Partnerships Consultant

JOB TITLE: Partnerships Officer

TYPE OF CONTRACT: Consultancy

UNIT/DIVISION: School Meals and Social Protection Service (PPG-S) – School Meals Coalition

DUTY STATION (City, Country): Rome, Italy

DURATION: 11 months

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:

WFP provides school meals to an average of 18 million children every year and works with governments to design and implement nationally owned, financially sustainable school feeding programmes. These technical assistance activities provide support to programmes covering over 39 million schoolchildren worldwide.

In support of the Sustainable Development Goals and aligned with current global evidence and consensus on the importance of supporting the health and nutrition of school children, WFP’s vision is to ensure that all vulnerable children have regular access to food in schools by 2030.

As per WFP’s School Feeding Strategy (2020-2030), the School Meals and Social Protection Service (PPG-S) works toward this vision by supporting the implementation of school feeding programmes, but more importantly and more broadly, by supporting governments to scale up their own programmes.

WFP will ensure these children are reached over the next decade through a combination of efforts including advocacy, technical support and direct operational assistance.

The School Meals Coalition, of which WFP is the Secretariat, is widely recognized as one of the most successful multilateral initiatives of recent times, and has already achieved significant results. In the last two years, the coverage of school meal programmes has increased to 418 million children, from 388 million children in 2020.

An additional US$ 5 billion in domestic funding has been mobilized for the programmes, and 4 million jobs have been created.

PPG-S works through various corporate teams tasked to identify multiple channels to expand the current funding and proactively search out and leverage new funding for school feeding from private sector partners, international financial institutions, innovative financing, host governments, multilateral funds, and traditional donors, including their finance, development, health and education sectors.

This role will support WFP to widen the resource base for school feeding with new donors and opportunities. It is based within the School Meals Coalition Secretariat Resource Mobilization team, which also actively supports the global coalition.

In addition, this role will provide strategic advice, manage the flow of relevant information between WFP and partners, and make clear recommendations for synergies that maximize results, partnerships, and funding opportunities.

ACCOUNTABILITIES / RESPONSIBILITIES:

1. Lead traditional Donor Portfolio: managing traditional fundraising opportunities for the School Meals Coalition and its Initiatives in support of national governments to overcome challenges in implementing effective school meal programmes.
2. Donor Intelligence: Lead efforts in curating resource mobilization strategies and prepare supporting materials for high-level engagements. Track the wider resourcing portfolio, identifying gaps and next steps.
3. Manage external partnerships relations (member states, UN agencies, donors) and connect to the global discussion on resource mobilization for school feeding initiatives.
4. Government Partnerships Liaison: Foster internal partnership relations (HQ units/RBs and COs) to effectively mobilize donor resources for school feeding.
5. Corporate Guidance and Tools: Spearhead efforts to manage and continuously update the foundational corporate Partnerships & Resource Mobilization plan (School Feeding Fundraising Guidance) developed in line with the school feeding strategy, a guiding framework for Country Offices and Regional Bureaus (RBX).
6. Focal Point for the “Strategic Plan Implementation - Funding the Strategic Plan (Workstream 4)”: Coordinate, convene and engage in the development of fundraising models between the Partnerships and Advocacy Department (PA), the Programme and Policy Development Department (PD), and the Regional Bureaux (RBx) to unlock untapped fundraising opportunities for school feeding and enhance Country offices (COs) thematic fundraising capacities.
7. Collaborate with other PPG-S staff to provide a toolkit for fundraising and other support materials for RBs/COs by identifying best practices. Act as the main focal point in the dissemination of this information across programmes and teams.
8. Additional responsibilities as required.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

Education: Advanced degree in Political Science, International Development, Law, Marketing communications or relevant field or First University degree with additional years of related work experience and/or training courses.

Experience: A minimum of 5 years of relevant experience in International Development or International Relations.

Knowledge and Skills: Relationship/partner management, resource mobilization, demonstrated ability to produce high-quality written outputs including proposal writing, and analytical skills. Knowledge of financing for development. Ability to develop and maintain networks with a variety of stakeholders. Some knowledge of school feeding programs would be an asset.

Languages: Fluency (level C) English. Intermediate knowledge (level B) of a second UN language is a plus.

Terms and Conditions:

WFP offers a competitive compensation package which will be determined by the contract type and selected candidate’s qualifications and experience.

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.