Nutrition & Food Quality – Food Technology Lead

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

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 World Food Programme is the worlds largest humanitarian organization saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict disasters and the impact of climate change.

At WFP people are at the heart of everything we do and the vision of the future WFP workforce is one of diverse committed skilled and high performing teams selected on merit operating in a healthy and inclusive work environment living WFPs values (Integrity Collaboration Commitment Humanity and Inclusion) and working with partners to save and change the lives of those WFP serves.

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WHY JOIN WFP

• WFP is a 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

• WFP offers a highly inclusive diverse and multicultural working environment.

• WFP invests in the personal & professional development of its employees through a range of training accreditation coaching mentorship and other programs as well as through internal mobility opportunities.

• A career path in WFP provides an exciting opportunity to work across the various country regional and global offices around the world and with passionate colleagues who work tirelessly to ensure that effective humanitarian assistance reaches millions of people across the globe.

• We offer an attractive compensation package (please refer to the Terms and Conditions section of this vacancy announcement).

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:

About the Organization:

The WFP Nutrition Strategy launched in 2024 focuses on supporting countries to achieve zero hunger through improved nutrition with prevention and treatment of all forms of malnutrition a central part of this support of this shift in programming WFP will play a bigger role in addressing micronutrient deficiencies around the world through its food assistance programmes. This includes making sure that nutrient rich rations are provided when WFP distributes food and making sure that to the fullest extent possible the food WFP purchases internationally regionally and locally is appropriately fortified for the environment where it will be delivered and maximizes the nutritional impact of interventions. Further WFP plans to explore other modalities to encourage governments assistance programmes and markets to provide or encourage the use of fortified commodities and ultimately to encourage local fortification of local crops in contexts where it is appropriate feasible and cost effective.

Fortified foods including Fortified Staple foods and Local Food solutions are an important element in improving nutritional adequacy of diets which is critical to ensuring a healthy diet for all. This applies to peoples diets anywhere and particularly where dietary diversity is not meeting food-based dietary guidelines and where healthy diets are unaffordable. Fortification needs to be implemented by processors of staple foods (flours rice vegetable oil salt etc.) and Specially Formulated Foods (SFF) such as complementary foods and these foods should be made available through multiple distribution channels including WFPs operations (General Food Assistance) National Social Protection and School Meal Programmes Regional/national strategic grain reserves the open market to reach those in need. Furthermore fortified foods should always be part of food assistance whether distributed in-kind or through vouchers or cash. As largest humanitarian agency and being a major player in both food and social protection systems WFP has a very important contribution to make to increase availability of fortified foods and ensuring it reaches those most in need.

One of WFPs strategic donor partners in our efforts to scale up food fortification is the Gates Foundation. This partnership has contributed to WFPs expertise at GHQ and countries and ability to increase the availability and use of fortified foods by supporting efforts to enhance the integration of fortified foods in national social protection and school meal addition to directly improving the nutrition sensitivity of the national social protection and school meal programmes these efforts have increased the availability and cost-effectiveness for WFPs purchase of fortified foods for our own humanitarian assistance programmes.

Under the revised organizational structure for 2026 this position is strategically situated within the Food Quality and Strategy Team of the Nutrition School Meal and Social Protection (NSMSP) Service. The Food Quality portfolio is mandated to provide technical expertise and support for system strengthening in alignment with WFPs efforts to enhance the utilization of fortified foods and locally sourced food solutions. This applies both to WFPs direct operationssuch as General Food Assistance (GFA)and to WFP-supported initiatives including government-led national social protection and school meal programmes. The portfolio encompasses technical assistance across WFPs priority nutritious foods which include but are not limited to fortified staple foods (e.g. rice wheat/maize flour oil salt sorghum whole grains) and specially formulated products such as Specialized Nutritious Foods (e.g. Super Cereal Super Cereal Plus Ready-to-Use Supplementary Foods RUSF) and complementary foods..

This position with a strong background in food technology and nutrition complemented with demonstrated expertise in strategic planning implementing large-scale projects system strengthening of national governments and good understanding of WFPs systems will serve as lead technical resource on food tech and programmatic aspects of planning implementing and monitoring initiatives aimed at increasing use of food quality portfolio of nutritious foods in WFPs operations and WFP supported operations.

