Nutrition Officer (Assessment and Surveillance) at the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF)

United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (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.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Nutrition Officer (Assessment and Surveillance)

Location: Maiduguri, Borno
Job no: 563381
Contract type: Temporary Appointment
Level: NO-2
Categories: Nutrition

How can you make a Difference?

• The Nutrition Officer (Assessment and Surveillance) provides professional technical, operational, and administrative assistance throughout the programming process for the nutrition programmes/projects within the Maiduguri Field Office, from development planning to delivery of results through assessment, surveys and surveillance.
• In doing so, the incumbent implements a variety of nutrition surveys, assessments and surveillance, technical and administrative programme tasks to facilitate programme development, implementation, programme progress monitoring, evaluation, and reporting of results and dissemination.

Conduct Nutrition and Food Security Surveillance (NFSS):

• Responsible for the overall management of Nutrition and Food Security Surveillance (NFSS) in the BAY States (Borno, Adamawa and Yobe) through planning, and development of the concept notes, responsible for the overall training of survey teams of the 10 domains (group of LGAs) as independent surveys strictly using the SMART methodology/guidelines, taking up overall responsibilities in survey data collection and ensuring quality data is collected, data cleaning, analysis as well as a survey report.
• Conduct and update the situation analysis for the programme and the nutrition sector for the development, design, and management of nutrition-related programmes/projects. Research and report on development trends for higher management use to enhance programme management, efficiency, and delivery of results.
• Contribute to developing and establishing sectoral programme goals, objectives, strategies, and results-based planning, through analysis of nutrition needs and areas for intervention and submission of recommendations for priority and goal setting.

Conduct Community Sentinel Surveillance:

• Responsible for the overall management in all the accessible LGAs of Borno and Yobe States, design, implementation, coordination and management of the Sentinel Surveillance, data collection every quarter, data cleaning and analysis, alert report as well as investigation report and providing feedback to Program Officers for intervention.
• Work closely and collaboratively with colleagues in Nutrition, Health, WASH, Child Protection, and partners to discuss operational and implementation issues. Provide solutions, recommendations and/or alerts, and investigation reports to officials and stakeholders for higher-level intervention and/or decision-making. Record reports and assessments for easy reference and/or to capture and institutionalize lessons learned.
• Participate in monitoring and evaluation exercises, programme reviews and annual reviews with the government and other counterparts to assess programmes/projects and report on required action and interventions at the higher programme management level.

Support Humanitarian Situation Monitoring (HSM):

• Support data collection from inaccessible areas to monitor the nutrition situation for Humanitarian Situation Monitoring (HSM) in the BAY States (Borno, Adamawa and Yobe) and support the production of monthly bulletins.
• Participation in the In-accessible Area Data Collection/HSM Taskforce activities and weekly meetings, analyze mortality & anthropometric data analyzed and report in the HSM Bulletin on a timely basis every month.
• Ensures that all HSM partners have timely and accurate information of changes in conditions of children, women, and their families from inaccessible areas and facilitates information exchange to support planning and intervention.

Conduct Integrated Phase Classification of Acute Malnutrition (IPC AMN):

• Plan, Coordinate and conduct IPC Acute Malnutrition in collaboration with IPC GNC, Nutrition sector partners and Government.
• Build and sustain effective close working partnerships with nutrition sector partners, government counterparts and national stakeholders through active sharing of information and knowledge to facilitate programme response implementation and build the capacity of stakeholders to achieve programme goals on nutrition in relation to IPC AMN results.

Support Cadre Harmonisé (CH) Analysis:

• Support the coordination and conduct Cadre Harmonise (CH) analysis in collaboration with Food Security and Nutrition sector partners and the Government.
• In collaboration with the Food Security Sector (FSS), FAO and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), build and sustain effective close working partnerships with nutrition sector partners, government counterparts and national stakeholders through active sharing of information and knowledge to facilitate response implementation and develop the capacity of stakeholders to achieve programme goals on Food Security and Nutrition in relation to CH analysis result.

Conduct a Nutrition Situation Analysis:

• Conduct and update the situation analysis for the programme and nutrition sector for the development, design, and management of nutrition-related programmes/projects. Research and report on development trends (e.g., political, social, economic, nutrition, health) for higher management use to enhance programme management, efficiency, and delivery of results.
• Contribute to developing and establishing sectoral programme goals, objectives, strategies, and results-based planning, through analysis of nutrition needs and areas for intervention and submission of recommendations for priority and goal setting.
• Provide technical and operational support throughout all stages of programming processes by executing and administering a variety of technical programme transactions, preparing materials and documentation, and complying with organizational processes and management systems, to support programme planning, results-based management (RBM), and monitoring and evaluation of results.
• General information management support, including secondary data analysis to the nutrition team throughout the assignment period.

Innovation, Knowledge Management and Capacity Building:

• Identify, capture, synthesize, and share lessons learned for knowledge development and to build the capacity of stakeholders.
• Apply innovative research approaches and promote good practices to support implementing and delivering concrete and sustainable programme results.
• Research, benchmark, and report on best and cutting-edge practices for planning knowledge products and systems development.
• Participate as a resource person in capacity-building initiatives to enhance the competencies of clients and stakeholders.

 Requirements
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have:

• An Advanced University Degree (Master’s or Higher) in one of the following fields is required: Statistics, Nutrition, Public Health, or Nutritional Epidemiology.
• A minimum of two years of professional experience in assessment/survey in one or more emergency stations in the following areas is required: nutrition and public health surveys/assessments, nutrition planning, experience in nutrition data management, monitoring and evaluation.
• Proven statistical, analytic, and technical skills, including designing and administrating databases, database management and data analysis using statistical packages (ENA, SPSS, STATA, etc.), high level of proficiency in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.), ability to maintain basic websites, ability to produce data summaries and visualizations, GIS knowledge an added advantage.
• Experience with digital data platforms and DHIS-2 system.
• Experience in planning and conducting SMART surveys, Nutrition Surveillance is required, and an experience in nutrition situation analysis, such as IPC AMN Analysis and CH analysis will be an asset.
• Fluency in English is a requirement. Knowledge of another official UN language or a local language is an asset.

Application Closing Date
7th July, 2023 (W. Central Africa Standard Time).

Method of Application
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Remarks

• UNICEF’s active commitment towards diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. For this position, eligible and suitable women are encouraged to apply.
• Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.
• 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 are also 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.
• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.