Nepal: Nutrition Consultant, Nutrition and Emergencies

Aug 27, 2018 | UN Children's Fund
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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.

Rationale:

South Asia is one of the most hazard-prone regions in the world. The region suffers from recurring geological (e.g. earthquakes) and hydro-meteorological (e.g. cyclones, floods, and droughts) hazards, as well as man-made disasters (e.g. complex emergencies, including refugee crises and violent conflict). The fact that a large number of countries in the region and a significant population experience frequent natural disaster and other emergency situations, highlights the need to strengthen the preparedness and response capacities of UNICEF and partners in the region, aligned with development efforts and contributing to strengthening of the resilience of vulnerable and affected communities. UNICEF is committed to fulfilling its Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action and its mandate and lead role in nutrition as the cluster or sector lead on nutrition.

Undernutrition in South Asia region is of public health concern, with 59 million children below 5 years affected by stunting and 27 million children affected by wasting. Emergencies greatly expose children to increased nutritional risks and vulnerabilities contributing to excess rates of mortality and severe wasting, and significantly compromising their longer-term development potential. Without good emergency preparedness and response capacities, as well as sustained efforts to build the resilience of vulnerable and affected populations, entire generations of children may face a future of dependency, poverty and threatened survival.

UNICEF is working with governments and partners to respond to nutrition needs at the onset of an emergency while also contributing to resilient development by supporting national/local capacities and helping families to anticipate and reduce risks related to disaster, conflict, climate change and other shifts, prepare for and better manage shocks and crises, and recover from them more swiftly. UNICEF adopts a risk-informed approach to programming, undertaking robust risk analysis of shocks and stresses, and adjusting and developing programming as necessary to prevent, mitigate and prepare for these risks. UNICEF's programme response in emergencies is guided by the Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action. In addition, UNICEF usually assumes the role of Cluster Lead on nutrition in emergencies.

UNICEF's support towards severe acute malnutrition (SAM) management has significantly scaled-up over the past few years, in both emergency and non-emergency contexts in the region. Through the USAID - Food for Peace (FFP) support in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, UNICEF has been able to provide timely responses to meet the SAM management needs of the most vulnerable populations in emergency and non-emergency contexts.  

To enable programming excellence and delivery of at scale nutrition results for children in development and humanitarian contexts and ensure quality and effective nutrition preparedness and response to humanitarian situations, the UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia (ROSA), provides technical oversight to the USAID - FFP supported countries, as well as supports regional-level actions to build capacity on nutrition preparedness and response in emergencies and support sustained and effective coverage of the management of SAM.

There is need to provide technical support and oversight to countries in the region, in particular Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, to enhance the nutrition in emergencies (NiE) capacities of UNICEF nutrition staff, governments and partners to ensure quality and effective nutrition preparedness and response to humanitarian situations. Furthermore, there is need to support the scale-up of effective coverage of SAM management at country level in the USAID-FFP supported countries, through the provision of ongoing technical support and oversight. The Nutrition Section within ROSA (comprising two technical staff) is currently short-staffed and unable to provide the required technical support requirements for the USAID- FFP supported activities in the region; consultancy support is therefore needed to augment the Nutrition Section's capacity.

Purpose:

The purpose of this consultancy is to provide technical support to strengthen the capacities of UNICEF nutrition programme staff, government counterparts and partners in South Asia in emergency preparedness and response for nutrition in high risk and fragile settings, including the treatment of severe acute malnutrition. The primary focus is on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and any other countries where UNICEF is a recipient of FFP funds.

Key Assignments/Tasks:

Under the supervision of the Regional Nutrition Advisor, the nutrition consultant will focus on the following assignments/tasks:

Food for Peace management

  • Provide guidance to country offices on FFP requirement, partnership development/building, and communications with FFP officials.
  • Provide technical and quality assistance support to country offices in developing FFP proposals and in ensuring quality reporting to FFP.
  • Develop case studies and field notes documentation of the USAID - FFP supported SAM management programmes in supported countries.

Emergency preparedness and response on nutrition

  • Support development of a regional nutrition emergency preparedness and response strategy for UNICEF ROSA.
  • Assess capacity development gaps and technical support needs of UNICEF country offices on NiE preparedness and response and prepare a capacity development plan.
  • Support the design, organization and implementation of capacity-building workshop(s) and other capacity building activities with target countries and at regional level, as appropriate.
  • Provide technical assistance and quality assurance support to UNICEF country offices in developing and updating nutrition emergency preparedness and contingency plans and UNICEF's Emergency Preparedness Platform (EPP) documents. 
  • Provide remote and in-situ technical assistance and quality assurance support to UNICEF country offices, e.g. developing/reviewing guidelines, training materials and job aids; nutrition surveys and monitoring systems; funding proposals, etc.
  • Provide surge capacity for nutrition in emergencies response as needed in affected countries.
  • Support COs to mobilize additional technical support to respond to short-term surges in demand.
  • Liaise with UNICEF New York on the development of an online emergency training course and other NiE guidelines and tools.

Management of severe acute malnutrition (SAM)

  • Identify technical support needs of COs on the management of SAM in humanitarian contexts.
  • Provide strategic and technical support to COs on the management of SAM, the development of national guidelines, design and implementation of training courses, and strengthening of information systems.
  • Support country offices in identifying potential opportunities for funding for the management of SAM in humanitarian contexts, and developing concept notes/proposals to support resource mobilization.

Knowledge management

  • Share good practices, lessons learned, evaluations and ensure knowledge/information exchange in the area of NiE with country offices.
  • Support country offices in bottleneck analyses, programme reviews and evaluations.
  • Conduct regular searches of literature, research, agency updates and any other relevant information and package to share on nutrition in emergencies and management of acute malnutrition
  • Develop case studies and field notes documentation of the implementation of NiE actions.

Minimum Requirements:

Education: Advanced university degree in public health or nutrition or a related field.

Work Experience:

  • A minimum of 8 years of experience and demonstrated track record in planning and implementing nutrition programmes, including on humanitarian action and emergency preparedness and response in low and middle income countries, is required.
  • Knowledge and experience in the management of acute malnutrition, infant and young child feeding in emergencies and nutrition assessments is required.
  • Experience in Nutrition Cluster coordination is desirable.
  • Experience in capacity building in nutrition in emergencies is desirable.
  • Experience in humanitarian settings in the South Asia region is desirable.

Competencies:

  • Good communication skills (oral and written).
  • Good organizational skills.
  • Good facilitation/training skills.
  • Demonstrable documentation skills, review and synthesis of data and information.
  • Ability to work under pressure.
  • Ability to work independently and to a clear work plan.
  • Language Proficiency: Proficiency in English language (verbal and written) is required.

Duration:

1st October to 31st August (11 months)