State Nutrition Consultant (National Post)

Consultant Programme & Policy

Overview

Provide technical support and coordination for nutrition services in East Equatorias.

You have:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in Nutrition, Social Science, Public Health or a related field.
• Minimum five years of progressive professional work experience in management of nutrition and health interventions.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills and report writing.
• In-depth analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent facilitation skills and ability to organize training.
• Ability to work in a multicultural environment and proven interpersonal skills.
• Experience in building successful relationships with government counterparts, UN agencies, and CSOs.
• Knowledge of computer management skills including Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.
• Experience of field monitoring of nutrition Programmes.
• Fluency in English is required, knowledge of another official UN language or local language is an asset.

Contract

This is a Consultancy contract. More about Consultancy contracts.

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

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

The UNICEF nutrition programme in South Sudan including in East Equatorias State is implemented through four priority programme areas covering specific nutrition interventions including emergency preparedness and response planning and strengthening the enabling environment

1. Early Childhood, School Age Children, Adolescents and Women Nutrition
2. Care for Children with Severe Acute Malnutrition
3. Maternal and Child Nutrition in Humanitarian Crises
4. Governance, Partnerships, Nutrition Information and Knowledge for Nutrition

UNICEF’s nutrition programme is implemented in close collaboration with various line ministries of the Government of South Sudan, including the Ministry of Health, United Nations agencies as well as national and international non-governmental organizations. In addition to national-level engagement with the Government, donors, civil society organizations (CSOs) and United Nations agencies to have a national nutrition agenda, in East Equatorias, UNICEF maintains sub-national and field-level support to community-based nutrition programming through work with state ministries of health, implementing partners and local community structures. The position of the Nutrition officer in Torit is currently vacant limiting such overall support and technical guidance on nutrition. A consultant is required to facilitate a multisectoral approach to enable attainment of positive nutrition outcomes among young children.

Main Duties and Responsibilities:

The purpose of the state Nutrition Consultant is to provide technical support and overall coordination of the comprehensive nutrition services provided in East Equatorias. It is expected that, state Nutrition Consultant will contribute to achieve nutrition programme targets through improving quality of preventative and curative nutrition services for women and children.

Specific Tasks

• Support the maternal infant and young child nutrition (MIYCN) rollout to the county level in East Equatorias state (EES).
• Provide technical support and guidance to the partners implementing Nutrition programme in EES.
• Prepare Nutrition monthly situation report (Sitrep) and share it with the chief of the field office.
• Plan, carry out, report and follow up actions points from programmatic visits/ field monitoring visits to CSO partners using direct observation or remote monitoring modality.
• Plan and monitor the key nutrition supplies related to the nutrition programmes
• Analyze monthly and quarterly reports from CSO partners and track achievement against approved Programme Document (PD) targets; ensuring that key bottlenecks are identified, discussed and resolved.
• Assess CSO partners capacity on program monitoring and supervision and support capacity building CSO partners on program monitoring and supervision.
• Support State Ministry of Health and CSO partners:
  • To train and supervise community nutrition volunteers (CNVs) to conduct systematic community mobilization, growth monitoring and promotion, community screening for active case finding of children affected by wasting, referrals and follow up.
  • To build capacity of community nutrition volunteers to provide maternal, infant and young child nutrition (MIYCN) for groups and individuals counselling including cooking demonstrations.
  • On community mobilization activities during World Breastfeeding Week.
  • On community mobilization and monitoring of vitamin A supplementation and deworming (VASD) during campaigns or routine delivery approach.
  • To ensure that community nutrition volunteers promote nutrition sensitive interventions like home gardening and ECD.
  • To regularly monitor the stock status of key nutrition programme supplies.
• Participate in periodic nutrition coordination meetings (such as subnational nutrition cluster meetings, monthly program review meetings; Inter-Cluster Rapid Needs Assessment (IRNA), Risk Communication and Community Engagement subcommittee meetings etc.).
• Participate in selected Integrated Rapid Response Missions (IRRM) to reach displaced beneficiaries in hard-to-reach populations on need basis.
• Support roll out of any new guidelines for nutrition programme implementation to ensure the continuity of quality service delivery during emergencies such as COVID 19 pandemic, EVD, Cholera, Flooding, Desert Locust infestation etc.
• Participate in periodic food security and nutrition assessments (such as. Food Security and Nutrition Monitoring Surveys (FSNMS), Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), Inter cluster Rapid Needs Assessment (IRNA)) when required.
• Document any good practices developed as part of the implementation of nutrition projects including human interest stories (with accompanying photographs)
• Support in follow up of non-reporting partners for submission monthly reports in the nutrition information system (NIS).