Purpose of the Position:

The purpose of this position is to serve as lead technical resource and coordinate specific components of the food quality portfolio outlined in the following section including the projects building on the GFC-LSFF project. Under the guidance of the Chief of Nutrition and sitting in the Food quality team in Nutrition School Meals and Social Protection Service (NSMSP) this position is responsible for global coordination and reporting of food technological aspects and support programmatic aspects of Food quality portfolio (fortification and local food solutions) activities spanning across Nutrition School Meals and Social Protection at Headquarters Regional Programme Hubs (RPHs) and COs working closely with WFP staff in these regions and other units/divisions at WFP GHQ. This role requires effective engagement and management of diverse stakeholders including WFP staff at Country Office (CO) and GHQ levels international academic experts relevant country-level policy stakeholders and donors including GF DSM-F NPL and others. Additionally this role will support the development and implementation of workplans for relevant CO provide technical assistance on local production of nutritious processed (complementary) foods in West and East Africa and Asia Pacific region in addition to the global workplan in close consultation with internal/external stakeholders and donors. The technical lead brings experience and expertise in food technology large scale food fortification local production of fortified foods nutrition food safety and quality stakeholder engagement policy support to governments and relationship management. The technical lead is well connected in the fortification community and experienced in managing projects has an extensive network and strong and strategic communication skills.

The responsibilities outlined below are a reformulation of tasks embedded in the previous TOR and thus remain within the existing scope of work. The responsibilities and deliverables are more explicitly aligned with the newly formulated WFP priorities as set out in the new WFP Strategy to improve diets and address malnutrition and priorities in 2026.

ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:

The Consultant will:

In collaboration with regional hubs provide technical assistance to CO on integrating food quality portfolio of products into WFP operations

• Support COs and GHQ in designing planning implementing and monitoring integration of fortified foods (staple foods and local food solutions) into their CSPs WFP operations and government-led Social Protection and School Meal Programmes.
• Liaise with Social Protection and School Meal unit in the service to facilitate further integration of food fortification and local food solutions in line with NSMSP service priorities to enhance the nutrition sensitive nature of the national Social Protection and School Meal Programmes
• Support COs and GHQ in developing and implementing strategic engagements with Government and national stakeholders to position WFP as technical lead/partner depending on local context in food quality portfolio.
• Support COs in setting up and coordinating key national and regional level partners alliances to increase the availability access and affordability of fortified foods globally. This would include formation of national fortification alliances national development partners networks such as P4P in Nigeria and strategic engagement with regional bodies such as ECOWAS APTERR EAC etc.
• Support COs and GHQ in developing and revising CSPs and Corporate monitoring and reporting requirements such as ACR APR and other donor specific reporting as required and delegated in the Food Quality Portfolio.

Lead the technical (food-tech) and support programmatic aspects of WFPs Food Quality portfolio

• Ensure provision of fortification expertise to WFPs NSMSP service especially as related to the integration of food quality portfolio (fortified foods) in line with objectives of WFPs global Food Fortification and Local Foods Solutions Vision under Nutrition strategy.
• Liaise closely with technical teams at Supply Chain and delivery division at GHQ level to develop technical documentation for the food quality portfolio including standards specifications training modules normative guidance operational roadmaps and others to facilitate increased update of fortified foods
• Engage with relevant units to design and conduct product development activities for food quality portfolio of products to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the food quality portfolio. This would include but not limited to product development research shelf-life studies and other validations studies to improve the operational integration of food quality portfolio of products (fortified staples such as rice whole grain maize meal sorghum/millets maize meal etc.)
• Engage with FSQA and other relevant units at GHQ level to share analysis of latest external global guidance such as WHO and Codex standards on WFPs priority of food products under the food quality portfolio and align WFPs standards as applicable.
• Engage with food tech team members placed in GHQ and CO teams of NSMSP and ensure technical appropriateness on food tech aspects of Food quality portfolio of products. Also in Rome oversee closely the food tech members in the Food quality team of NSMSP service.

