Programme Specialist (Nutrition and ECD), P3, FT, Child Nutrition and Development in Emergencies, Programme Group, Nairobi (#00113259)

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 111,152 USD and 145,545 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, a hope…

The mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does. UNICEF accelerates progress towards realizing the rights of all children, the universal mandate of UNICEF, as outlined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Our efforts have contributed to reduce the global prevalence of child stunting by one-third and the number of children with stunted growth and development by 55 million (2000-2020), demonstrating that progress for child nutrition at scale is happening across countries and regions.

However, despite this unprecedented progress, the burden of poor child nutrition and development remains unsolved, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, and in countries suffering from fragile governance and/or humanitarian crises.

Currently, one in three children under five years of age is not growing and developing well because of malnutrition – undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and overweight – and two in three children are living in food poverty, without the minimum diet they need to grow healthy.

Guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UNICEF Nutrition Strategy 2020-2030 aims to prevent maternal and child malnutrition in all its forms across the life cycle and ensure the early detection and treatment of children suffering from life-threatening malnutrition.

Our Strategy calls for a systems approach to improving maternal and child nutrition by supporting the delivery of nutrition-specific actions through five key systems: the food system and the health, water and sanitation, education and social protection systems.

These are the five systems with the greatest potential to protect and promote nutritious diets, essential nutrition services, and positive nutrition practices that support optimal nutrition for all children, adolescents and women, in all contexts: development, fragile and humanitarian.

One programming principle underlies our actions across countries and regions, both in development and fragile settings : Prevention comes first, everywhere, including in humanitarian action. When prevention fails, treatment is a must.

How can you make a difference?

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 food, health, water, and social protection systems. The result is a greater number of countries experiencing protracted food and nutrition insecurity, and high levels of malnutrition in children and women.

While UNICEF has capacity in Nutrition in Emergencies in most countries and regions, the demands for developing and updating technical guidance, tools and provision of direct surge support to countries and clusters – remains high. Further, there is a need to strengthen humanitarian responses to meet the needs of adolescent girls, women- pregnant and breastfeeding, as well as infants and young children, by focusing on their access to and consumption of nutritious, safe, and affordable diets. At the same time services and support is also necessary at community and household level to ensure that parents care and respond to the nutrition and development needs of their infants and children and building their resilience in times of trauma.

UNICEF’s systems and approaches for nutrition in emergencies must adapt to an ever faster-moving humanitarian landscape- that are focused on a wider range of fragile, complex settings and must incorporate global best practice and tools that meet the needs of women and children, ensuring that even in fragile, humanitarian contexts, families and communities can have access to adequate, safe, nutritious diets, and services that can support critical feeding and caring practices. These interventions that also take a multisectoral approach are increasingly critical to ensure that Nutrition in Emergency responses are able to prevent maternal and child wasting, while also providing timely and quality treatment to children with life-threatening wasting.

UNICEF is seeking additional experienced capacity at the global level to analyse, create and test new approaches that will enable UNICEF’s Nutrition in Emergencies systems to be more agile and effective, and strengthen preparedness, anticipatory action, and recovery actions.

This structural support for Nutrition in Emergencies at HQ will help deliver the minimum actions and standards defined in UNICEF’s revised Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action, and timely support for Nutrition and Child Development to COs responding to a crisis.

Purpose for the job

Under the leadership of the Senior Nutrition Advisor, Child Nutrition and Development in Emergencies, this role will support countries and partners to deliver quality, predictable, timely, effective, and integrated nutrition and child development responses.

The staff member will work closely with the Child Nutrition and Development in Emergency team with a specific focus on humanitarian response in areas of early childhood nutrition (ECN) and development (ECD), and backstopping support for L2/ L3 and/ other prioritized emergencies. This position continues to develop and strengthen delivery of key critical responses related to ECN by supporting and developing global guidance alongside the Global Nutrition Cluster Technical Alliance. 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 deliver on the Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action. This role will work in close coordination with the nutrition ERT, the GNC Technical Alliance and the IFE Core Group, as well as colleagues in Early child nutrition and Early Childhood Development units.

