DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS25 February 2026-23:59-GMT+01:00 Central European Time (Rome)
The School Meals Accelerator (the Accelerator) is a new initiative under the School Meals Coalition, launching in 2026 to support low- and lower-middle-income countries in scaling up and strengthening their national school meal programs. It responds directly to growing government demand for strategic, high-quality technical assistance that ensures long-term sustainability. The Accelerator builds on the momentum of the Coalition, which has mobilized over 110 countries and 140 partners around the school meals agenda, with more than 60 countries making formal national commitments.
ABOUT THE SCHOOL MEALS ACCELERATOR
Hosted by WFP and supported by a diverse network of partners, the Accelerator will provide demand-led, country-driven support across three core pillars: national program design, partnership alignment, and learning and knowledge. Its goal is to unlock the full potential of school meal programs by enhancing design, scaling investment, and fostering cross-sector collaboration across education, health, agriculture, and food systems. The Accelerator aims to help countries reach an additional 100 million children by 2030 with healthy and nutritious meals in school.
Joining the Accelerator team means being part of a bold, systems-focused effort to drive lasting change. Itโs an opportunity to work alongside governments and partners to co-create solutions, strengthen national capacity, and help shape the future of school meals as a strategic investment in children, communities, and inclusive development.
BACKGROUND
The School Meals Accelerator (the Accelerator) is a new initiative under the School Meals Coalition, launching in 2026 to support low- and lower-middle-income countries in scaling up and strengthening their national school meal programs. It responds directly to growing government demand for strategic, high-quality technical assistance that ensures long-term sustainability. SMA builds on the momentum of the Coalition, which has mobilized over 110 countries and 140 partners around the school meals agenda, with more than 60 countries making formal national commitments.
Hosted by WFP and supported by a diverse network of partners, the Accelerator will provide demand-led, country-driven support across three core pillars: national program design, partnership alignment, and learning and knowledge. Its goal is to unlock the full potential of school meal programs by enhancing design, scaling investment, and fostering cross-sector collaboration across education, health, agriculture, and food systems. The Accelerator aims to help countries reach an additional 100 million children by 2030 with healthy and nutritious meals in school.
The Accelerator is designed as an adaptive, networked learning system, where learning is a core strategy for scaling impact, strengthening national capacity, and evolving practice in complex, context-specific environments.
Joining the Accelerator team means being part of a bold, systems-focused effort to drive lasting change. Itโs an opportunity to work alongside governments and partners to co-create solutions, strengthen national capacity, and help shape the future of school meals as a strategic investment in children, communities, and inclusive development.
PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT
The Enterprise Solutions & Data Architect will be embedded within the Acceleratorโs central structure and will play a pivotal role in designing and operationalising an integrated digital, data, and learning ecosystem that enables the Accelerator to learn, adapt, and evolve over time, while supporting its processes, country engagements, and partnerships.
The Architect will:
Design a robust, interoperable data and solution architecture that captures, structures, and makes accessible all relevant Accelerator information (including operational inputs, technical data, partnership interactions, and learning insights);
Ensure seamless interoperability across IT solutions supporting Accelerator workflows and feedback loops
Enable the responsible use of data and AI-driven tools to generate insights
for strategic decision-making, reflective practice, and continuous adaptation.
Lead capacity-building and enablement efforts, ensuring that Accelerator staff can sustainably operate, adapt, and evolve the systems and processes introduced while embedding learning into day-to-day work.
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Through a strong enterprise architecture lens and close collaboration with technical teams and business process focal points, the Architect will help foster systems thinking, resilience, and long-term sustainability across the Acceleratorโs digital foundations.
ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:
All accountabilities will be delivered in close collaboration with the SMA team to ensure solutions are co-created, context-aware, and aligned with operational realities. The Architect will work iteratively with SMA stakeholders to validate assumptions, incorporate feedback, and avoid designing solutions in isolation.
1. Enterprise & Solution Architecture
Translate the Accelerator business processes, country engagement models, and partnership workflows into coherent end-to-end solution architectures.
Define reference architectures, integration patterns, and data flows that ensure interoperability across Accelerator systems and partner platforms.
Ensure alignment between technical solutions, the Accelerator operating model, and relevant WFP and UN digital standards and policies.
Maintain architectural coherence as the Accelerator scales across countries and partners.
Design architectures that explicitly support feedback loops between country engagement, partnership activity, operational delivery, and learning, enabling continuous sense-making and adaptation.
2. Cloud Architecture & Platform Enablement
Design and guide the implementation of secure, scalable, and cost-efficient cloud architectures, leveraging AWS as the primary hosting environment where applicable.
Promote adoption of cloud best practices, including principles aligned with the AWS Well-Architected Framework (reliability, performance, security, cost optimisation, operational excellence).
Provide architectural guidance for applications, APIs, data platforms, and analytics services supporting Accelerator use cases.
3. Data, Analytics & AI Enablement
Design and oversee a data infrastructure that consolidates information flows across Accelerator processes and enables analytics and reporting.
Support the integration of AI-enabled tools and analytics (e.g. ML models, generative AI services) to extract insights and enhance decision-making.
