Nutrition Specialist, P-3, TA ( 364 days), Amman - Jordan, MENA RO

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 104,359 USD and 136,650 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 demands on UNICEF to respond to large-scale crisis in all regions has never been greater. There is a trend towards increasingly complex crises, where conflict and climate threats exacerbate underlying vulnerabilities in health, water, food, and other systems. The result is a greater number of countries experiencing protracted food and nutrition insecurity and high levels of malnutrition in children and women. These demands are even greater in the MENA region - with multiple ongoing humanitarian crises, including an L3-level response in Syria. The capacity of UNICEF MENA country offices to support the Nutrition Cluster and Nutrition in Emergency (NiE) programme response is limited. With the MENA regional office being the first port of providing technical and surge support to the NiE response of the UNICEF country office, a need for dedicated full-time staff is critical. To deliver the minimum actions and standards defined in UNICEF’s Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action, structural support for NiE at MENARO and expansion of timely nutrition support to COs responding to a crisis is urgently required.

How can you make a difference?

Under the supervision of the Regional Adviser, Nutrition, you will provide significant support to improving UNICEF systems and approaches for NiE in the MENA region. This will entail supporting current essential functions as the emergency focal point in MENARO while bringing new capacity for analyzing and testing how data and systems can be improved and strengthened at all levels for UNICEF and Cluster’s nutrition in emergency response. In addition, this role will provide much-needed technical and operational support – both remotely and via deployment - to priority humanitarian responses to support UNICEF Country Offices in the MENA region to deliver on the Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action.

Your main tasks & accountabilities are as per the following:

1. Lead high-quality, proactive technical support to priority humanitarian response in the MENA regio

• In coordination with the RO and HQ Humanitarian teams and the Global Nutrition Cluster provide direct, context-appropriate technical support (remote and in person) to MENA countries for nutrition in emergency activities (emergency preparedness, response, and recovery).
• Support countries in developing emergency preparedness and response plans for crisis countries and reviewing strategic response documents (Strategic Response Plans, Humanitarian Needs Overviews, Humanitarian Action for Children appeals) to contribute to effective and efficient emergency preparedness and response actions.
• Enable systematic linkages between technical resources at HQ and RO, and country-level needs, for example, in nutrition information systems in emergencies.
• Identify capacity gaps and provide specific and contextual capacity-strengthening support to the MENA countries; utilizing approaches including but not limited to mentoring, coaching, and training in all areas of nutrition in emergencies.
• Participate in the monitoring and evaluation of the nutrition component of emergency responses (e.g. annual reporting on emergency preparedness and response, documentation of lessons learned and good practices, and strengthening the capacity of UNICEF monitoring systems to track emergency preparedness and response) as well as liaising with donors and contribute to knowledge management and communication to ensure that emergency responses are adequately resourced, and documented for future planning and strategy development.
• Provide operational support to country offices, including recruitment, proposal development, procurement, and budgets as required by the COs.
• Lead the NiE output under the MENARO Nutrition work plan and serve as MENARO Emergency Nutrition focal point in RO and HQ meetings.

2. Support the strengthening of systems for more effective and efficient NiE preparedness and response – with a specific focus on strengthening the humanitarian-development continuum

• In coordination with the HQ and RO Humanitarian teams and consultation with relevant stakeholders, develop and test standard operating procedures and tools for ways of working for nutrition in emergencies between MENARO and CO at the onset of an L2 or L3 emergency. This SOP will include minimum actions for nutrition response teams to consider at the onset or critical juncture of a crisis.
• Lead in identifying opportunities to strengthen coordination and collaboration between nutrition and UNICEF’s health, WASH and protection sectors at the MENARO level.
• Support country-specific Emergency Management Team (EMT) and Technical Meetings by preparing nutrition inputs and following up on nutrition-related actions.
• Work closely with the other Nutrition Specialists in the MENARO Nutrition team to strengthen linkages between the humanitarian- development programming

3. Support countries in strengthening their Nutrition Information systems in emergencies – by drawing linkages to national nutrition surveys and routine data systems

• Work closely with the information management and data teams at the RO and COs to monitor the nutrition situation in priority countries and lead in identifying and executing priority actions in preparedness, response, and recovery. This includes but is not limited to supporting the data analysis and integrating indicators
• Collaborate with country offices to establish and monitor the progress on benchmarks and performance indicators for the UNICEF MENARO Nutrition indicators for both sector and programme. Support country office nutrition teams in reporting on the nutrition indicators with quality and consistency for the nutrition sector and programmes by ensuring coherence.
• Lead the development and use of the Regional Nutrition data repository and dashboards in alignment with the Regional Nutrition Accelerators results framework.

4. Support technical developments in NiE – in coordination with HQ and other RO teams

• In line with the revised CCCs, and in coordination with the GNC Technical Alliance, support initiatives to improve nutrition in emergencies’ technical capacity in MENA countries, especially in the areas including cash programming for nutrition outcomes, disaster risk reduction, climate change and maternal, adolescent, and infant and young child nutrition in humanitarian settings.
• Work closely with HQ and other RO NiE teams for the identification and implementation of operational research in nutrition in emergencies.

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

Education:

• Master’s Degree in one of the following fields: nutrition, public health, nutritional epidemiology, global/international health and nutrition, health/nutrition research, policy and/or management, health sciences, nutritional epidemiology, or another health-related science field

Work Experience:

• Minimum five (5) years of progressively responsible professional work related to public health nutrition, public health, humanitarian assistance and development, health/nutrition research, policy and/or management, or other health related social science field is a requirement.
• Direct, practical experience in the design, implementation, and monitoring of nutrition in emergencies interventions is a requirement.
• Experience in providing context appropriate technical support both in person and remotely is a requirement.
• Experience as a cluster coordinator and ability to work in a complex environment are considered assets.
• Demonstrated ability to work in difficult and complex environments, and effective management of diverse stakeholders is considered an asset.
• Experience in design and implementation of SMART surveys, national nutrition surveys, and using statistical software such as SPSS. and experience in managing integrated food security phase classification (IPC) are a considered a requirement.

Additional desired skills:

a) Knowledge of UNICEF programs in the field of child survival and development, UNICEF Nutrition Strategic Plan 2020-2030, and the Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action (CCCs)

b) Proven skills in communication, influencing, and negotiation.

c) Experience in using advanced Excel functions (pivot tables), SPSS, and data visualization platforms is desirable

d) Excellent writing and communication skills in English are required. Prior experience in nutrition program/project development and management in any UN system agency or organization is an asset.

Language:

• Fluency in English is required, working knowledge of Arabic and/or French is an asset.

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.

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:

The VA is open to all (internal and external candidates).

This is required for all posts requiring a higher education degree. “UNICEF only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU) / United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed at http://www.whed.net/”

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.