Job no: 564928
Contract type: Temporary Appointment
Duty Station: Nairobi
Level: P-4
Location: Kenya
Categories: Nutrition

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.

Note: “This position will be based in Nairobi. However, the position has the option for a fully remote work modality. This will be determined based on the preferred candidate’s location and availability to relocate. In the event, that a remote work modality is selected, no installation to the duty station will be applicable and relevant entitlements will be adjusted based on lower of the two costs between the remote work location and the duty station.” This position also entails 50% of travel in field.

One of the critical goals of UNICEF for child survival and development is to improve child nutrition and prevent associated mortality. The early detection and treatment of wasting is critical for child survival, and a key cost-effective component of the scaling up nutrition framework for addressing undernutrition. Globally, 45.4 million children under 5 years old are affected by wasting and of these, over 13.6 million by severe wasting. Although significant progress has been made, the overall rate of admissions continues to be low and services largely unavailable or inaccessible. UNICEF has launched its new nutrition strategy for 2020-2030, and an inter-UN agency Global Action Plan (GAP) on Child Wasting was released in 2020, providing renewed commitment to expanding the availability and accessibility of current prevention, early detection, and treatment services. As part of the GAP, WHO has released in new Guidelines for the management of child wasting and nutritional oedema (Acute Malnutrition) in 2023, and supporting national policies’ revision and operationalisation of new evidence-based recommendations are key to UNICEF’s work in high-burden contexts.

For every child, Nutrition for all……

To meet UNICEF’s ambitious agenda on Child wasting and under the leadership of the Senior Nutrition Adviser on Early Childhood Nutrition and direct supervision of Nutrition Specialist for the care of children with wasting, this role will work in close collaboration with WHO Department of nutrition and food safety to update national guidelines for the prevention and management of wasting in line with WHO new Guidelines (2023). It will support documentation and sharing of lessons learnt to create a pool of experts able to support governments and country offices in translation evidence-based recommendations into practical considerations for programming.

How can you make a difference?

Support National Guidelines’ revision

• Review existing guidance and lessons learnt on national policies’ revision, including the GNC-TA latest mapping of national policies and summary of lessons learnt on national policies’ updates;
• Develop a mapping of priority countries to support for developing/updating national guidelines on child wasting based on readiness, requests and available funding to support in 12 months period;
• Strengthen and/or create a process to streamline guidelines’ revision based on new evidence and previous lessons learnt, bottlenecks and boosters using experience from UN agencies, partners and national level stakeholders to further increase efficiency and ensure sustainability of good national level recommendations.
• In close collaboration with WHO, provide remote and in-person support to countries ready to develop/update their national guidelines and protocols based on WHO latest evidence-based recommendations;
• Provide remote and/ in country support/lead national level coordination groups for guidelines’ development, ensuring a wide representation of key agencies, experts, researchers and policy-makers and agree on a common workplan and framework for guidelines’ development;
• Travel to key sites and programming as needed to better understand national level implementation and priorities
• Work with nutrition specialists at UNICEF HQ level to ensure latest evidence based recommendations are incorporated and translated into practical considerations. Close collaboration with the UNICEF-WHO Technical Advisory Group co-chairs will be required.
• Provide support/lead processes as per agreed workplan until completion of the task

Coordinate a pool of experts for the update of national policies

• In close collaboration with WHO, support the coordination of a group of  expert consultants’ for the revision of future national guidelines based on lessons learnt from country supported in the coming  12 months
• Develop key guidance and tools for guidelines ‘revision process in collaboration with the expert consultants’ group
• Ensure key feedback and comments from guidelines’ review process are taken into account by the expert consultants’ group key guidance and tools

Document and share lessons on guidelines’ revision process:

• Enhance cross-country learning and document key lessons learnt from national policies’ revision process
• Contribute to the generation and documentation of best practices and processes resulting from the national-level process of guidelines’ revision, e.g. development of toolkit of resources (slide deck for training, training material, sample versions of national guidelines etc.)
• Present key learnings and process for updating national policies to relevant working groups (Wasting GTWG, TAG, etc.). 

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s degree) in public health, international development or social sciences or related field is required.
• A minimum of eight (8) years of relevant professional experience 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 required.
• Prior experience in the development of guidelines on child wasting at national level
• Direct, practical experience in the design and implementation of nutrition interventions at national, regional and/or global level with specific expertise in child wasting.
• Prior experience in nutrition program/project development and management in any UN system agency or civil society organization is highly desirable.
• Demonstrated analytical and persuasive writing skills experience as well as editing skills, including ability to convey complex information in a clear manner to a diverse audience.
• Fluency in English (written and verbal) is required. Proficiency in French and another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish) is a strong asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability (CRITA), and sustainability

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

UNICEF competencies required for this post are.

• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (2)
• Works Collaboratively with others (2)
• Builds and Maintains Partnerships (2)
• Innovates and Embraces Change (2)
• Thinks and Acts Strategically (2)
• Drive to achieve impactful results (2)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (2)

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.

Advertised: 11 Aug 2023 E. Africa Standard Time
Deadline: 03 Sep 2023 E. Africa Standard Time

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