality of food and nutrition security and food system planning. The current food system urgently needs changes, warranting alternatives in a way that produce sustainable, inclusive and environmentally friendly solutions to the emerging food needs in cities.

Within this framework, FAO is going to implement the NADHALI Project “Developing Sustainable Food Systems for urban areas: Pilot Works in Nairobi (Kenya), Dhaka (Bangladesh), and Lima (Peru)” that has the goal of supporting the responsible authorities in urban areas on developing food system planning as key pillar for “making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” [SDG Goal11] and “Ending hunger and achieving food security and nutrition [SDG-Goal 2]

Reporting Line

The general objective of the assignment is to develop and pilot-test a tool for food system rapid appraisal for cities (Rapid Urban Food System Appraisal Tool – RUFSAT) aiming at creating evidence on food systems and supporting decision making towards their greater sustainability. The tool will provide insight about not only the actors and their activities within the urban areas, but also about the “city food shed” and about the smallholder producers given their importance for an integrated sustainable development. In addition, the consultant will assist in establishing the Multi-Stakeholders Food Systems Planning Platform (MFSPP) at local level, disseminate the RUFSAT tool, and seek feedback from members for finalization.

Under the overall supervision of the FAO Representative in Kenya and direct supervision of the Project/MFSPP Coordinator, the consultant will have data collection, analysis, dissemination and reporting responsibilities and developing a user-friendly tool for use by urban food systems stakeholders. He/she will be involved in work being developed by other consultants, by local governments focal points and will be equally responsible for the project’s deliveries. The consultant in general will work in collaboration with other officers and consultants that are involved in different activities related to the project. The consultant will work particularly in close collaboration with the national Project Coordinator and the NADHALI Rome Coordination and Technical Unit as well as with the Multi-stakeholders Food Systems Planning Platform.

Specific Tasks

The specific key tasks of the consultant’s assignment are the following:

• Liaise with Local Governments and establish a local supporting team to the eventual collection of data.
• Support finalization of an initial draft of RUFSAT, and lead adaptation to local needs
• Secondary data analysis (static and time-series) including estimation of products flows and their sources, food insecurity levels, institutional markets, intra-city production and processing, formal and informal channels, health status, retail and food services, demography, urban poverty, slums, urban sprawl and general city-region overview.
• Collaborate with the Project Coordinator to undertake a rapid qualitative analysis of the community food environment and gap analysis and secondary data analysis on food system (from production to consumption)
• Identify priority areas (food distribution, food waste etc.…), their root causes and potential upgrading solutions.Apply food value chain or market systems analysis for some prioritized products or markets.
• Combine the undertaken analysis with the rapid qualitative analysis on the community food environment (developed by the MFSPP Coordinator)
• Conducting the data collection (geo-referenced) and analysis (including the spatial analysis) for consumers and other food related actors within selected areas.
• Disseminate the RUFSAT tool to MFSPP and seed feedback for finalization of the tool.
• Supporting the Multi-stakeholders Food Systems Planning Platform (MFSPP) on developing the preliminary food system action plan (vision, mission, strategy, focus areas etc....)
• Work closely with the Project/MFPP Coordinator and the Rome Coordination and Technical Unit in drafting the methodology for the Rapid Urban Food System Appraisal Tool – RUFSAT
• Provide reports as requested.
• Support the Project/MFSPP Coordinator in the organization of regional seminar for presenting the project results.

Minimum Requirements

Academic Qualifications

• Degree in economics, agribusiness, or pertinent discipline with expertise in data collection and spatial analysis with considerable knowledge of food environment issues. Postgraduate degree preferred.

Technical Competencies and Experience Requirements

• At least 5 years of working experience on data collection and spatial analysis at urban level with International Organizations, preferably UN.
• Previous experience in food value chain analysis
• Understanding the local context and familiarity in working with local governmental institutions.
• Demonstrated capacity to speak and write fluent English and the Kiswahili language
• Experience in collecting and analyzing gender and nutrition issues in food value chains will be an added advantage