Individual Consultancy : Comprehensive Nutrition Gap Analysis (CONGA), 15 working days, Home-based, Madagascar

Contract

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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

Background :

Improvements in young children’s diets in their first two years of life can help reduce the burden of micronutrient deficiencies and accelerate progress in reducing other forms of malnutrition. Evidence on the specific nutritional gaps experienced during the complementary feeding period is required to design effective and targeted programming to improve young children’s diets in Madagascar. However, evidence on micronutrient availability, intake, gaps, or deficiencies is lacking or of varying quality, robustness, and recency. Synthesis of disparate evidence sources on micronutrient gaps can help provide a clearer picture of dietary gaps during the complementary feeding period (6 to 23 months) and the quality and breadth of the evidence base available in Madagascar. In addition, there is a challenge to the affordability of nutritious food. The unaffordability of healthy foods and affordable non-nutritious foods is a critical driver of poor quality of children’s diets, contributing to all forms of malnutrition.

Justification :

Poor quality, quantity, and diversity of foods during the complementary feeding period – between 6 and 23 months of age – can negatively impact children’s physical and cognitive development and result in multiple forms of malnutrition, including micronutrient deficiencies, stunting, wasting, and overweight, and obesity. Yet, in Madagascar, only 20% of young children aged 6-23 months consume a minimally diverse diet, and only 21% have a minimum acceptable diet. To better understand the specific nutrient gaps experienced by young children aged 6-23 months in Madagascar, UNICEF proposes to use the CONGA methodology to estimate (1) nutrient gaps during the complementary feeding period and (2) the certainty of available evidence on nutrient gaps. The Comprehensive Nutrition Gap Analysis (CONGA) is a methodology designed to identify nutrient gaps in the diets of a defined population and estimate both the public health significance of these gaps and the certainty of evidence they are based on. The CONGA methodology guides the collecting and synthesizing of evidence from disparate data sources that likely vary in quality, representativeness, and recency. The findings will provide a solid basis for designing interventions that could improve the nutrition of infants and young children in Madagascar if implemented alongside other improvements to services, behaviors, and the enabling environment.

How can you make a difference?

Objectives :

Assess nutrient gaps and evidence certainty in the diets of children aged 6-23 months in Madagascar (national assessment). If the evidence is available, analyze the data for the three regions of Grand Sud.

Work Assignment :

• Literature review of reports, surveys, grey literature on biological and functional markers, Nutrient adequacy of individual diets, Nutrient adequacy of household diets, Nutrient adequacy of national food supplies, Nutrient-information food-group intake for children 6-23 months if available. • Extraction of data points and their metadata from all relevant literature. • Scoring of the nutrient gaps and evidence certainty. • Write up of the results in a short document.

Deliverables :

Provide the CONGA report for Madagascar.

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in one of the following fields is required: nutrition, public health, nutritional epidemiology, global/international health, and nutrition, health/nutrition research, policy and/or management, health sciences, humanitarian assistance, and development or another health-related social science field.
• Relevant professional experience in conducting the CONGA analysis is essential.
• Strong data analysis skills.
• Strong communication skills, including writing.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (French) is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

To view our competency framework, please visit 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.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

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 also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. 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:

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

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.