Programme Policy Officer (Value Chain Analyst), Special Service Agreement, Level 8

1. BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

While agriculture is the most employable economic sector in Mozambique, accounting for 75% of total employment, it only constituted 24.5% of GDP in 2018 with USD 136 in total budgets per capital (in nominal terms). Almost 70% of people live in rural areas and smallholder farmers explore around 97% of the country’s cultivated area. With climate-smart agriculture practices, the sector has a high potential to significantly contribute to poverty reduction and food insecurity alleviation. Of the 13 sub-Saharan African countries with comparable data, Mozambique ranks the third lowest for the average share of donor funding to the food and agriculture sector during the same period, at 29%. Mozambique also had the second highest proportion of spending on food and agriculture by subnational governing bodies, with a 36% average between 2009 and 2017 and about 50% in 2018.

Areas with high agricultural potential in the centre and north of the country, including Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Niassa, Tete and Zambezia, tend to exhibit lower spending per capita and experience high poverty. WFP Mozambique, through the implementation of the Country Strategic Plan (CSP, 2017-2021) has been supporting and building smallholder farmers’ capacities to address output market-related challenges (such as lack of access to price information and markets, limited number of traders or existence of brokers that pay lower prices, long distances to markets, lack of transport and low agricultural commodity prices) and improve postharvest management practices (including handling and storage), aiming to ultimately contribute to smallholder farmers’ increased productivity, income and food security.

While there are several policy and strategy reforms aimed at improving production and productivity, limited investments have been made to attract, through inclusive participation, the young population in rural areas to practice agriculture as well as to create on-farm and off-farm employment. A USAID assessment found that limited access to land, water, finance, information, technology and training, less opportunities for markets, combined with social structures and settings, drastically contribute to youth’s perception that agriculture is not profitable hindering young women and men from pursing agriculture as a career. An estimated 41.7% of youth in rural areas have no access to employment opportunities, which has been motivating a rural exodus of young people looking for job opportunities in urban areas and neighbouring countries and swelling the ranks of Non-State Armed Groups (NSAGs) in separate conflicts in the northern and central regions.

In line with the MasterCard Foundation Young Africa Works´ strategy and building from WFP’s existing value chain coordination, WFP firmly believes that this is a crucial opportunity to expand support to smallholder farmers by promoting and increasing the inclusion of youth and women, especially young women, as key actors in the agricultural sector, with a right to remuneration for their work, access to correct and up to date information, and tools to improve their practices and decision-making power both at the community and household level. This will be achieved by understanding and addressing the root causes of low participation and limited integration of youth and women in the agricultural sector (on-farm and off-farm), combined with scaling up interventions that reflect the identified root causes, aimed at making the value chains more inclusive and profitable thus creating formal and informal employment opportunities that are accessible and attractive to youth and more particularly to women.

2. ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:

The value chain officer will report to the Activity 6 manager, and technical support from the RBJ Value Chain Analyst.

With the support of the RBJ Value Chain Analyst, support and conduct value chain assessments and produce related reports for selected commodities in Mozambique with great potential to create employment for youths and women according to WFP’s objectives and operational environment in Mozambique.

Specifically, the incumbent is expected to provide the following deliverables:

• Desk review of available data on selected value chains.
• Brief market assessment to identify local, national, and regional trends, market size, supply and demand gaps, and distribution networks for end products of selected value chains.
• Identify the key stakeholders involved in selected value chains, determine their linkages, levels of influence and their goals
• Assess drivers and constraints along the selected value chains.
• Review the legal and regulatory environment in which the value chain operates focusing on policies, incentives, production and export promotion tools, financing, competition, research, and development.
• Describe the dynamics (relationships, information flow, collaboration) focusing on the linkages among the whole range of chain operations from pre-production (supply of inputs) to marketing.
• Quantify the value chains, focusing on the size and scale of main actors, production volumes.
• Describe the type(s) of aggregation (by land or by individual farmers” produce)
• Describe levels of technologies and mechanization used by chain actors
• Identify performance constraints and challenges to development opportunities:
• Identify development opportunities in the selected value chains
• Assess the potential impact on the livelihoods of youths and women in the development of the selected value chains
• Identify and suggest potential intervention sites with the highest impact on youths and women.
• Formulate a comprehensive value chain development support plan (mention geographical locations, suitable varieties, the talented smallholders, and their investment needs)
• Highlight policies needed to create an enabling environment for the smallholders to excel.
• Suggest potential partner, their roles, and responsibilities for the implementation of the value chain development support plan.
• The Value Chain Officer will submit a succinct report containing all the findings
• Facilitate the technical, operational, and financial execution of the Country Project at the national level, in the prioritized areas.
• Act as Executive Secretary of the meetings of the Project-Country Committee and will be in charge of the organization and the necessary arrangements for holding such meetings.
• Supervise the field actions and training actions of the Country-Project, ensuring its quality, efficiency and effectiveness and the execution of the Project according to the standards, methodologies and procedures established by the WFP;
• Prepare minutes of technical documents necessary for the execution of the Country Project in coordination with the Beyond Cotton Project team and in accordance with the approved Annual Plans.
• Prepare minutes of the Annual Operational Plans, Semiannual Progress Reports and other operational and monitoring and evaluation documents of the Country Project, as well as Terms of Reference for missions and mission reports of the Project, in accordance with the provisions of this Project Document;
• Perform other functions that, within their specialty, are required.
• Oversee the technical direction of the project.

• Coordinate with WFP units involved in this project, including support units (logistics, procurement, finance and administrative units), maintaining a regular communication and closed collaboration between them to ensure an integrated and coordinated approach in the interaction with government, partners and at field level.

• Provide guidance and technical support to the Project in line with policies and strategies of the Government of Mozambique on nutrition, agriculture, gender & social protection, including WFP Country Strategic Plan.

• Contribute to programme implementation learning and monitoring and evaluation through active collaboration with project teams.

• Responsible for supervising the project activities, including assessments, food dispatches and distributions, and reporting.

• Responsible for coordinating with counterparts (cooperating partners, local governments, etc).

• Oversee programme assistants with the implementation of programmatic activities, including the preparation of the field level agreements with WFP cooperating partners, as well as direct supervision of field monitors and preparation of reports.

• Contribute to the learning agenda by writing project background documents, briefs, and presentations, including carrying out relevant literature reviews, landscape analyses, and data analysis.

• Foster technical capacity building of field staff through technical updates, training opportunities, exchange visits, literature sharing, etc.

• Maintain diplomatic and high-quality interactions and clear and consistent communications internally and with partners in the field.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

Education:

1^st level or advanced Degree in Agriculture, Agribusiness, Economics, Supply Chain, or a relevant area

Experience:

Proven experience, minimum of 5 years, in conducting market and value chain analysis/assessment and business research.

Demonstrated experience in similar duties.

Knowledge & Skills:

Excellent inter-personal, communication and facilitation skills.

Exposure to the agricultural marketing environment in Mozambique

Excellent communication, coordination, and facilitations skills.

Strong analytical and report writing skills.

Languages:

Working knowledge (proficiency/Level C) of English is required; Fluency in Portuguese is essential; Other UN languages are an added value