Nutrition Specialist

United Nations Children's Fund

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Under the direct supervision of Nutrition Specialist (P3), the Nutrition Specialist (NoC) is responsible for liaising and managing relations with key ministries at the national level within the context of a project targeted at building resilience for Rohingya Refugees and host communities in Cox’s Bazar and support coordination between national and Cox’s Bazar level government authority i..e DAE, DLS. The Nutrition Specialist, in coordination with section colleagues, will thereby liaise intensively to support the further development and roll-out of a minimum package of nutrition interventions and generate evidence for scale-up within multiple line Ministries.

The project is set within a humanitarian-development nexus context; the influx of refugees has increased and emphasized the local communities’ vulnerabilities. The project aims to address these vulnerabilities through a system strengthening approach, building local capacities in order to build the resilience of communities, systems, and governance congruently. Nutrition outcomes are dependent on a variety of factors, such as access to essential nutrition services, healthy diets, and access to social protection support for the most vulnerable. As such, to achieve improved nutrition depends on different systems, most notably the health system, food system, and social protection system, as well as WASH. In this context, engagement with both national-level Government counterparts for their guidance and instructions, and district-level Government counterparts for their action and support, is necessary to build systemic change for communities.

In addition, the Nutrition Specialist will lead some of technical work related to the development of programme guidelines including those related to emergency and humanitarian-development nexus.

Major duties and responsibilities:

  • Liaise with key ministries (e.g. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, Ministry of Live Stocks and Fisheries) at the national level and UNICEF to ensure effective coordination and streamlining of activities on a day-to-day basis.
  • Strengthen capacity for building humanitarian development nexus and coordination at national and district levels (Cox Bazaar) to implement project activities in a coordinated and complementary manner.
  • Ensure alignment of project activities with the  Minimum Multi-Sectoral Package of Nutrition and evidence standards
  • Support planning and monitoring of project activities as part of the project implementation team
  • Internal coordination for activities on humanitarian development nexus for nutrition
  • Technical lead to support relevant Ministries to improve the programme guidelines, training materials for multisectoral programmes, emergency and Humanitarian-Development Nexus.

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

  • An advanced university degree in one of the following fields is required:  nutrition, public health, nutritional epidemiology, global/international health and nutrition, Agronomy, Development studies, policy and/or management.
  • A minimum of five years of professional experience in the field of nutrition is required.
  • Experience in coordinating multi-sectoral nutrition programs, in particular essential nutrition services, agriculture, food security and social protection, and coordinating between different stakeholders at different levels is required.
  • Experience in working and coordinating with the relevant ministries, including agriculture, health and women and children affairs is desirable.
  • Experience developing and implementing M&E frameworks and conducting quantitative and qualitative research or other evidence generation and knowledge management activities, particularly in the areas of nutrition.
  • Experience in health/nutrition programme/food security/social protection project development in a UN system agency or organization is an asset
  • Fluency in English and Bangla is required

Source: https://jobs.unicef.org/cw/en-us/job/563400