Manage the WFP - Gates Foundation (GF) relationship and other fortification initiatives as requested in the food quality portfolio

• Coordinate regularly with project COs and RPHs and conduct project oversight missions as needed to ensure the project implementation is in alignment with WFPs donor commitments.
• Maintain an overview of each project countrys workplan that is updated on a bi-monthly basis and coordinate regular reporting to the donors as per WFPs donor commitment under the grant agreements
• Support decision-making process between COs GHQ and donors to refine the specific project work streams
• Manage grant related communications with relevant donors.
• Manage the overall design and sub-contracting of pre-identified activities under the grant in line with WFPs procurement processes
• Liaise with Finance team to monitor the grant expenditures and advise COs/GHQ to ensure effective utilization of grant resources in line with WFPs donor commitments.

Contribute to conceptualization and project design aspects to support resource mobilization efforts and external partners engagement of food quality portfolio

• Liaise with PSP to identify and optimize opportunities presented under partnerships as they relate to the mission of WFP.
• Lead the finalization of conceptualization and programmatic definition of WFPs scope of engagement with inputs from relevant NSMSP team leads in proposal development with donors and other partners. This includes development of Theory of Change (TOC) identifying strategic programmatic areas identifying key strategic partnerships and support budget development for the proposal.
• Provide strategic advice to food quality portfolio to position WFP as key technical organizations with external partners ecosystem. This would include strategic engagement and identifying areas of complementing expertise with other UN agencies such as UNICEF technical partners such as TechnoServe Partners in Food Solutions (PFS) GAIN PATH Nutrition International OECD and others and donor partners such as Gates Foundation NPL and others.

Represent the Nutrition and Food Quality Service when requested at internal and external forums on technical and program aspects. Support/Contribute to the project and corporate communications related to Food Quality portfolio (products and projects) as required by Chief of Nutrition. Perform other tasks as requested and required by the Director of Nutrition School Meals and Social Protection service and Chief of the Nutrition team of the Programme Division.

DELIVERABLES AT THE END OF THE CONTRACT:

• Key technical documents developed to enhance the use of food quality portfolio of products in WFP and WFP-supported operations
• Timely support and assistance provided to Country Office and on technical aspects of food quality portfolio
• Inputs provided on strategic and technical aspects of food quality portfolio in close coordination with other relevant units/teams/divisions within WFP
• Timely and high-quality responses to donor inquiries and completion of all reporting requirements associated with grant funded programmes
• Coordination across the various country-level project implementation plans M&E frameworks budgets etc. to ensure successful programme implementation.
• In coordination with PPGN Social Protection and School Meals Service and PSP Colleagues ensure appropriate and timely communication and advocacy assets are created and disseminated through WFP communication platforms;

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

Education:

The candidate must have an advanced degree related to nutrition public health or international development.

Experience:

A minimum of 7 years of working experience some of which at WFP and/or in international development.

Knowledge & Skills:

• Strong Communication abilities to engage with various stakeholders from different sectors and backgrounds ability to interact with leaders and external audience with maturity and tact ability to interact with vulnerable people groups;
• Experience managing complex programmes at the global level;
• Collaborative spirit able to liaise with a wide range of people at all levels and across different cultures and to act with credibility and diplomacy;
• Outstanding organizational and time-management skills with an ability to plan ahead anticipate requirements problems and obstacles and an ability to juggle competing priorities successfully and to work to tight deadlines;
• Strong drive self-motivated and able to work with a high degree of autonomy;
• Fully committed and motivated to achieve the aims of the UN World Food Programme;
• Academic publications in the field of food fortification health or nutrition a benefit.

Languages:

Fluency in English is required. Working knowledge of another UN language - desirable.

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REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION

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REMINDERS BEFORE YOU SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION

• We strongly recommend that your profile is accurate complete and includes your employment records academic qualifications language skills and UN Grade (if applicable).

• Once your profile is completed please apply and submit your application.

• Please make sure you upload your professional CV in the English language

• Kindly note the only documents you will need to submit at this time are your CV and Cover Letter

• Additional documents such as passport recommendation letters academic certificates etc. may potentially be requested at a future time

• Please contact us at in case you face any challenges with submitting your application

• Only shortlisted candidates will be notified

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.