Scope of Work:

In East Equatorias, the state Nutrition consultant will provide technical support and overall coordination of the nutrition services in the state

It is expected that, state Nutrition Consultant will contribute to achieve nutrition programme targets through improving quality of preventative and curative nutrition services for women and children. Nutrition officer will ensure that nutrition programme documents with CSOs are implemented as planned

Support will be required on implementation of strategies that include advocacy, community mobilization, provision of supplies, capacity of facility based and community-based service providers; focus on the first 1,000 days of life with high impact interventions in Health WASH, Education, Child protection and Social Policy sectors that improve nutrition status of the young child.

Work Assignment Overview

• Support the standalone Vitamin A and deworming campaign in EES by working on the budget and micro plan. ( one campaign in all the eight counties and the share the report .
• Participate and support the monthly Nutrition sub-cluster meetings in the state (one per month and share the minutes with the CFO)
• Conduct programmatic visit to the partners and upload all pending field reports in e-tools and close outstanding open action points (2 Visit PMV)
• Submit monthly sitrep report (one sitrep per month with the Chief) .
• Follow up with the Partners on timely submission of the Stock report/NIS Report (Stock report submitted every 5th of the month and NIS every 10th of the month).
• Participate in the ICCG meeting at the state level and provide updates on Nutrition. Once per month organized by OCHA
• Participate and support the monthly Nutrition sub-cluster meetings in the state which are done monthly (one per month and share minutes of the meeting
• Conduct programmatic visit to the partners and upload all pending field reports in e-tools and close outstanding open action points (2 PMV in a month)
• Submit monthly sitrep report to the chief of field office (one per month).
• Follow up on the supplies status of the partners and provide updates in case of any looting and stock out
• Organised and support Annual review meeting with the partners in EES (one Annual review meeting)
• Prepare and submit monthly sitrep report to the chief of field office (one sitrep)
• keep monthly tracking of the Nutrition supplies with the partners and ensure partners are able to submit monthly stock report on time. (All the stock report is submitted monthly)
• Review the quarterly technical report from the partners and provide feedback to the partners. (Eight partners in the state)
• Participate in the field office wide meeting and provide nutrition updates during the meeting
• Conduct programmatic visit to the partners and upload all pending field reports in e-tools and close outstanding open action points. (2 PMVs per month
• Support and participate in the world breastfeeding week celebration together with the SMOH and the Partners. (from 1-7 August)
• Participate and support the monthly Nutrition sub-cluster meetings in the state which are done monthly

Minimum Qualifications required:

Qualifications and Competencies

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in Nutrition, Social Science, and Public Health or a related technical field.
• Minimum five years of progressive professional work experience in management of nutrition and health interventions including program monitoring within CSOs or Ministry of Health, particularly in developing countries in humanitarian settings.

A range of specialized skills:

• Excellent oral and written communication skills and report writing.
• In-depth analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent facilitation skills, training skills and ability to organize and implement training.
• Ability to work in a multi-cultural environment and proven interpersonal skills.
• Experience in building successful relationships with government counterparts, UN agencies, CSOs and other relevant stakeholders.
• Ability to cope with hardship conditions.
• Knowledge of computer management skills including Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint software.
• Experience of field monitoring of nutrition Programmes

Language Requirements: Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language or local language of the duty station is considered as an asset.

All applications must be submitted with detailed financial and technical proposal

Payment Schedule

Payment will be done monthly upon delivery of key task and submission of all necessary reports as stipulated in the detailed Terms of Reference.

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

Click here to learn more about UNICEF’s values and competencies.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

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:

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.

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Potential interview questions

Added 4 years ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: unicef.org