Early Warning Specialist

Organizational Setting

FAO Afghanistan is investing across all 34 provinces of Afghanistan in resilience reinforcing actions that focus on protecting agriculture livelihoods and local ecosystems, boosting local production of nutritious foods and cash-incomes, and safeguarding critical agriculture sectoral development gains achieved over the past couple of decades through revitalizing rural markets and economy. In particular, FAO provides a combination of humanitarian and basic needs/non-humanitarian assistance to female and male farmers and herders across Afghanistan in the agriculture, livestock, irrigation and natural resources sub-sectors through its projects and programs, as described in the 2024 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) and the United Nations Strategic Framework for Afghanistan (UNSFA) 2023-2025, specifically under UNSFA Priority 2 Economic Opportunities and Resilient Livelihoods.

Reporting Lines

The incumbent will work under the overall supervision of the FAO Representative (FAOR) or Deputy FAO Representative (DFAOR) in Afghanistan. S/he will work under the direct supervision of the Head of the Food Security & Risk Analysis Unit or as may be assigned. The direct supervisor or as assigned, will be responsible for all day-to-day supervision, technical guidance and the performance evaluation.

Technical Focus

The Early Warning Specialist will be part of the Risk Analysis, Agriculture and Food Security Unit. This engagement aims to support the mainstreaming and implementation of early warning and anticipatory action at the country level. FAO’s EWEA (Early Warning Early Action) programme is part of a growing number of anticipatory approaches to crises being implemented by organisations worldwide. 
The Specialist will play a central role in overseeing the operationalization, enhancement, and sustainability of FAO Afghanistan’s multi-hazard Early Warning System (EWS). This includes ensuring the integration of ground observations, remote sensing data, and real-time analytics into the system, as well as effective dissemination and institutional coordination.

Tasks and responsibilities

1. Develop guidelines and tools for anticipatory action systems

•    Develop guidelines and tools on the selection of agrometeorological indicators and thresholds for triggering anticipatory action ahead of potential hazard impacts, e.g. from drought, severe winter seasons and floods, on agriculture and food security;
•    Identify and design the requirements for an effective and optimized monitoring system for hydro-meteorological hazard risk management;
•    Provide technical advice on communication of weather and climate information.

2. Climate Services and Early Warning 

•    Conduct research and develop tools for climate change risk and vulnerability assessment in agriculture, forestland other land use and water resources sectors;
•    Support capacity building for the production, dissemination and use of weather forecasts, climate/agro-meteorological advisories, early warnings, and climate change;
•    Support enhanced use of weather and climate data, weather forecasts, and climate predictions for early warning services, trigger mechanisms, and anticipatory action protocols;
•    Support preparation of climate evidence base (climate rationale) for designing and implementing climate change projects;
•    Build partnerships and contribute to the development of climate information platforms in support of planning and designing climate change adaptation and mitigation policies and programmes and projects;
•    Support the preparation and roll out of agriculture climate services in Afghanistan. 

3. Lead the operational implementation of FAO Afghanistan’s integrated Early Warning System, ensuring coherence across agro-meteorological monitoring, automated weather stations, and sentinel networks.

4. Coordinate the integration of real-time and historical data streams into analysis platforms such as LIVEMAP and contribute to the generation of risk maps, climate outlooks, and early warning bulletins.

5. Collaborate with implementing partners, extensionists, and local informants to establish and maintain a decentralized network of data contributors to validate and enhance early warning accuracy.

6. Support the mainstreaming of Glacier Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) risk monitoring into the broader early warning system and ensure protocols are in place for rapid response and information flow.

7.Strengthen partnerships with relevant national and international actors, promoting alignment with global anticipatory action practices.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

•    University (Bachelor) degree in Agriculture, Early Warning and Risk analysis, Climatology, Disaster Risk Management, Agriculture Economics, Social/Political Science, Food security analysis, International Relations, Development Studies or a closely related field;
•    For university degree at least six (6) years, for advanced degree at least four (4) years of relevant work experience in humanitarian and agricultural/rural development sectors including work experience with national and international NGO’s, UN agencies and governments; 
•    Working knowledge (level C) of English and local languages (Pashto and Dari);
•    National of Afghanistan.

FAO Core Competencies

•    Results Focus
•    Teamwork
•    Communication
•    Building Effective Relationships
•    Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

•    Experience or familiarity with food security and livelihoods, including surveillance or monitoring systems, post-disaster needs recovery, risk and hazards profiling.
•    Strong analytical skills, results interpretation, and communication for wide ranges of data and information users.
•    Knowledge of agriculture, food security, livelihoods, food systems and value chains in the context of Afghanistan.
•    Ability to work under pressure and adapt to an evolving and complex humanitarian context and within multidisciplinary and different cultural background teams.
•    Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written.
•    Coordination skills with strong individual planning capacity.
•    Knowledge of humanitarian principles.
•    Working knowledge of geospatial analysis software (ARCGIS, QGIS etc).
•    Strong professional command of Microsoft Office.
•    Knowledge of Adobe package.
•    Previous work experience with the UN is an advantage.
•    Proven experience in designing, operationalizing, or managing integrated early warning systems that combine Earth observation, ground-level data, and geospatial analytics.
•    Experience in agricultural risk mapping and impact-based early warning dissemination.
•    Understanding of mobile-based dissemination tools and communication channels (e.g., VIAMO, local radio).

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION