Job Title: National Consultancy: National Consultant to Support the National Core Working Committee of the National Council for Nutrition,
For every child, Commitment!
The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, leaving no one behind. In partnership with the government and other stakeholders, UNICEF aims to deliver good quality nutrition services at scale to build resilience and protect the most vulnerable, particularly during the First 1000 Days of Life from pregnancy to when a child is two years of age. Currently, Nigeria is off track to achieving the nutrition targets of the World Health Assembly 2025 and the Sustainable Development Goals 2030.
Nigeria currently has the highest number of malnutrition in Africa and the second highest globally. Nigeria is among a set of countries with disproportionate levels of people living in hunger and suffering from food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms. The newly released National Food Consumption and Micronutrient Survey (2024) shows that stunting is currently at 33% while 11.6% of children 6-59 months are wasted.
To improve food and nutrition security in the country, including prevention and treatment of malnutrition, Nigeria has endorsed a range of policies and plans including but not limited to the National Policy on Food and Nutrition (2016), the Agricultural Promotion Policy (2016), the National Multi-Sectoral Plan of Action on Nutrition (2020-2025), the Agricultural Sector Food Security and Nutrition Strategy (ASFSNS) (2016-2025), the National Multisectoral Plan of Action for Food and Nutrition (2021-2025) amongst others.
The National Council of Nutrition, a high-level decision-making body for nutrition is headed by the Vice President of the country. The NCN, has a technical unit called the National Core Working Committee, which is charged with supporting and advising the Vice President and the NCN on nutrition. The successfully selected consultant will work closely with the Office of the Vice President and the NCWC to provide technical support on the full implementation of the National Policy of Food and Nutrition.
How can you make a difference?
Scope of work and deliverables:
The consultant will undertake key activities as outlined below (but not be limited by them) to ensure the submission of the deliverables detailed below:
a. Technical support to the Office of the Vice President on Nutrition:
– Provide strategic advisory support and guidance to the Special Assistant to the Vice President on Public Health and the Nutrition Technical Team (NTT) on emerging issues, policy implications and strategic directions related to nutrition programming.
– Provide expert recommendations for policy advocacy and decision-making to advance nutrition goals at the national and sub-national levels.
– Support the development of a concept note, framework, planning and execution/delivery, accountability framework for the Conveying high-level meetings with global and regional participation.
– Support implementation of initiatives and Nutrition programming as required.
b. Support Government Financing for Nutrition at National and Sub-National Levels:
– Work with the Nigeria Governor’s Forum to increase utilization of the scorecard to drive state release of resources.
– Consult with key Government agencies to ensure the release of the resources under the Child Nutrition Fund (CNF).
– Support the development of high-quality communication materials including briefs, presentations and talking points that will be used in the nutrition advocacy.
c. Technical support to the National Core Working Committee on Nutrition:
– Provide strategic technical support and guidance to the NCWC on emerging issues including Nutrition and Food security crisis and strategic directions related to nutrition programming.
– Undertake capacity needs assessment to identify gaps, challenges and opportunities for institutional capacity strengthening for nutrition across key MDAs.
– Provide expert recommendations on decision-making to advance nutrition goals at the national and sub-national levels.
d. And any other tasks assigned tasks.
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
Education: Master’s degree in public health or a field relevant to global health.
Experience:
- Minimum of 10 years’ experience in Nutrition and/or Public Health.
- Experience in public administration.
- Experience in engaging multi-sectoral Food and Nutrition Systems stakeholders.
- Extensive knowledge of micronutrient programming in Nigeria, Nigerian health systems and nutrition sectoral policy landscape.
- Experience in managing multi-stakeholder working groups.
- Experience in institutional capacity building at the national level.
- Experience in monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.
- Proficiency in MS Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
- Experience related to global public health is an asset.
- Language Requirements: Fluency in written and spoken English is required.
For every Child, you demonstrate…
UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).
To view our competency framework, please visit here.
Application Instructions:
The application deadline is October 24th, 2024. Therefore, qualified and interested candidates can “CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT APPLICATION” It is important to visit the official website (link found below) for detailed information on how to apply successfully for this vacancy.
Website:
Official Job Website: https://unicef.org
Job Features
| Job Category | Consultancy Jobs, Nutritionist & dietetics Jobs |