Job Posting: 15/Jan/2025 Closure Date: 05/Feb/2025, 4:59:00 PM Organizational Unit: ESA Job Type: Staff position Type of Requisition: Professional Project Grade Level: P-3 Primary Location: Italy-Rome Duration: Fixed-term: one year with possibility of extension Post Number: 2010512 CCOG Code: 1L09 IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please note that Closure Date and Time displayed above are based on date and time settings of your personal device - FAO is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality, background and culture: - Qualified female applicants, qualified nationals of non-and under-represented Members and persons with disabilities are encouraged to apply: - Everyone who works for FAO is required to adhere to the highest standards of integrity and professional conduct, and to uphold FAO's values: - FAO, as a Specialized Agency of the United Nations, has a zero-tolerance policy for conduct that is incompatible with its status, objectives and mandate, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination: - FAO’s commitment to environmental sustainability is integral to our strategic objectives and operations._ The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) contributes to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda through the FAO Strategic Framework by supporting the transformation to MORE efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems, for _better production_, _better nutrition_, _a _better environment,_ and _a better life_, leaving no one behind. Organizational Setting FAO’s commitment to environmental sustainability is integral to our strategic objectives and operations. The Agrifood Economics and Policy Division (ESA) conducts economic research and policy analysis and provides evidence-based support to national, regional and global policy processes and initiatives related to monitoring and analysing food and agricultural policies, agribusiness and value chain development, rural transformation and poverty, food security and nutrition information and analysis, resilience, bioeconomy and climate-smart agriculture. The Division also leads the production of two FAO flagship publications: The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) and The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI). The position is based at the FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy, within the Investments for Sustainable Markets, Agribusiness, and Rural Transformations (iSMART) team, which falls under the Agrifood Economics and Policy Division (ESA). The role will require close collaboration with FAO's NSL (Land and Water Division), ESN (Food and Nutrition Division) and NSP (Plant Production and Protection Division) to ensure alignment of economic strategies with agronomic, nutritional and soil management insights, facilitating integrated solutions under the SoilFER-VACS framework. The iSMART team's primary focus lies in conducting economic analyses to promote investments, making agrifood systems more efficient, resilient and inclusive. This involves providing state-of-the art measures and categorization of territories, firms and household groups in terms of poverty, economic growth potential and environmental vulnerabilities. Providing innovative solutions to tackle existing challenges requires a deep analysis of public and private incentives, institutional designs e.g. contract farming, public-private partnership and digital innovations. The team evaluates these solutions through robust evidence generation in order to propose the most efficient options for scaling up. These analyses are crucial in understanding and promoting processes of inclusion, inequalities, resilience, sustainability, and transformation within agrifood systems. Reporting Lines The Economist (SoilFER-VACS) reports to the Senior Economist (iSMART), ESA, under the overall supervision of the Director of the Agrifood Economics and Policy Division (ESA). Technical Focus The Economist (SoilFER-VACS) in this role will primarily focus on providing technical expertise in advanced economic analysis, specializing in micro-economic techniques and tools. This includes the integration of econometric methods, ex-ante experimental design (such as Randomized Controlled Trials - RCTs and Discrete Choice Experiments - DCEs), survey design, sampling methodologies and cost-benefit analysis (CBA). The role will also encompass resilience and risk analysis, spatial analysis and impact evaluation techniques (including both experimental and quasi-experimental approaches). The Economist's work will focus on understanding the economic drivers that underpin soil management practices, and the role that diverse, nutritious and climate-adapted crops, grown in healthy soils, play in building a resilient food system. A key component will be conducting in-depth economic evaluations and impact assessments using data from Zambia and Guatemala. The position demands