Procurement Officer at World Food Programme (WFP): (Deadline 5 June 2022)

Procurement Officer at World Food Programme (WFP): (Deadline 5 June 2022)

Career Opportunities: Procurement Officer, Service Contract , Level 9, Kigali (164850)

WFP celebrates and embraces diversity. It is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all its employees and encourages qualified candidates to apply irrespective of race, colour, national origin, ethnic or social background, genetic information, gender, gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, religion or belief, HIV status or disability.

ABOUT WFP

The United Nations World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide.  The mission of WFP is to help the world achieve Zero Hunger in our lifetimes.  Every day, WFP works worldwide to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry and that the poorest and most vulnerable, particularly women and children, can access the nutritious food they need.

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is the world’s largest humanitarian agency, fighting hunger worldwide. WFP Rwanda works in partnership with the Government and other stakeholders through the direct implementation of integrated programmes targeting the most vulnerable people and will progressively shift towards building national capacity to formulate, manage and implement programmes for achieving zero hunger. In implementing its activities, WFP will bridge the humanitarian–development nexus and leverage its extensive experience and the contributions it has made in Rwanda over many decades in order to achieve five strategic outcomes:

1. Refugees and returnees in Rwanda always have access to adequate and nutritious food.
2. Vulnerable populations in food-insecure communities and areas have improved access to adequate and nutritious food all year.
3. Children under 5, adolescents and pregnant and nursing women and girls in Rwanda have improved access to nutritious foods and services that enable them to meet their nutrition needs all year.
4. Smallholder farmers, especially women, have increased marketable surplus and access to agricultural markets through efficient supply chains by 2030.
5. The Government of Rwanda and the humanitarian community is provided with adequate, timely, cost-efficient and agile supply chain services and expertise necessary to effectively respond to emergency crisis.

WFP Rwanda, Under Strategic Outcome 2, has close engagement in the national school feeding agenda. WFP provides school feeding in food insecure areas and, at the same time, acts as a key technical partner of the Government of Rwanda in developing and expanding the National School Feeding Programme (NSFP) that was launched in 2021, providing school meals in all public schools from pre-primary to the secondary level funded from the national budget. This builds on long-standing collaboration between WFP and the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) and other ministries on the design of the programme and its decentralized procurement model. This procurement model empowers schools to take the lead in procuring the ingredients for school meals in their local markets, with a preference given to smallholder cooperatives as suppliers. WFP’s technical assistance has a specific focus on strengthening this procurement model through periodic reviews, technical advice and capacity strengthening at the central and decentralized levels.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

In 2020, WFP launched a 3-year initiative called the Power of Procurement for Nutrition (PP4N) with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, which focuses on leveraging institutional food procurement for school feeding to become a major promoter for food and nutrition security, create at-scale demand necessary to enable at-scale supply, jumpstart sustainable virtuous cycles that ignite commercial markets and lead to affordable healthy diets for all. The project’s vision is to enable a nutrition-positive, budget-neutral approach to improving the diets of the most vulnerable while growing the market for nutritious foods and in the long term aims to incorporate carbon and environmental neutrality. PP4N is based on 4 pillars:
1). Good Food Procurement: supply of nutritious and safe food, capacity strengthening on food supply chain management and procurement, with focus on food safety and quality and social and behavior change communications,
2). Good Food Policy: policy influencing and advocacy around nutrition in public procurement and building systems and capacities for the safe and cost-efficient utilization of other nutritious foods,
3). Good Food Data: invest in areas of evidence deemed necessary like Global Meal Quality Score (GMQS) and market assessments and
4). Good Food Innovation: identify and test different models for delivery of affordable nutritious meals for school children e.g., renewable energy, new menu options etc.
Incumbent will be responsible for implementing and overseeing activities related to pillar 1 Good Food Procurement.
To collect, analyse and report on information to maximise efficiency of procurement operations and activities.

COUNTRY CONTEXT AND RESPONSE

In the 2020/2021 school year, the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) rolled out a nationwide scale up of the government school feeding programme that now reaches 3.3 million pre-primary, primary and secondary students in public schools in the 2021/2022 school year. The national strategic vision of school feeding in Rwanda is for all school children to achieve their full development potential through a sustainable school feeding program that provides adequate and nutritious meals at school. This plan entails providing nutritious and locally sourced meals to schools, with foods purchased from smallholder farmer cooperatives and local markets. To support the National School Feeding program (NSFP) the GoR has:

• constructed more than 2,600 new school kitchens
• built more than 5,000 improved firewood stoves (muvelo) and is piloting LGP stoves for schools in 30 selected schools (one in each of Rwanda’s 30 districts).
• Developed and distributed the School Feeding Operational Guidelines which provide guidance on meal composition, meal costs, procurement of foods, food management, and meal preparation, among other key areas.

