Consultant - Government Engagement Manager

Job Description

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXTThe World Food Programme (WFP) is the world?s largest humanitarian organization with a dual mandate that also covers development cooperation (?Saving Lives. Changing Lives?). In Iraq, WFP operates a broad portfolio of activities that cover this spectrum, from direct assistance to hundreds of thousands of displaced people to pure technical assistance interventions that aim to strengthen national actors? capacity. Within the national social protection sphere, WFP has emerged as a trusted advisor and supplier of solutions.The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Iraq Country Office is looking to support the government in the areas of social protection and social safety net through providing DAS (Digital Assistance Services) impacting the 40 million citizens of Iraq.WFP Iraq has been working with the Ministry of Trade to digitalise the Public Distribution System and provide technical assistance for population management, identity management, case management and distribution management.?With funding from the Europrean Union DEVCO, WFP in collaboration with UNICEF and ILO is committed to leverage the engagement to expand its role towards strategic capacity enabling partner supporting the 4th outcome that focuses on?vulnerable people will benefit from coordinated management of information systems and strengthened capacities of national and subnational institutions for improved design and targeting of social protection interventions by 2024.At this level, job holders are expected to demonstrate responsibility and leadership; providing the technical guidance and problem-solving support to the management and implementation team in all matters related to programme design, planning, implementation, coordination, monitoring and reporting in line with corporate policy and strategic frameworks. There is a requirement to use judgment in dealing with unforeseen operational problems on a daily-basis. Job holders are expected to manage resources and coordinate with field- based staff.KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

• Build strong working relationships with project stakeholders, analysis of stakeholder objectives and the underlying issues arising from investigations into business requirements;
• Define, establish and maintain enterprise architectures (incl. current and planned state architectural documents such as Domain roadmaps, Standards, Patterns, reference architecture/implementation documents for Enterprise Applications), strategies and methodologies as a consulting offering to the government entities supported through the project;?
• Participate in the development of governance processes to ensure that objectives are achieved, risks are managed appropriately, and resources are used responsibly for the infrastructure landscape;
• Establish and facilitate inter-agency coordination (with UNICEF and ILO in particular) as well as government entities partnerships and collaboration ensuring alignment of visions for an?effective delivery of Social Protection programme activities;
• Manage all external contractors contributing to the implementation of the digital transformation outcome activities;
• Provide support and strong engagement to the social protection advisor when needed.?The social protection advisor maintains a wholistic view on the overall project workstreams.
• Provide operational leadership and day-to-day oversight for the digital transformation outcome of the social protection reform project including technical guidance and support to counterparts on Social Protection to clarify ambiguities. This also includes supervision, coaching and training other personnel in the programme team, as appropriate;

• Ensure effective management of project resources/funds including timely planning, disbursement and tracking of fund utilization working hand in hand with other relevant support units (procurement, administration) in line with commitments with donor;
• Mobilize technical expertise on Social Protection issues to support the design and implementation of the planned activities within the framework of the systems and capacity strengthening for the District Level Government and partners;
• Represent WFP in forums relating to Social Protection through direct participation, briefings, information products and other materials;
• Refine HR and other organisational requirements for a future digital advisory service for governments;
• Perform other duties as required.

While directly managing the project team on the WFP side, the incumbent would also be expected to focus a lot of his/her time on developing government partners? capacity in the wider field of ?digital social protection? and government enterprise architecture.The role of the Government engagement manager would be to act as the overall lead for the project (there are other work streams requiring social protection programme design expertise), ensuring a long-term view is taken towards strengthening the capacity of the national government to develop ?whole of government? digital enterprise architecture, while also ensuring that the initial, more narrowly defined deliverables of the project are executed.?The focus is expected to widen to integration with national identity, single registry and other existing national government systems including the following activities:

• National institutions benefit from the development of a single registry for social protection programmes that ensures interoperability and flow of information across various social protection data siloes
• Government staff benefit from improved digital tools that increase the effectiveness of social protection system and reduce administrative overhead of processing citizens requests for social protection provision.
• Vulnerable groups benefit from improved digitized social protection delivery platforms
• Monitoring and information management system on social insurance coverage in Iraq operational and integrated with other social protection MIS systems.

The consultant will directly report to the Head of Beneficiary Services within the TEC unit

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