National Lead Livestock Specialist

Organizational Context

FAO Sudan collaborates with the Government to address hunger and malnutrition by developing agricultural, fisheries, and forestry sectors, and promoting sustainable natural resource management. Livestock is vital to Sudan's rural economy, yet faces challenges from conflict, climate change, and limited animal health services. FAO Sudan implements projects to enhance livelihoods, livestock production, land governance, and natural resource management, with the National Livestock Specialist playing a key role in ensuring effective livestock-related activities.

Job Purpose

The National Livestock Specialist will provide essential technical leadership and coordination for livestock-related interventions in Sudan. This includes overseeing livestock production and health, disease surveillance, community-based animal health services, fodder and feeding systems, rangeland management, and strengthening the resilience of pastoral and agro-pastoral communities. The role involves offering technical guidance to partners, contributing to monitoring and evidence generation, and ensuring all livestock activities align with FAO's technical standards, safeguards, and donor requirements, thereby supporting the overall mission of food security and sustainable livelihoods.

Responsibilities

Provide technical leadership in designing, planning, and implementing livestock interventions such as restocking, animal health campaigns, vaccination, disease surveillance, fodder production, and pasture rehabilitation. Support needs assessments, beneficiary targeting, feed balance analysis, and livestock value chain assessments. Ensure technical quality assurance during beneficiary selection, input distribution, vaccination campaigns, and fodder establishment. Oversee implementing partners, monitoring activity quality and deliverables per FAO standards. Coordinate with veterinary authorities, service providers, Community Animal Health Workers (CAHWs), and communities on disease control and surveillance. Strengthen early warning systems, disease reporting, and community-based animal health services, contributing to contingency planning. Promote resilient, conflict-sensitive, and gender-responsive livestock interventions adapted to climate variability. Develop and facilitate capacity-building for partners and stakeholders on animal husbandry, health, nutrition, fodder, and rangeland management. Enhance livestock value chains and producer organizations, improving access to services and markets. Coordinate with land governance and natural resource management specialists to address land-livestock conflicts. Develop and apply technical indicators and monitoring tools for livestock outputs. Prepare technical inputs for reports, donor submissions, and M&E frameworks. Ensure interventions incorporate safeguards, accountability to affected populations (AAP), PSEA, and environmental considerations. Contribute to research and analysis of intervention effectiveness. Represent FAO in technical meetings and coordination forums. Prepare case studies and knowledge products. Perform other related duties as required.

Work Experience

A minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience in livestock production, animal health, veterinary services, livestock development, or pastoral/agro-pastoral systems is necessary. Experience in designing, implementing, and monitoring livestock interventions, particularly in conflict-affected or humanitarian contexts, is highly desirable.

Skills

Key skills include results focus, teamwork, communication, building effective relationships, and knowledge sharing. Essential technical experience encompasses livestock development, animal health, veterinary services, and pastoral systems. Proficiency in designing, implementing, and monitoring livestock, livelihood, or emergency interventions is crucial. Experience with animal disease surveillance, vaccination campaigns, and community-based animal health services is required. Familiarity with government institutions, implementing partners, and UN agencies is beneficial. Knowledge of livestock production systems, fodder/feed management, rangeland management, and livestock value chains is important. Experience in field assessments and technical reporting is necessary. Knowledge of the Sudanese livestock sector is highly desirable.

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