UNWFP - Beirut - Partnerships Officer NOA

Job Purpose

Facilitate the work of senior staff to effectively position WFP with public, private and external partners to attract policy support, resources, technical assistance and innovative solutions to advance the work of WFP, while supporting member states in the achievement of the SDGs and Zero Hunger and emphasizing WFP’s contributions in this regard.

Key Responsibilities (not all-inclusive, nor exhaustive):

Under the direct supervision of the Partnerships Officer (NOB) and the overall supervision of the Head of Partnerships and Communications, the incumbent will perform the following tasks:

Analysis, research and donor intelligence

• Use data to present well-researched ideas to expand support from existing partners and to scope new partners with the aim of enhancing the impact of WFP’s work and diversifying the resource base.
• Conduct ongoing analysis on donor contributions to provide trends and forecasts of donor contributions.
• Highlight fundraising opportunities and resourcing issues through quality briefs and proactively highlight strategic issues to senior staff to inform the best course of action and nurture partnership growth. 
• Gather and share partner intelligence (including forecasting), using key information systems.
• Conduct desk research and prepare background information to support programme and project proposals, draft donor profiles and develop an extensive contact list of all relevant stakeholders to ensure a positive outreach.
• Assist Partnerships Officer (NOB) in drafting guidance notes on donor priorities and developing approaches to expand the donor base, including private sector donors and research and mapping of future trends.
• Gather and share socio-political insights and partner intelligence (including forecasting), using key information systems.

Knowledge management

• Support in preparing presentations and briefs for donor meetings.
• Monitor and track opportunities and contributions from donors on weekly basis by keeping track of salesforce opportunities, PPR weekly updates, and contribution analysis, working closely with the Budget and Programming Unit.
• Assist Partnerships Officer (NOB) in maintaining oversight of the unit’s resource mobilization and donor relations portfolio by regularly updating the deck or preparing relevant briefs.
• Ensure the proper filing and management of files, keeping the record of final versions of proposals, reports, agreements, and any relevant documents.
• Support Partnerships Officer (NOB) in improving and managing the data and information flow of the unit to strengthen analytical functions and foster an evidence-informed approach to donor relations.
• Help nurture a data-driven culture within the unit, ensuring proper set-up of information system, and a common approach to data governance and acquisition.

Support on managing donor portfolio 

• Support in drafting quality proposals and reports for onward submission through the coordination with functional units including Programme, Resource Management and Finance.
• Contribute to partnerships strategies and the management of a portfolio of partnerships including partner profiling, providing coordination, data and analysis to support the effective solicitation of contributions, donor stewardship and assessment of results.
• Contribute to the preparation of strategic agreements, joint strategies, funding agreements, and Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), as well as amendments, as required.
• Support in organizing and facilitating donor meetings, field missions and follow-up actions, as required.

General support

• Support staff in the assigned area to ensure that standard procedures and templates are followed to drive the quality, consistency and standardisation of information management and performance reporting across WFP.
• Support the preparation of the Annual Country Report for the Annual Reporting Exercise in collaboration with the country office programme, monitoring & evaluation and resource management functions by coordinating to ensure coherence and quality of performance information.
• Support projects and operational activities that maintain and develop government partnerships in order to maximise resources raised for the programme.
• Other as required.

Required Knowledge and Skills:

• Excellent writing skills; strong skills in drafting proposals and reports, outlining and structuring documents, revising and editing, with strong English writing skills.
• Communication skills; communicates verbally and non-verbally clearly and effectively, correctly interprets messages from others and responds appropriately, clearly articulates requests’, tailors language, tone, style and format to match the audience.
• Demonstrate strong skills in developing healthy working relationships, and diplomatic approach – cross-functional unit.
• Has a basic understanding of government and corporate strategies and priorities and experience in developing multi-stakeholder partnerships.
• Has explored new partnership opportunities, provided inputs into developing solutions with prospective partners and explored new areas to scale-up existing activities.
• Is familiar with resource mobilization processes and resource strategies, and contract negotiations.
• Has supported creation of external communication and briefing materials.
• Has motivated team spirit and contributed to a gender-balanced, inclusive and sound working environment.

Standard Minimum Qualifications: 

Education: Advanced University degree (i.e. Master's degree or higher) in Political Science, International Development, Development Economics, Public Health or other relevant field or First University degree in a relevant field (i.e. Bachelor’s degree) with additional years of related work experience or training/courses.

Experience:  One (1) or more years of postgraduate professional experience (after completion of Advanced University degree) in partnerships, fundraising, advocacy and communications, marketing, strategy development or other related fields. Experience building and managing partnerships, including developing proposals, soliciting input for reports, drafting agreements, producing visibility plans and/or crafting joint strategies is highly desirable, or, three (3) years or more after completion of First University degree.

Language: Fluency in both oral and written communication in Arabic and English. Fluency in another UN language is a plus.