Emergency Response Coordinator, CSTI

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

5 September 2026-23:59-GMT+02:00 Central Africa Time (Lusaka)

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ABOUT WFP

The World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity, for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

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WHY JOIN WFP? 

• 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).

BACKGROUND AND ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT:

Zambia is facing an elevated risk of significant food security impacts associated with the forecasted 2026/27 El Niño event. Current regional analysis identifies Southern Africa as particularly exposed to reduced rainfall during the main November–March rainy season, with food security impacts expected to develop progressively following the end of the agricultural season and subsequent lean season period.

Zambia enters this period following a strong 2025/26 agricultural season and record maize harvest, creating an important window for early preparedness and strategic use of available national food supplies. At the same time, the evolving El Niño outlook presents significant risks to the 2026/27 agricultural season and subsequent food security situation. Zambia's current planning scenario anticipates a progression from preparedness and anticipatory action through assessment and repositioning to potential scaled response and recovery, with humanitarian needs potentially peaking during the 2027/28 lean season.

The response will require strong coordination across programme, RAM, supply chain, finance, partnerships, communications, field operations and other functions, as well as close engagement with Government, cooperating partners, UN agencies, donors and regional and corporate WFP structures.

Lessons from Zambia's 2023/24 El Niño response demonstrate the importance of early and coherent decisions on targeting, transfer modalities and transfer values; strong Government and inter-agency coordination; evidence and analytics; logistics readiness; and timely resource mobilization.

Against this background, WFP Zambia seeks an experienced Emergency Coordinator to provide dedicated coordination and strategic-operational oversight of the Country Office's El Niño preparedness and response.

PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The Emergency Coordinator will provide overall coordination of WFP Zambia's El Niño preparedness and response, ensuring that analysis, programme decisions, operational planning, supply chain and delivery arrangements, resources, partnerships and implementation are brought together into a coherent, sequenced and actionable Country Office response.

The coordinator will serve as the central point connecting management, SO1 and other programme teams, RAM, Supply Chain, Finance, Partnerships, Communications, Field Offices and other functions, ensuring that strategic decisions are translated into clear actions, responsibilities, milestones and deliverables.

The incumbent will lead the development and maintenance of the Concept of Operations (CONOPS) and integrated response plan and calendar; oversee the Emergency Task Force; support management decision-making; and ensure WFP's response continuously adapts to evolving evidence, Government and UN Country Team priorities, operational realities and available resources.

ACCOUNTABILITIES:

1. Overall Emergency Coordination and Strategic Direction:

• Coordinate the Country Office's overall El Niño preparedness and response architecture, ensuring coherence across preparedness, anticipatory action, disaster risk financing, emergency response, social protection, early recovery and relevant resilience interventions.

• Advise the Country Office Management Team (CMT) on emerging strategic and operational issues, risks, priorities, decision points and required management action.

• Maintain a whole-of-operation view, ensuring that decisions across programme, supply chain, resources, partnerships and implementation remain aligned and that critical gaps and bottlenecks are identified and escalated early.

2. CONOPS, Response Planning and Milestone Management:

• Lead the development, regular updating and operationalization of the Country Office El Niño Concept of Operations (CONOPS) and integrated response plan, articulating scenarios, objectives, targeting, interventions, transfer modalities and values, operational arrangements, geographic priorities, scale, resources and implementation sequencing.

• Develop and maintain an integrated emergency calendar and critical-path tracker covering key preparedness, assessment, programme, supply chain, partnership, funding and implementation milestones.

• Translate the CONOPS into clear actions, owners, timelines and decision points and systematically follow up implementation across functions.

3. Emergency Task Force and Cross-Functional Coordination:

• Chair and coordinate the Country Office Emergency El Niño Task Force, ensuring regular, decision-oriented meetings with clear agendas, actions, accountabilities and follow-up.

• Bring together SO1 and other programme teams, RAM, Supply Chain, CBT, Finance, Partnerships, Communications, Security, TEC, Field Offices and other relevant functions around a common operational picture and agreed response priorities.

• Identify cross-functional dependencies and bottlenecks and drive their resolution, escalating matters requiring senior management decisions.

• Ensure information from different functions is synthesized into clear operational implications and actionable recommendations, rather than remaining in parallel technical workstreams.

