Economist Lazio

Economist
Roma
Lazio, Lazio

Job Posting: 12/Sep/2024

Closure Date: 03/Oct/2024, 4:59:00 PM

Organizational Unit: ESA

Job Type: Staff position

Type of Requisition: Professional

Grade Level: P-2

Primary Location: Italy-Rome

Duration: Fixed-term: Two years with possibility of extension

Post Number: 1046772

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

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- **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**:

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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) contributes to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda through 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

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 FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy, within the Investments for Sustainable Markets, Agribusiness and Rural Transformations (iSMART) team within ESA.

The iSMART team's primary focus lies in conducting economic analyses to promote investments transforming agrifood value chains and 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 value chains.

**Reporting Lines

The Economist reports to Economist (iSMART), ESA, under the overall supervision of the Senior Economist of the iSMART team.

**Technical Focus

The Economist in this role will specialize in micro-economic analysis, techniques and tools, integrating advanced econometrics, survey design, sampling methodologies, resilience and risk analysis, spatial analysis and impact evaluation techniques in the study of agrifood systems and agrifood value chains.

This multifaceted position requires a comprehensive understanding of poverty and inequalities issues, in the context of the agrifood sector of low

- and middle-income countries.

Robust quantitative and analytical skills are needed to drive innovative economic research, policy formulation, strategic planning, and impact.

The Economist will harness a variety of data sources, including surveys, administrative data and remote sensing, to analyse trends, trade-offs and synergies within the agrifood sector to deliver an inclusive and sustainable transformation pathway.

By structuring analyses around these pillars, the Economist will contribute to providing a comprehensive understanding of agrifood dynamics and inform effective strategies and investments for sustainable and inclusive socio-economic development.

More specifically, the Economist will support activities that relate to FAO's technical network on poverty analysis (THINK-PA); activities under the United Nations Common Country Analysis (CCA) for the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF); and overall, in support to guiding policies and investments at country level in agrifood systems sectors that can lead to the acceleration of povert