Food System Officer P3, Panama City, LAC Regional Office #126149 (Temporary Appointment 364 days)

Contract

This is a P-3 contract. This kind of contract is known as Professional and Director staff. It is normally internationally recruited only. It's a staff contract. It usually requires 5 years of experience, depending on education.

Salary

The salary for this job should be between 108,241 USD and 141,733 USD.

Please keep in mind that the salary displayed here is an estimation by UN Talent based on the location and the type of contract. It may vary depending on the organization. The recruiter should be able to inform you about the exact salary range. In case the job description contains another salary information, please refer to this one.

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, Nutrition

The UNICEF Latin America and Caribbean Regional Office is based in in Panama, operating in 36 territories, including 24 country offices. UNICEF works to put the rights and well-being of the most disadvantaged children at the heart of the social, political, and economic agenda, in line with our equity focus, working across our organization and with our partners in government, civil society and the private sector to support shifts in public policy, fuel social engagement, and increase investment for children. For more information about UNICEF and its work. (www.unicef.org/lac).

Since LACRO developed the first positioning paper on “Marketing and advertisement of unhealthy food and beverages”, the food environments agenda has been growing exponentially in the region and globally. UNICEF LACRO has become a credible and respected a leader and coordinator in the childhood overweight prevention agenda with a focus on improving food environments. In 2021, UNICEF LACRO launched the first regional thematic report on childhood overweight and created an important momentum for this area of work and for UNICEF, which was sustained after that and further strengthened with the launch of the 2023 report on childhood overweight in August 2023.

LACRO’s role in this agenda includes regional advocacy and convening of partners, capacity building and technical support to UNICEF Country Offices, evidence generation and dissemination and resource mobilization. To leverage partnership opportunities and ensure the ongoing support to Country Offices and regional advocacy, the LACRO Survive & Thrive and Private Sector Fundraising and Partnerships/ Child Rights and Business Sections are seeking a TA position.

How can you make a difference?

The primary objectives of this assignment are as follows:

1. Strengthen regional evidence base and Country Office capacities on Addressing Obesogenic environments: The TA will actively contribute to actions aimed at mitigating the negative impacts of obesogenic environments on children, and also leveraging drivers of the food systems to positively impact their nutrition and health habits. This will involve evidence generation, advocacy, and the monitoring and promotion of regulatory frameworks that ensure healthier environments for children.

2. Fostering healthy urban environments: Building upon pilot projects in Mexico City and Santiago de Chile, UNICEF aims to promote the adoption of recommendations for improving children's health and nutrition in urban spaces, including trough engaging with city networks in the region, and supporting Country Offices.

3. Building holistic innovative partnerships: A core responsibility of the TA is to establish and foster collaborations with relevant stakeholders from the public sector, private sector, academia, civil society, and other sectors. These partnerships will work towards promoting healthy nutrition and lifestyle choices for children, at the same time as ensuring a lower negative impact on health and nutrition from the environment.

4. Advocacy for a new narrative and positive social norms on nutrition and health: The TA will support the dissemination and advocacy of a renewed narrative on childhood overweight, shifting the focus from an individual perspective to an environmental one. This is instrumental in addressing the complex issue of childhood overweight.

5. Providing technical support and advocacy at regional and country levels: The TA will provide technical support to advance the agenda on preventing childhood overweight and engage with the private sector at both regional and country levels. By working closely with different actors, the TA will help ensure the effective implementation of initiatives aimed at limiting the growth, and eventually reducing, childhood obesity rates in the region.

This assignment offers an opportunity to make a positive impact on child nutrition, health and well-being by championing evidence-based strategies through a child rights approach, forging strong partnerships, and advocating for meaningful change in policy and practice.

Specific Tasks:

The TA will take a proactive role in developing and implementing the suggested actions for each of the key initiatives:

1. Monitoring regulations and foster advocacy for healthier food environments:

• Monitoring existing regulations aimed at reducing the negative impacts of obesogenic environments on children. This involves actively supporting Country Offices colleagues in tracking the implementation of policies to prevent childhood overweight.