4. Evidence, Analysis and Programme Decision-Making:

• Work closely with the Research Assessment and Monitoring (RAM) unit and relevant technical teams to ensure that WFP's response is continuously informed by the best available evidence, including seasonal and climate forecasts, market and price monitoring, IPC/VAC analysis, hotspot analysis, vulnerability assessments, crop and harvest assessments and other food security information.

• Translate analytical products into practical recommendations for geographic and household targeting, caseloads, intervention design, modality selection, transfer values, timing and scale of assistance.

• Coordinate regular scenario reviews as new information becomes available and ensure corresponding programme and operational assumptions are updated.

5. Programme and Operational Coordination:

• Coordinate with the SO1 Manager and relevant programme leads to ensure preparedness and response interventions are coherent, sequenced and operationally ready, including emergency food assistance, CBT, anticipatory action, nutrition, school feeding, social protection, early recovery and relevant resilience interventions.

• Facilitate timely cross-functional decisions on targeting, transfer modalities, transfer values, beneficiary management, cooperating partner arrangements and delivery mechanisms, ensuring that programme choices reflect evidence, market conditions, Government systems and operational feasibility.

• Ensure that interventions are appropriately layered and sequenced from preparedness and anticipatory action through response and early recovery.

6. Supply Chain and Logistics Coordination:

• Provide strong coordination between programme requirements and Supply Chain/logistics planning, particularly given the expected scale and the opportunities presented by Zambia's strong domestic food stocks.

• Work with Supply Chain to ensure response plans are translated into timely requirements for commodity planning, transport, storage, pre-positioning, distribution capacity, corridors and last-mile delivery.

• Ensure programme caseloads, rations, timelines and geographic priorities are reconciled with supply chain capacity, stocks, lead times and available resources, and that emerging pipeline and delivery risks are brought promptly to management attention.

7. Government, Inter-Agency, Partner and Donor Engagement:

• Support the CD in high-level engagement with Government, donors, UN agencies and other partners on El Niño preparedness and response and represent WFP in relevant coordination forums as delegated.

• Maintain strong operational coordination with relevant Government institutions and ensure WFP plans are aligned, where appropriate, with Government-led assessments, targeting, response plans and coordination mechanisms.

• Engage effectively with cooperating partners and inter-agency mechanisms, notably the humanitarian cluster system, to promote complementary geographic and household coverage, minimize duplication and address operational gaps.

• Support the Partnerships, Communications and Reporting team and management with donor briefings and resource mobilization discussions by articulating WFP's strategy, evidence base, operational requirements, funding gaps and results in a clear and compelling manner.

8. Resource, Funding and Operational Readiness Tracking:

• Work closely with Finance, Budget & Programming, Partnerships, Programme and Supply Chain to maintain an integrated view of needs, available resources, funding gaps, pipeline implications and operational readiness.

• Ensure programme ambitions and implementation timelines are reconciled with available and projected resources and flag critical funding or pipeline constraints early.

• Support scenario-based costing, resource prioritization and management decisions as needs and funding evolve.

9. Information Management, Reporting and Communications:

• Coordinate with Partnerships, Communications and Reporting (PCR) and relevant technical teams to establish an effective information and knowledge-management system for the response.

• Ensure senior management has concise, timely and decision-oriented information through dashboards, action trackers, operational briefs, situation updates and management notes.

• Oversee consolidation of inputs from programme, RAM, Supply Chain, Finance, Field Offices and other functions into a single coherent operational narrative and common set of figures for management, Government, UN, donors, Regional Bureau and Headquarters.

• Ensure that complex analytical and operational information is translated into clear, simple and actionable messages for different audiences.

10. Response Performance, Learning and Adaptation

• Regularly review progress against the CONOPS, milestones, targets and operational plans and identify where implementation needs to accelerate, adapt or change course.

• Facilitate operational reviews and after-action/lessons-learned exercises at key stages of the response and ensure recommendations are translated into corrective actions.

• Promote an adaptive management culture in which evidence, operational experience and changing conditions are used to continuously refine the response.

KEY DELIVERABLES

Over the 11-month assignment, the consultant will be expected to deliver and maintain:

• An approved and regularly updated El Niño CONOPS/integrated response plan, including scenarios, targeting, interventions, modalities, transfer values, operational arrangements and resource requirements.

