Programme Officer (Animal Health)

The Programme Officer (Animal Health) coordinates and implements livestock and animal health initiatives in Malawi, including FAO's component of the Pandemic Fund project. The role involves technical support, project management, resource mobilization, and collaboration with national and international partners to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response through the One Health approach.

Responsibilities

• Leads and supervises the implementation of animal health and livestock development projects, including FAO's component of the Pandemic Fund project in Malawi.
• Provides guidance and support to project personnel and partners in the implementation of project activities related to surveillance, laboratory systems and capacity development.
• Develops and oversees project workplans, ensuring timely delivery of activities in compliance with FAO procedures and national priorities.
• Coordinates with government counterparts, implementing entities and delivery partners to support effective project implementation, monitoring and reporting.
• Monitors project budgets and resources, ensuring compliance with organizational and donor requirements.
• Supports the design and delivery of training and capacity development activities and promotes knowledge sharing and lessons learned.
• Contributes to One Health initiatives and promotes collaboration among relevant stakeholders at national and regional levels.
• Prepares technical, operational and progress reports and contributes to communication, coordination and stakeholder engagement activities.
• Organizes and participates in missions, workshops, meetings and evaluation activities related to programme implementation.
• Supports FAO Malawi's broader portfolio in animal health, animal production, resilience and One Health, including providing technical advice on transboundary animal diseases (TADs), zoonoses and antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
• Reviews relevant documents and reports; identifies problems and issues to be addressed and contributes to the introduction of corrective actions; liaises with relevant parties in particular other regions; ensures follow-up actions.
• Contributes to policy development, including the review and analysis of issues and trends, generates survey initiatives; reviews, analyses and interprets responses, identifies problems/issues and prepares conclusions.
• Prepares various written outputs, e.g. draft background papers, analyses, sections of reports and studies, inputs to publications.
• Provides substantive support to consultative and other meetings, conferences, to include proposing agenda topics, identifying participants, preparation of documents and presentations.
• Assists with outreach and communication-related activities; reviews and contributes to the development of learning materials, conducts training workshops, seminars; makes presentations on assigned topics/activities.

Requirements

• Advanced University degree (Master's degree or equivalent) in Veterinary Medicine or related fields.
• Five years of relevant experience in managing and implementing animal disease control programmes, preferably in developing countries, including leading teams and partnerships.
• Working knowledge (proficiency - level C) of English and intermediate knowledge (intermediate proficiency - level B) of another FAO official language of the Organization (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish).
• Work experience in more than one location or area of work, particularly in field positions is desirable.
• Relevance and extent of experience in technical cooperation activities, policy advice and analysis related to food and nutrition security, agriculture and rural development, and the monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes.
• Relevance and extent of experience working with intergovernmental bodies and multidisciplinary teams.

Skills

• Animal Disease Control
• Veterinary Medicine
• Programme Management
• Project Management
• Technical Cooperation
• Policy Analysis
• Monitoring and Evaluation
• Resource Mobilization
• Epidemic Preparedness
• One Health
• Livestock Health
• Team Leadership
• Partnership Building
• Multidisciplinary Team Collaboration
• Field Work Experience
• Inter-governmental Collaboration
• Food and nutritional security
• Agriculture and Rural Development
• English Language Proficiency
• FAO Official Languages

Languages

English, French