Economic Empowerment Officer

Organizational Context

Iraq, an upper-middle-income country, is gradually improving economically post-conflict, yet faces persistent food insecurity, particularly among vulnerable groups. Rebuilding infrastructure, providing services, and promoting social cohesion are key challenges hindering SDG progress. WFP's strategy supports the government's 2030 Agenda acceleration, shifting from direct implementation to enabling national programs. The UN Joint Programme with UNICEF and ILO aims to strengthen Iraq's social protection system, enhancing institutional capacity and developing integrated, shock-responsive systems.

Job Purpose

This role supports the integration of economic empowerment interventions for beneficiaries of Iraq's Social Safety Net (SSN). The SSN, managed by MoLSA and SPA, provides cash transfers but faces challenges in targeting and lacks linkages to employment. The objective is to transition the SSN from consumption support to a dynamic system promoting resilience and self-reliance, reducing long-term dependency on cash transfers. The Economic Empowerment Officer will contribute to piloting and scaling innovative approaches, aligning with WFP's 'saving lives and changing lives' mandate and the EU-funded UN Joint Programme, ultimately aiming to improve income generation, employment outcomes, and resilience among vulnerable populations.

Responsibilities

The Economic Empowerment Officer will oversee the quality delivery of pilot activities, coordinating with WFP teams, partners, and stakeholders, and supervising field implementation teams. Responsibilities include ensuring gender-responsive and youth-inclusive delivery, coordinating with SPA for Project Oversight Team meetings, and leading day-to-day engagement with government counterparts (MoLSA, SPA, MoA, MoP) and sectoral stakeholders. The role involves strengthening institutional capacity for economic empowerment programming, facilitating integration of pilot activities within government platforms, and overseeing gradual transfer of responsibilities to government institutions. The officer will lead the design and implementation of the pilot’s learning and evidence agenda, ensuring timely monitoring activities and documenting lessons learned. Additionally, the role includes developing an EEP manual and scale-up roadmap, organizing knowledge dissemination events, and contributing to policy dialogue for scale-up. Financial oversight, budget planning, utilization, reporting, and ensuring compliance with WFP and partner procedures are also key duties.

Work Experience

Requires at least 5 years of progressively responsible experience in social protection, livelihoods, economic empowerment programming, labor market interventions, or private sector engagement. Demonstrated experience in designing, implementing, or evaluating livelihoods/employment programs in complex settings is essential. Strong experience working with Iraqi government institutions (MoLSA/SPA), implementing institutional capacity strengthening programs, and developing/delivering training materials is highly desirable. Familiarity with social research methodologies, managing programs with evaluation components, and multi-stakeholder coordination is also required.

Skills

Core competencies include Accountability, Adaptability and flexibility, Creativity, Judgement and decision-making, Planning and organising, Professionalism, and Self-management. Expertise in Development programmes, Economics, and finance is required. Fluency in English and Arabic is also essential.

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