Bangladesh: Cash Transfers Officer, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh - 6 months renewable

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:

Bangladesh is a lower middle-income country facing critical levels of poverty and undernutrition, exacerbated by high population density and extreme vulnerability to climate change and natural disasters. The high prevalence of child marriage, adolescent pregnancies and undernutrition in mothers and adolescent girls contributes to the intergenerational cycle of undernutrition. This is compounded by high rates of stunting in children under the age of 5 that is a perceptible hindrance to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in Bangladesh.

WFP, present in Bangladesh since 1974, transitioned to a new Country Strategic Plan in April 2017. The CSP is committed to capacity strengthening of the government counterparts, facilitates direct provision of food assistance in emergencies and activities aimed at evidence creation.

Besides, WFP is actively engaged in humanitarian response to the refugee crisis triggered by the large-scale influx of the Rohingya population from Myanmar, which prompted activation of a Level 3 Emergency Response in Cox’s Bazar in September 2017.

Cox’s Bazar has been the center of one of the world’s most protracted refugee situations. Since the 1990s and before August 2017, the Bangladeshi government has been hosting more than 200,000 Rohingya refugees. On 25 August 2017, a new round of conflict in the Northern Rakhine state of Myanmar has resulted in an overwhelming number of new influxes in the Cox’s Bazar district, Bangladesh.

The massive influx of the new arrivals is eroding already poor food security and other basic needs situation of the Rohingya refugees and the Bangladeshi nationals in the host communities around Ukhia and Teknaf sub-districts. Under-nutrition rates are critically high, and protection concerns are rising especially with the high number of women and children. Basic services such as water, health, sanitation, and shelter in the camps and new settlements are outstretched.

WFP seeks a consultant to design and manage Cash Based Transfer (CBT) programmes of moderate size or complexity that effectively meet food assistance needs and provide technical advice or oversight on programme strategy and implementation in order to support WFPs’ focus on its mid-term to long-term goals which will be geared towards

1. enhancing our assistance package to refugees by introducing cash in measured (and appropriate) phases. This includes the promotion and use of multi-purpose cash with other response actors by augmenting the ecosystems (financial, supply chains, telecommunication etc.) which support cash-based initiatives and
2. partnering with other humanitarian response agencies to fully leverage the potential of joint humanitarian response packages with both in-kind and cash modalities as well as non-food items through SCOPE. SCOPE is WFP's beneficiary and transfer management platform that supports the WFP programme intervention cycle from beginning to end. The SCOPE platform is a web-based application used for beneficiary registrations, intervention setups, distribution planning, transfers and distribution reporting

The incumbent will report to the Head of Cash-Based Transfers (CBT) team and will be responsible for the scaling up of Cash-Based Transfers.

ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:

To design and manage programmes of moderate size or complexity that effectively meet food assistance needs and provide technical advice or oversight on programme strategy and implementation through:

1. Managing the cash transfer component of the Level 3 emergency operation, supporting the Head of CBT team and working with the CBT multi-functional team;

2. Advise the programme team responsible for the design and implementation of programmes utilizing cash as a transfer modality and ensure the liaison between these and the CBT multifunctional team;

3. Coordinate across all WFP cash transfer programmes to ensure a harmonised approach considering best practice and risk management for assessment, transfer modality selection, design, implementation and M&E;

4. Work with the relevant units on tendering and contracting processes for CBT partners;

5. Work with the relevant units on finalising and managing partnership agreements;

6. Manage relationship with Financial Service Provider and Cooperating Partners for cash;

7. Support the development of standard operating procedures for cash transfer programmes in line with WFP business process model;

8. Support the development of cooperating partners capacity strengthening initiatives as well as facilitating periodic workshops to solicit feedback on operations/processes and documenting lessons learned;

9. Participate in humanitarian inter-agency coordination mechanisms and partnership discussions on cash-based transfers;

10. Coordinate across units to ensure all are aligned on the objectives and implementation plan and adjust and communicate any changes accordingly;

11. Support the Head of CBT team with the internal cash working group meetings and coordination;

12. Work closely with Gender and Protection to ensure incorporation into programming to minimize risks for the target population;

13. Supervise staff in cash transfers team;

14. Perform other duties as requested.

Scope and expected outputs of mission

Under the supervision of - and in collaboration with - the CBT coordinator, work to achieve the following outputs:

• Develop and advance Cash transfer programming within the Cox’s Bazar Response;
• Solid and structured management of the cash transfer staff, projects and partnerships;
• Enhanced quality and visibility of the cash transfer activities, services and impact;
• WFP Cox’s Bazar Cash Transfers Strategy developed, including modalities, partnerships and expected results;
• Cash transfers “Learning and Knowledge Sharing” products developed, based on Cox’s Bazar experiences and Lessons Learned, including partnership and costing modules and operational successes;
• National capacity enhanced through training of national staff and national and international partners on cash transfer approaches;
• Solutions for Conditional, Unconditional and Multipurpose Cash transfer services through WFP platform developed, provided and documented;

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

• University degree in international development, international affairs, banking or other related fields. Advanced University degree in a relevant field preferred.
• International Professional: Fluency (level C) in English language required. Intermediate knowledge (level B) of a second official UN language preferred.
• 4 years of progressive professional experience in the field of international relief, recovery, or development.
• Experience in Cash Based Transfers (CBT); WFP CBT experience highly desirable.
• Experience in planning, design and implementation of humanitarian and development programmes with relevant work experience at the country or implementation level in developing countries;
• Experience in the design, implementation and evaluation of cash and voucher transfers.
• Has deepened technical knowledge through exposure to technical teams.
• Has taken leadership of implementing programmes. Has provided input into policy discussions and decisions.

If the post interests you, please send your CV to the email address 'bangkok.cbtoperations@wfp.org' copying the address 'erica.demuru@wfp.org' on or before the end of business (UTC +6 /BST) on the closing date as indicated above.

Please include in the subject of your email “**Submission for Cash-Transfers Officer Position/CXB/001**” to ensure we do not miss it and ensure the file(s) you attach is/are less than 6MB (megabytes) in size.

For more on WFP and Food Assistance through Cash-Based Transfers, please visit http://www1.wfp.org/food-assistance