This national scale-up has led to a need to better understand and analyze current procurement models, and identify potential procurement models that are relevant and sustainable in Rwanda with a focus on locally sourced fresh fruits and vegetables, and biofortified foods.

JOB PURPOSE

Provide technical expertise and guidance to WFP, the Government of Rwanda, and stakeholders engaged in public food procurement for school feeding, with a view to develop cost-efficient, nutrition-sensitive procurement models, systems and capacities in the National School Feeding Programme.
This position will be based in WFP Rwanda Country Office, Kigali Duty Station, and the incumbent will work will working closely with WFP Procurement staff, and the School Feeding team under Strategic Outcome 2. Incumbent will be under the overall supervision of the WFP Head of Supply Chain. Of importance, incumbent will transition to sit in the Government of Rwanda as an advisor on procurement system in year 2.

ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES

This position of the Senior Expert Public Procurement will be part of the Supply Chain Management team based in WFP’s Country Office in Kigali, Rwanda and will contribute to the review of national procurement models for school feeding.
1.Provide technical expertise and assistance to stakeholders engaged in public food procurement, school procurement models and systems.
2.Lead the review of the current procurement system and early experiences in the National School Feeding Programme to identify areas for improvement.
3.Provide guidance to key government ministries and public agencies to develop procurement models and systems in school feeding.
4. In partnership with stakeholders develop avenues for WFP school meals to transition using wholegrain or other good food such as fish or fresh foods in a cost neutral manner, and determine volumes required.
5.Provide guidance to schools to develop a procurement strategy or plan specialist procurement initiatives that support effective and cost optimizing purchase decisions.
6.Provide oversight, guidance and support on implementing best practice procurement policies and procedures, in compliance with public procurement standards and regulations.
7.Participate in policy dialogue and investment in capacity strengthening around public food procurement in Rwanda as a catalyst of food and nutrition security, to complement the strong policy focusing on production and food supply
8.Support in identification of vendors and methods to develop the capacity of local suppliers to meet requirements for fortified wholegrain maize meal and other good foods and facilitate training session for new vendors.
9. Guide on how to manage and ensure effective relationships with vendors/suppliers to ensure the value of food delivered is maximized
10.Guide and support on the best contract monitoring tools; mainly on monitoring and verifying food delivered
11.Liase with quality assurance and WFP quality focal person to ensure quality control practices are implemented by organizing joint training sessions for schools with focus on food safety
12.Build capacity of school management other and external partners to take a strategic and proactive approach to the procurement of food e.g., through provision of training sessions
13.Guide on the development of accurate and timely reports of procurement activities prepared to facilitate informed decision making and consistency of information to present to stakeholders, leading to evidence based procurement structures.
14.Participate in market assessment and other research activities to expand the data around how various nutritious food supply chains and markets would respond to the demand generated through school feeding
15. Supervise the Roving Junior Public Procurement Officer

DELIVERABLES AT THE END OF THE CONTRACT:

• Develop a school feeding procurement review/lessons learnt document
• Dissemination of lessons learned for procurement models to government ministries and stakeholders.
• Support in quality improvement of trainings on procurement and nutritious meal preparation delivered at sector and school levels

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education: Advanced University degree in Economics, Commerce, Business Administration, Engineering, Legal or Accounting or other relevant field, or First University degree with additional relevant work experience and/or training/courses.
Experience: At least 5 years of post-graduate professional progressive experience in Procurement, Supply Chain, Logistics, Purchasing, Data Management/Analytics and/or related field. Experience working with government entities is desirable.
Knowledge & Skills: Extensive proven knowledge of procurement practice and procedures

• At least 5 years in a procurement and contracts post in Rwanda
• Familiarity with procurement systems used in Rwanda and the food market
• Experience with procurement and contracts administration under UN funded programmes is desirable
• Ability to write clearly, and strong communication and presentation skills
• Leadership skills is highly desirable

Languages:    Must have fluency in English, Kinyarwanda is desirable

OTHER SPECIFIC JOB REQUIREMENTS

This section is optional to describe additional responsibilities & knowledge required for the specific job.

FUNCTIONAL CAPABILITIES

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

JOB TITLE: Procurement Officer
TYPE OF CONTRACT: Service Contract (SC)
LEVEL: SC 9
DUTY STATION (City, Country): Kigali, Rwanda
DURATION: 1 Year Renewable

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

The deadline for receiving applications is on 5th June 2022 at 23:59 CAT

All employment decisions are made on the basis of organizational needs, job requirements, merit, and individual qualifications. WFP is committed to providing an inclusive work environment free of sexual exploitation and abuse, all forms of discrimination, any kind of harassment, sexual harassment, and abuse of authority. Therefore, all selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

No appointment under any kind of contract will be offered to members of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), FAO Finance Committee, WFP External Auditor, WFP Audit Committee, Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) and other similar bodies within the United Nations system with oversight responsibilities over WFP, both during their service and within three years of ceasing that service.

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