Ensure that data and AI solutions comply with WFP and UN data protection, responsible AI, and ethical use principles.
Enable secure access to data and insights for authorised internal and external stakeholders.
Ensure data and analytics systems support reflective practice, learning from experimentation, and evidence-informed adaptation
4. Infrastructure, DevOps & Operational Readiness
Guide adoption of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) approaches (e.g. CDK, CloudFormation or equivalent) for reusable and maintainable infrastructure.
Support the design of CI/CD pipelines and deployment practices that enable reliable multi-environment delivery and handover beyond the consultancy period.
Contribute to operational readiness, including monitoring, logging, observability, and high-availability design.
Collaborate with security and compliance stakeholders on identity, access management, encryption, and auditability.
5. Capacity Building, Documentation & Enablement
Develop and deliver a structured capacity-building programme (training materials, workshops, documentation, and recordings) for Accelerator staff.
Build staff understanding of systems, data flows, and architectural principles to enable independent operation and continuous improvement.
Maintain architectural decision records, alongside technical documentation, operational playbooks and learning logs to ensure the documentation is adaptive, updated and aligned with key business decisions, and their underlying assumptions, outcomes, and lessons learned โ informing future adaptation as contexts evolve.
Embed continuous improvement methods into day-to-day work by creating tools, documentation, and processes that help staff reflect on experience, surface assumptions, test new approaches, and build adaptive capacity
DELIVERABLES AT THE END OF THE CONTRACT:
All deliverables will be developed in close collaboration with the SMA team to ensure solutions are co-created, context-aware, and aligned with operational realities.
Enterprise and solution architecture documentation, including reference architectures, data flows, and integration patterns aligned with Accelerator processes and purpose.
Cloud architecture blueprints for key solutions, with clear implementation patterns and sustainability considerations.
Reusable infrastructure components (e.g. IaC templates or stacks) supporting Accelerator platforms.
Data and analytics architecture enabling consolidated information flows, interoperability, and insight generation.
AI enablement guidance and implemented use cases (where applicable), aligned with responsible AI principles.
Capacity-building package, including training materials and delivered sessions enabling staff to operate and evolve the systems.
Architecture and maturity assessment report, covering platform health, security posture, and cost-optimisation opportunities.
Mechanisms to support learning and adaptation, enabling data, reflection, and feedback to inform decision-making, experimentation, and continuous improvement across the Accelerator.
QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:
Education: Advanced university degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or other relevant related field, or First University degree with additional years of relevant experience.
Relevant cloud certifications (e.g. AWS Solutions Architect Professional, Security Specialty) are strongly desirable.
Experience: A Minimum of 5 years of relevant experience in enterprise architecture, solution architecture, cloud platforms, or data/analytics engineering.
Proven track record of designing and delivering complex, production-grade digital solutions. Experience working in multi-stakeholder, international, public-sector, or development contexts is highly desirable.
Knowledge & Skills:
Strong hands-on experience with cloud services (compute, storage, databases, serverless, identity, monitoring).
Experience with data platforms and analytics services (e.g. data lakes, ETL, query engines, dashboards).
Familiarity with AI/ML platforms and integration patterns.
Solid understanding of security architecture, identity and access management, and compliance considerations.
Ability to engage effectively with diverse stakeholdersโtranslating technical concepts and fostering collaboration across technical and non-technical teams.
Languages:
Fluency in oral and written English with an intermediate knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish) or Portuguese (one of WFPโs working languages) is desirable.
REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION
The School Meals Accelerator is committed to supporting individuals with disabilities by providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process. If you require a reasonable accommodation, please contact: global.inclusion@wfp.org
NO FEE DISCLAIMER
The School Meals Accelerator does not charge any application, processing, training, interviewing, testing or other fee in connection with the application or recruitment process. Should you receive a solicitation for the payment of a fee, please disregard it. Furthermore, please note that emblems, logos, names and addresses are easily copied and reproduced. Therefore, you are advised to apply particular care when submitting personal information on the web.
REMINDERS BEFORE YOU SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION
We strongly recommend that your profile is accurate, complete, and includes your employment records, academic qualifications, language skills and UN Grade (if applicable).
Once your profile is completed, please apply, and submit your application.
Kindly note the only documents you will need to submit at this time are your CV and Cover Letter
Additional documents such as passport, recommendation letters, academic certificates, etc. may potentially be requested at a future time
Please contact us at global.hrerecruitment@wfp.org in case you face any challenges with submitting your application
Only shortlisted candidates will be notified
All employment decisions are made on the basis of organizational needs, job requirements, merit, and individual qualifications. WFP is committed to providing an inclusive work environment free of sexual exploitation and abuse, all forms of discrimination, any kind of harassment, sexual harassment, and abuse of authority. Therefore, all selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks.
No appointment under any kind of contract will be offered to members of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), FAO Finance Committee, WFP External Auditor, WFP Audit Committee, Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) and other similar bodies within the United Nations system with oversight responsibilities over WFP, both during their service and within three years of ceasing that service.