• A master preparedness and response calendar, critical-path tracker and milestone dashboard with responsibilities and decision points.

• A functioning and effectively managed Emergency/El Niño Task Force, with documented decisions, action trackers and systematic follow-up.

• Regular management decision briefs synthesizing evidence, operational status, emerging risks, bottlenecks and recommended actions.

• An integrated operational readiness and response tracker, covering programme, supply chain/logistics, partnerships, resources and field implementation.

• Coordinated inputs to donor briefings, resource mobilization materials, situation reports and corporate/regional reporting.

• Periodic scenario and response reviews reflecting updated RAM analysis, market conditions, IPC/VAC findings, forecasts, harvest information and operational performance.A final after-action/lessons-learned and transition report, including recommendations for continued response, early recovery and institutional preparedness.

FUNCTIONAL CAPABILITIES:

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE:

Education:

Advanced university degree in International Affairs, Development Studies, Humanitarian Affairs, Economics, Food Security, Logistics/Supply Chain Management, Disaster Risk Management or another relevant field; or a first university degree with substantial additional relevant professional experience.

Experience:

A minimum of 10 years of progressively responsible professional experience in humanitarian and emergency operations, including significant experience in large-scale or complex emergency responses.

The ideal candidate will have:

• Extensive experience coordinating large-scale humanitarian/emergency operations, preferably within WFP, the UN or a comparable international humanitarian organization.

• Demonstrated experience developing and operationalizing CONOPS, emergency response plans, contingency plans and/or emergency operational frameworks.

• Strong experience bridging programme and supply chain/logistics, with demonstrated understanding of food-assistance operations, commodity planning, procurement/sourcing, warehousing, transport, distribution and last-mile delivery.

• Demonstrated experience coordinating cross-functional emergency teams and driving delivery across programme, assessment, supply chain, finance, partnerships, field operations and other functions.

• Strong experience using food security and operational analysis to inform programme decisions, including targeting, transfer modalities, transfer values, geographic prioritization and response scale.

• Demonstrated senior-level engagement with Government, donors, UN agencies, NGOs and inter-agency coordination mechanisms.

• Experience managing or coordinating emergency task forces, operational cells or similar emergency-management structures.

• Experience in drought and/or climate-related emergencies in Africa, preferably Southern Africa, would be highly desirable.

• Previous WFP emergency experience would be a strong advantage.

Skills:

• Strong oral and written communications skills

• Strong analytical skills and the ability to use evidence to inform programme design and decision-making.

• Strong interpersonal skills, with the ability to build and maintain relationships with a wide range of stakeholders.

• Ability to work under tight deadlines and simultaneously manage multiple tasks in an autonomous manner.

• Maturity, initiative, courtesy, tact, and ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.

• Good computer knowledge and skills.

Language:

Fluency (level C) in English language.

Desired experience for entry into the role:

The successful candidate should be:

• A seasoned emergency professional with strong operational judgement and the credibility to operate effectively with senior management and technical teams.

• Highly articulate and eloquent in both written and verbal communication, able to present complex issues clearly and persuasively to Government, UN, donors, senior management and operational teams.

• An exceptional coordinator and integrator who can connect programme, evidence, logistics, resources and implementation rather than working within a single technical silo.

• Strongly action and delivery oriented, able to convert large volumes of information into a limited number of clear priorities, actions, owners and deadlines.

• Comfortable working with data and analytics and able to interrogate evidence, identify its operational implications and facilitate evidence-based decisions.

• Strong in facilitation, negotiation and influencing, including the ability to bring different functions and stakeholders to agreement when priorities or perspectives differ.

• Able to anticipate bottlenecks, maintain strategic oversight while following through on operational detail, and escalate issues appropriately.

• Calm, decisive and solutions-oriented in fast-moving and high-pressure emergency environments.

• A strong writer capable of producing concise, high-quality CONOPS, management briefs, donor materials and operational updates.

DUE DATE: Midnight 11:59PM Zambian Time on 05, September 2026

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REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION

 

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REMINDERS BEFORE YOU SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION

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• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and invited to proceed to the next stage of the recruitment process.

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