• Strategize and identify advocacy approaches to strengthen regulations in countries where this agenda is relatively new. This includes planning and coordinating activities like workshops and events to disseminate results, promote the advocacy agenda from a child rights perspective, and accelerate peer sharing and collaboration internally, and with all relevant actors of the food systems. This also includes working on food and beverage marketing (including digital marketing) and labelling (including the implementation of The International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes), promoting a game changing fiscality to disincentivize the consumption of ultra-processed products while promoting healthy alternatives, guaranteeing healthy environments in schools, health centers, sports infrastructure, and areas where children live and play (including advocacy for healthier urban environments).

2. Fostering healthy urban environments:

• In coordination with city authorities in the region, UNICEF Country Offices, UNICEF’s Child Friendly Cities initiatives, Cities Changing Diabetes initiative, C40, Mercociudades, Union of Ibero-American Capital Cities, and other relevant urban networks and events, and other stakeholders, the TA will contribute to promoting the development of healthy urban environments for children.

• Building upon the pilot projects in Mexico City and Santiago de Chile, and UNICEF ‘s guidance for Urban Authorities, the TA will disseminate recommendations for improving children's health and nutrition in urban spaces. This will involve engaging with city networks in the region, supporting Country Offices colleagues in similar efforts, ensuring a strong synergy with like-minded organizations and effectively promote UNICEF's vision for healthy urban settings at key events and advocacy spaces.

3. Collaborating with relevant actors for child nutrition:

• Explore collaborations with stakeholders from the private sector, academia, civil society, and other areas to promote healthy nutrition for children. Working alongside the Health & Nutrition and Corporate Partnership teams, the TA will help identify potential partnerships with the private sector and major donors, but also public donors. These collaborations will explore all potential collaboration modalities, including leveraging the partner’s power of advocacy, their core business and footprint, and funding from companies and foundations, but also by improving their own practices to mitigate their impact on children rights

4. Advocating for a renewed Narrative on childhood overweight and obesity:

• Collaborate with the Social and Behavior Change and Communications teams to support the dissemination and advocacy of a renewed narrative surrounding childhood overweight and obesity. This shift will focus on transitioning from an individual perspective and responsibility to an environment-oriented approach.

• Provide technical support for the development of communication materials, policy briefs, guidelines, the support UNICEF and external leaders to advocate, and the coordination of LACRO v.22 April 2021 Page 4 of 5 other activities related to the advocacy agenda for healthy environments for children in the region. This also include developing with Communications, an inspiring and content relevant platform / page with the positioning of UNICEF, narrative and vision, including resources such as thematic reports, studies, scientific papers, advocacy pieces, agenda of events and reports of activities.

5. Technical support for the overweight prevention agenda:

• Serve as the primary contact for colleagues in UNICEF’s Country Offices, including Nutrition, Health, PFP, CRB, Communications, and SBC teams, on all previously mentioned matters. This will involve developing and ongoing updates of an internal Knowledge Management platform for colleagues with all relevant information and documents (including UNICEF and non-UNICEF material) on food systems and obesogenic environments, coordinating bi-monthly transversal meetings on Nutrition & Private Sector, actively participating to network meetings of Health / Nutrition, Business Engagement and Child Rights, PFP, Corporate Partnerships, and monthly monitoring and updates on the knowledge exchange platform for overweight prevention.

Impact for Results:

By implementing these specific tasks, the TA will play a crucial role in driving positive change, fostering collaborations, and advocating for healthier food environments and nutrition for children across the region. The efforts put forth during this assignment will contribute significantly to UNICEF's mission of safeguarding the well-being and future of children, and the specific Regional Office accountabilities on providing technical support to Country Offices, building and managing knowledge, advocacy and resource mobilization.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships (2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness (3) Drive to achieve results for impact (4) Innovates and embraces change (5) Manages ambiguity and complexity (6) Thinks and acts strategically (7) Works collaboratively with others.(8) nurtures, and leads and manages people.

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic. We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements. UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

UNICEF’s active commitment towards diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children.

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments are also subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.