Summary of results-based key functions/accountabilities:

Programme support to Infant and Young Child Feeding and Caring in emergencies:

1. 1. Contribute to and support the preparation, design and updating of Early Childhood Nutrition (ECN) and Development (ECD) situation analysis for fragile and humanitarian countries to ensure comprehensive and current data on maternal and child diets and practices is available to guide preparedness plans, and design of emergency nutrition programmes
   2. Extended support for Early Childhood Nutrition responses in emergencies. Deploy as needed, to support surge and early programme planning and implementation needs.
   3. Support with RO and key CO, development of anticipatory action for ECN and ECD in cyclical emergencies and a core set of recommendations for action and recovery.
   4. Establish stronger programs in support of complementary feeding and foods in humanitarian settings and support SD, CO and partners to develop mechanisms for market shaping, demand assessments, and design of products.
   5. Plan and/or collaborate with internal and external partners to establish program benchmarks, tracking of user/ client experience as well as monitoring and reporting tools to track industry influence including donations of breastmilk substitutes, ultra-processed foods etc.

Strengthen integrated and cross sectoral actions for ECN/D actions in humanitarian settings

1. 1. Support technical leadership for planning and delivery of nutrition response in public health emergencies
   2. Support planning and integration of nutrition actions into humanitarian social protection programs
   3. Participate in discussions with key partners including WFP, GNC alliance members, national partners, and stakeholders to promote nutrition and child development services and practices in multisectoral emergency preparedness, response and recovery plans

Knowledge generation, management and dissemination

1. 1. Contribute to the generation and documentation of best practices and processes in close partnership and engagement with RO, and CO, thereby facilitating organizational learning
   2. Support drafting and production of relevant communication products to support advocacy and resource mobilization efforts, assist in drafting and editing articles, briefing notes, human interest stories and information materials for both internal and external use, as appropriate.
   3. Keep abreast of research, benchmark, and implement best practices
   4. Support strengthening nutrition management and information systems at global and national levels

Capacity strengthening and networking support

1. 1. Support capacity building initiatives to enhance the competencies of partners and stakeholders to promote nutritious diets, feeding and caring practices in humanitarian response
   2. Participate and/or represent UNICEF in inter-agency discussions, ensuring that UNICEF’s position, interests, and priorities are fully considered

Impact of Results

The support provided by the Programme Specialist will strengthen actions and programs related to ECN and ECD; with a focus on children’s diets and services in fragile, humanitarian contexts, and contribute to the early prevention, detection and treatment of wasting. This position directly contributes to accelerating humanitarian efforts to improve the nutritional status of mothers, infants and children and to maintaining UNICEF’s position as the global lead for child nutrition and development in humanitarian action.

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

• Advanced university degree (Master's Degree) in public health, international development or social sciences is required.
• Minimum five (5) years of progressively responsible professional experience at the national/and or international levels related to humanitarian action, infant and young child nutrition, early childhood development or related programmes is required.
• Experience in designing, implementing and managing nutrition and ECD programs.
• Demonstrated partnership and capacity building experience- including provision of in person and remote technical assistance, participating in the development of program tools for assessment, monitoring and reporting.
• Ability to draft concept notes, and advocacy briefs.
• Self-motivated with the ability to set priorities and manage multiple tasks under minimal supervision in effective and efficient manner.
• ADDITIONAL SKILLS DESIRED:
  • a) Knowledge of UNICEF programmes in the field of nutrition, ECD, health or social policy.
  • b) Proven skills in communication.
  • c) Computer skills, including SharePoint navigation and various office applications.
  • d) Experience in planning and financial management.
• Excellent writing and communication skills in English is required. Working knowledge of another UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish) is considered an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS)

Please click Here to view UNICEF's core values and Here to view our competency framework.

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

i) Core Values

• Care
• Respect
• Integrity
• Trust
• Accountability
• Sustainability

Ii) Core competencies

• Builds and maintains partnerships
• Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness
• Drive to achieve results for impact
• Innovates and embraces change
• Manages ambiguity and complexity
• Thinks and acts strategically
• Works collaboratively with others

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 including 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, 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 promoting 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.

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 may also be 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.

“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/”

For more information on remuneration and benefits, please visit UNICEF’s Entitlements’ page. If you would like to find estimates for entitlements, you may use the online Salary Estimate Calculator

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