Programme Associate – Financial Services and Insurance

Job Description

Programme Associate – Financial Services and Insurance | World Food Programme

The Tone:
This is a Service Contract, L6 role based in Lusaka, Zambia. The World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, dedicated to saving lives in emergencies and building pathways to peace through food assistance. This role supports crucial financial inclusion, savings, credit, digital financial services, and micro/meso insurance initiatives, vital for strengthening resilience programming and improving the lives of people recovering from conflict, disasters, and extreme weather shocks.

The TL;DR
• Role: Full Time
• Type: Service Contract, L6
• Location: In-person Lusaka, Zambia

• Team: Programme Unit/Division; Reports to Financial Services and Insurance Technical Specialist/Thematic Lead
• Mission: Support Country Office coordination of financial-services and insurance programming within resilience initiatives.
• Tech Stack: Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint)

What You’ll Actually Do
• Programme Planning & Execution: Support the design, planning, and implementation of financial inclusion, savings, credit, insurance, and risk financing interventions, including preparing annual workplans, budgets, and activity tracking tools.
• Partner Engagement: Coordinate engagement with government ministries, financial service providers, insurance companies, private sector actors, and development partners, organizing technical meetings and maintaining stakeholder databases.
• Programme Monitoring & Reporting: Consolidate programme data from Field Offices and partners, track key indicators, and prepare technical reports, briefs, lessons learned, and donor updates related to financial inclusion and insurance interventions.
• Knowledge Management & Capacity Strengthening: Maintain knowledge repositories, support dissemination of best practices, and coordinate capacity strengthening initiatives for WFP staff, implementing partners, and stakeholders on financial literacy and integrated risk management.
• Operational Coordination: Maintain financial-services and insurance workplans, activity schedules, and financial trackers, coordinate routine check-ins with service providers and partners, and support programmatic verification for invoice and payment processes.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Completion of secondary education is required. Core domain knowledge in financial inclusion, banking, microfinance, savings and credit, insurance, agricultural finance, digital financial services, or risk financing.
• Experience: At least six years of progressively responsible support experience in financial inclusion, banking, microfinance, savings and credit, insurance, agricultural finance, digital financial services, risk financing, or related development programming. A relevant first university degree may substitute for some years of experience.
• Skills: Strong numerical, data-management, and analytical skills; experience maintaining programme trackers and partner follow-up systems; good report writing and stakeholder coordination skills; proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
• Bonus: A post-secondary certificate or university degree in Finance, Economics, Agricultural Economics, Banking, Insurance, Risk Management, Business Administration, Development Finance, Statistics, or another relevant field is desirable.