Climate Risk and Anticipatory Action Specialist

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• WFP is a 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

• WFP offers a highly inclusive, diverse, and multicultural working environment.

• WFP invests in the personal & professional development of its employees through a range of training, accreditation, coaching, mentorship, and other programs as well as through internal mobility opportunities.

• A career path in WFP provides an exciting opportunity to work across the various country, regional and global offices around the world, and with passionate colleagues who work tirelessly to ensure that effective humanitarian assistance reaches millions of people across the globe.

• We offer an attractive compensation package (please refer to the Terms and Conditions section of this vacancy announcement).

TERMS OF REFERENCE
Consultancy Contract
Page 1 of 3 Last revision: July 2025
JOB TITLE:
Climate Risk and Anticipatory Action Specialist
TYPE OF CONTRACT:
Regular Consultant
UNIT/DIVISION:
Geospatial and Intelligence Unit (PRG-FG)/ Programme Division (PRG)
DUTY STATION (City, Country):
Remote work from home station
DURATION:
6 months (with possibility of extension)
ORGANISATIONAL CONTEXT AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:
Context
The Geospatial and Intelligence Unit (PRG-FG) within the Food Security & Nutrition Analysis Service (PRG-F) is responsible for enhancing WFP's capacity to monitor, assess, anticipate, and respond to climate risks through research and data analytics.
The unit provides technical and operational support, and capacity building to field offices and regional bureau, as well as inter-agency coordination that helps WFP to better characterize climate conditions detrimental to food security on the ground. An increasingly important component of the PRG-FG portfolio is the provision of technical support to the Anticipatory Action (AA), initiative. This consists in the assimilation and processing of seasonal forecast data streams to produce current and historical sets of forecast derived indicators on seasonal rainfall performance and to derive thresholds and triggers for the decision process of implementation of AA. Setting up Anticipatory Action programs is a growth area for WFP and as a result, technical support to its implementation has become a strategic direction for PRG-FG.
Current Requirements
The PRG-FG unit is already providing the required technical support on Anticipatory Action to the Country Offices of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia. The Unit has been developing and deploying modern approaches involving the integration of seasonal forecasts and satellite and station based agro-meteorological indicators to the support of
early response options and in analysis of impact-based forecasting approaches. Specifically, the PRG-FG team is currently engaged with the Mozambique and Zimbabwe Country Offices to provide support and capacity development to the national Meteorological Services (INAM and MSD) and the Ministries of Agriculture in the areas of drought early warning and seasonal monitoring as applied to the definition of anticipatory/early action and early response.
We are currently seeking an experienced agro-climatological risk and anticipatory action specialist to provide strategic direction to PRG-FG and supervise the operational work for the COs in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and others in the pipeline.
The specialist will define and manage overall approaches and detailed work plans for the integration of climate forecast information with satellite derived agro-climatic data-streams into improved technical solutions for the implementation of AA activities. Supervision of staff will be necessary for specific tasks and product development. Additionally, collaboration with other PRG-FG workstreams will be required to ensure seamless integration and alignment of efforts. The specialist will also handle the required multi-institutional coordination for the support of anticipatory actions, early actions and early response activities by WFP RBs and COs and in-country and regional level stakeholders (e.g., National Disaster Management Authorities). Active presence in international Communities of Practice and maintaining a high profile for WFP is a requirement
TERMS OF REFERENCE
Consultancy Contract
Page 2 of 3 Last revision: July 2025
ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:
1. Technical strategy for AA support by PRG-FG Unit:
· Design a technical strategy for AA support and implementation by the PRG-FG Unit, considering sources of seasonal forecasts, methodological approaches for optimized tuning of anticipatory action triggers, integration of impact determinants such as vulnerability status and the impact of seasonal forecast skill on the decision processes for the deployment of humanitarian interventions.
· Supervise and guide staff and ensure appropriate support in the integration of seasonal forecast information and satellite agro-climatic indicators with the anticipatory/early action and early response interventions of WFP.
· Prepare, manage, and update work plans including oversight of budgets and costs.
· Conceptualize and support the development of tools such as online dashboards to support the communication and implementation of Anticipatory Action in the supported countries.
· Author original scientific papers and reports to disseminate findings and demonstrate the robustness of the workstream's support.
· Collaborate with lead data engineer and data science team to harmonize processes, develop innovative solutions, and integrate AA workflows into the PRG-FG cloud computing infrastructure
2. Operational solutions for AA implementation:
· Develop methodologies to derive impact-based thresholds and probabilistic triggers for droughts, tropical storms and floods to be used in AA SOPs.
· Lead the development of a cutting-edge support tool to inform the triggering of Anticipatory Action program activities for tropical storms, floods, droughts and extreme rainfall.
· Lead the development of analytical methods related to piloting forecast-based insurance.
· Monitor the behavior of the seasonal forecasting and seasonal monitoring systems outputs in terms of quality and regularity of the reporting outputs and provide specific advice on possible institutional responses to coming developments.
· Lead extensive support activities to COs and RBs engaged in AA implementation on the use of forecasting tools and the interpretation of weather information and identify tailored collaboration and support opportunities, including through dedicated field support missions to COs/RBs and provide ad-hoc, on-request, and tailored support to field offices.
3. Multi-institutional Coordination for AA activities:
· Support the development and implementation of AA trigger governance and validation procedures to access internal anticipatory financing.
· Collaborate with and train regional bureaus and country offices to strengthen their seasonal forecasting and early warning capacity for natural hazards and anticipatory action.
· Provide tailored support to governmental institutions in the provision of high quality climate services
· Establish cross-institutional and cross-departmental collaborations for scaling up technical support to Anticipatory Action and seasonal monitoring programme
4. Presence in Communities of Practice and Academia:
· Assume the coordination and liaison role between the WFP Anticipatory Action team and the Programme division, and externally between WFP and stakeholders such as the Red Cross, UN OCHA, Anticipation Hub, FAO, governmental institutions, and academia to ensure the appropriateness and quality of meteo/climate-related analysis and approaches.
· Represent WFP at relevant climate and natural hazard events, workshops and summits, and technical working groups such as the Anticipation Hub.
TERMS OF REFERENCE
Consultancy Contract
Page 3 of 3 Last revision: July 2025
QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:
Education:
Advanced University degree in economics, agricultural sciences, physical geography, biology, physics, or related fields.
Experience, Knowledge & Skills:
Minimum of 6 years of professional experience in:
· Short-range weather forecasts and seasonal/sub-seasonal forecasting, natural hazard early warning systems, and impact-based forecasting.
· Agricultural risk management in relation to natural hazards.
· Analysis of climate and Earth Observation data applied to natural hazard risk management with focus on drought and floods.
· Drought and flood early warning practice and associated analytical methods using remote sensing.
Knowledge and Skills:
· Strong knowledge of machine learning and statistics for risk analytics.
· Working knowledge of seasonal to sub seasonal forecast models, agricultural forecast models.
· Good level of R and Python as applied to the processing of climate, Earth Observation, and
agronomic datasets.
· Familiarity with Earth Observation datasets such as satellite rainfall estimates (CHIRPS), NDVI (MODIS, Sentinel-3) and Sentinel-2
· Good presentation and team working skills, with the ability to follow and develop a given scope of work.
· Ability to work in a team and establish effective working relations with persons of different national and cultural backgrounds.
Languages:
Fluent English with excellent technical reporting ability. Portuguese is an advantage
Certified by Hiring Manager:
Simon Renk, Chief, Geospatial and Intelligence Unit…….……………Date: ………………………
 

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