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Organizational Context

The World Food Programme (WFP) is the world's largest humanitarian organization, dedicated to saving lives in emergencies and building pathways to peace and prosperity. WFP Colombia has been active since 1969, focusing on humanitarian assistance, development, and peacebuilding, with a strategic plan aiming to enhance the resilience, livelihoods, and socio-economic inclusion of vulnerable populations.

Job Purpose

The Senior Programme Assistant will support the strategic planning, implementation, and monitoring of productive projects and value chains in Putumayo, Colombia, as part of the 'Tejidos de Sustento y Vida' project. This role involves providing technical assistance and specialized support in livelihoods, with a focus on socio-productive aspects, markets, and improving production practices. The objective is to contribute to the project's strategic goals and integrate gender, cultural relevance, and climate resilience approaches. The assistant will design and implement technical-productive diagnostics and strengthening plans, support investment plans, and develop training programs focused on climate change adaptation. They will also facilitate market access, support value chain consolidation, and collect market dynamic information, ensuring effective project implementation and reporting.

Responsibilities

The Senior Programme Assistant, based in Puerto Asís, will support the planning, implementation, and monitoring of productive projects and value chains in Putumayo, focusing on the "Tejidos de Sustento y Vida" project. Key responsibilities include conducting technical-productive diagnoses and developing strengthening plans for assigned organizations. The role involves designing and implementing training plans with a focus on technical-production, climate resilience, and adaptation, including field schools and collaborative training efforts. The assistant will provide technical guidance for improving production practices, ensuring environmental, economic, and socio-cultural sustainability, and verifying progress against established plans. They will also design and implement tools for collecting technical-productive information to analyze productive activities and market management. Support will be provided for project actions, including calls for proposals, proposal reviews, partner agreements, and technical support to ensure effective implementation, adherence to plans, agreements, contracts, and timelines. Furthermore, the role entails facilitating connections with private sector actors, public procurement programs, and local markets to integrate producers into strategic value chains, and supporting the consolidation of short circuits and local/regional/national markets. Technical assistance and capacity building for partner teams will be provided as needed. The assistant will integrate sustainability, market, gender, protection, environmental, ethnic, and community participation approaches into all activities and prepare periodic progress reports. The position requires a secondary education completion, with a degree in agricultural, forestry, environmental sciences, or related fields being desirable. Five years of professional experience in rural productive projects, agroforestry systems, or value chains like cocoa, livelihood strategies, and income generation is necessary, with at least three years focused on technical assistance and strengthening rural or community productive organizations in market access or inclusive business models. Experience working with civil society actors and knowledge of the national, departmental, and local agricultural and forestry sectors are valued. Fluency in Spanish is required, with intermediate English proficiency being desirable.

Work Experience

Requires 5 years of professional experience in formulating, implementing, and monitoring rural productive projects, specifically in agroforestry systems or cocoa value chains, livelihood strategies, and income generation linked to productive, economic, and food security strengthening. Additionally, at least 3 years of specific experience is needed in providing technical assistance and strengthening rural or community productive organizations in market access or inclusive business models. Knowledge or experience in local value chains is a plus.

Skills

Project planning and implementation, Technical assistance and capacity building, Rural development, Value chain development, Market access strategies, Climate change adaptation, Sustainable agriculture, Community engagement, Gender mainstreaming, Report writing, Data analysis, Teamwork, Communication, Organizational skills

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