Nutrition (and Gender) in Emergencies Officer, P2, TA, 6 months, Bamako-Mali

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.

For every child, hope

Despite the considerable efforts made by the Malian Government and its partners, the nutrition situation, particularly among children under 5 and women, remains precarious and even alarming, especially in conflict-affected areas. Latest national estimates show that 22% of children under 5 are stunted, 11% are wasted, and 82% are anemic, while 10% of women are too thin, 63% are anemic, and 15% of infants are born with low birth weight. Thinness also affects 15% of adolescents aged 10-14 years and 6% aged 15-19. In addition, micronutrient deficiencies are still widespread and impair children’s development and increase the risk of illness and death among children and women.

UNICEF Mali is currently providing targeted, rapid, and coordinated assistance to respond to morbidity and mortality associated with acute malnutrition in children under the age of five in conflict-affected areas of the country, including IDP sites. This support is being provided in conjunction with a sustainable intervention strategy aimed at preventing malnutrition through women’s empowerment. This strategy is in accordance with the Triple Nexus approach, which enables the smooth transition between providing humanitarian assistance and long-term development assistance. The primary objective is establishing resilient systems based on women’s empowerment to improve access to nutrition, as well as affordable and safe diets. Research has demonstrated the crucial connections between various dimensions of women’s empowerment and nutritional outcomes. As women are typically the primary caregivers, they possess the ability to directly influence the nutrition of their children through childcare practices, as well as indirectly through their own nutritional status. This is to be achieved by strengthening the environment for gender equality within families and society, capacity building of women members of GSANs Groupe de Soutien aux Activités de Nutrition, community support nutrition groups), and their economic empowerment through support for income-generating activities. These activities aim to produce nutritious food for children to enhance the performance of the food supply chain and ensure the timely delivery of supplies and commodities. The goal is also to encourage women to strengthen routine information systems and generate gender data to monitor progress, establish accountability, and inform policy and programme decisions to prevent undernutrition.

How can you make a difference?

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

 Programme development and planning

• In consultation with emergencies gender, health and nutrition sections, conduct gender analysis to examine barriers and opportunities for women’s empowerment and child nutrition and develop gender briefs for advocacy events, paying special attention to the CCCs.
• Ensure gender and women’s empowerment components are incorporated into Nutrition programme design phases and strategic directions, including strategic planning, mid-term reviews, and extended annual reviews.
• Collaborate with sectoral colleagues to identify areas of focus for multi-sectoral gender programming and prevention of gender-based violence (GBV) in nutrition interventions.
• Prepare required documentation and materials to facilitate the programme review and approval process.

Programme management, monitoring, and delivery of results

• Support mapping GSANs and their income-generating activities and identify opportunities to scale and develop new nutrition supply chains based on women’s empowerment.
• Use proxy indicators to identify gender barriers to GSAN empowerment and to develop country-specific implementation plans that address gender needs.

• Lead the implementation of Nutrition and Gender programming by enabling women to participate in decision-making, income generation, and capacity-building activities.
• Participate actively in working with the relevant government structures to facilitate gender—and nutrition-related activities and monitoring in the operational areas to implement gender transformative strategies.

 Measuring and monitoring the effectiveness of gender interventions in Nutrition programming:

• Support the strengthening of data systems and collection, as well as accountability mechanisms to monitor and evaluate progress on women’s empowerment, gender equality, and nutrition outcomes.
• Support the documentation of lessons learned and good practices that reduce gender-related barriers on both the demand and supply sides.

Monitoring and Reporting:

• Coordinate with the Nutrition Manager, the Gender Specialist and the Chief of Field Coordination/Emergencies to plan, utilize, monitor, and report on the gender component of nutrition programming.
• Participate in the planning and monitoring the utilization of the budget of nutrition programming.
• Lead the gender component of nutrition programme expenditure reporting, including annual and donor reporting.

Innovation, knowledge management, and capacity building

• Identify, capture, synthesize, and share lessons learned on gender and nutrition to develop knowledge and build stakeholders’ capacity.
• Facilitate nutrition and gender-related knowledge management, including documenting and disseminating promising practices.
• Apply innovative approaches and promote good practices to support implementing and delivering concrete and sustainable programme results on gender and nutrition.
• Participate as a resource person in capacity-building initiatives to enhance the competencies of stakeholders in terms of gender and nutrition.

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

EDUCATION

University degree in Nutrition, Public Health, Medical field, health science and epidemiology, Social Science or international development is required.

WORK EXPERIENCE

A minimum of two years of professional experience in one or more of the following areas in a developing country is required: nutrition and public health programming.

Experience in conducting or supporting analysis on health/nutrition.

Professional experience in working with women to improve child nutrition in violence/conflict settings.

Experience in nutrition programme/project implementation in a UN system agency or organization is an asset.

LANGUAGES

Fluency in French is required. Knowledge of an additional official UN or local language is an asset. 

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships(2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness(3)Drive to achieve results for impact(4)Innovates and embraces change(5) Manages ambiguity and complexity(6)Thinks and acts strategically(7)Works collaboratively with others.

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

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 include 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, 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 promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. 

Remarks:

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). Should you be selected for a position with UNICEF, you either must be inoculated as required or receive a medical exemption from the relevant department of the UN. Otherwise, the selection will be cancelled.

All selected candidates will 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.

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.

Eligible UNICEF International Professional (IP) Staff Members on fixed-term, continuing or permanent contracts applying to a Temporary Appointment, which is dedicated to L3 (or L2) Response, may be able to retain a lien and their fixed-term entitlements. The conditions of the temporary assignment will vary depending on the status of their post and their current tour of duty, and relocation entitlements may be limited as per the relevant policies.