Country: Thailand
Closing date: 05 Jul 2018
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Organization Name: The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)
Administrative Duty Station: Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific (RBB), Bangkok, Thailand. Consultant will work from home station
Position Title: Nutrition Knowledge Management Consultant
Duration of Assignment: Five months (August - December 2018)
Type of Contract: International Consultancy
ABOUT WFP
The United Nations World Food Programme is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. The mission of WFP is to help the world achieve Zero Hunger in our lifetimes. Every day, WFP works worldwide to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry and that the poorest and most vulnerable, particularly women and children, can access the nutritious food they need.
BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
Assisting 80 million people in around 80 countries each year, the World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organization addressing hunger worldwide, providing food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. WFP focuses on adequate nutrient intake as a prerequisite to good nutrition and health. Ending malnutrition in all its forms entails increasing the availability, access, consumption and demand for safe and nutritious diets that meet, but do not exceed, the nutritional requirements of vulnerable groups. WFP is committed to ensure children, women, and other vulnerable groups have access to and are able to achieve appropriate nutrition.
In Asia and Pacific region, an increasing number of countries has graduated from low to middle income status, however economic development is not equally distributed across populations, and social gains do not keep up. In addition, most countries are prone to disasters which can reverse gains previously made and affect most of those people already vulnerable to poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition.
Asia hosts the largest burden of malnutrition globally with it having about 60 percent of the world’s stunted children, 70 percent of the world’s wasted children and a significant proportion of the global population experiencing micronutrient deficiencies. In addition, rates of overweight and obesity are rising rapidly, among school-aged children and adolescents, adults, and the urban population in particular.
Governments are increasingly cognizant of the huge economic and human losses linked to malnutrition; as such 12 countries in Asia and Pacific region have joined the global Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement and developed multi-sectoral nutrition policies and action plans.
WFP in the Asia & Pacific region focuses on supporting countries scaling up policies and programs that prevent all forms of malnutrition, in particular stunting, wasting, and micronutrient deficiencies. In support of these objectives, WFP’s Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific based in Bangkok, Thailand [1] provides strategic and technical guidance to WFP Country Offices to support nutrition specific and sensitive national agendas. Specific focus areas of work include i) Leveraging national social protection programs and safety nets to enhance access for vulnerable groups to nutritious diets and knowledge; ii) Work with public and private sector to produce affordable nutritious foods for young children, adolescents and women and promote demand for and consumption of nutritious diet, and iii) Addressing nutritional needs in crises response and emergency preparedness. In addition to policy and advocacy work for nutrition, WFP leverages scale up of post-harvest fortification, especially of rice; Social and Behavior Change communication for nutrition; evidence generation around nutrient gaps for vulnerable groups; and creation of scalable program models for the prevention of malnutrition, and treatment of acute malnutrition.
WFP works in partnership with UN agencies, academia, private sector and civil society at country and regional levels , through the SUN network where existing, to ensure synergy and complementarity, and facilitates learning across countries and knowledge management.
In pursuit of the above priorities, WFP’s Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific based in Bangkok, Thailand is seeking to reinforce its nutrition team with a nutritionist for the knowledge management workstream.
[1] Regional Bureau Bangkok (RBB) has offices in in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, DPRK, India, Lao PDR, Philippines, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Timor Leste, Indonesia, the Pacific Islands
TASKS AND DELIVERABLES
Under the supervision and guidance of the Senior Regional Nutrition Advisor and in close collaboration with the broader team and country office’s nutrition teams, the consultant will focus on the following tasks:
Lead the development of a communication and information sharing approach for nutrition in the RBB region
Review past knowledge management approach of RBB’s nutrition team, recent survey monkey results and liaise with countries nutrition teams to discuss way forward on knowledge management and communication
Document results of the consultations and suggest a needs-driven strategy to move this forward
Lead the organisation of periodic conference calls with nutrition teams in country offices, including selection of topics for discussion, preparation of agenda and calls, and documenting outcomes
Documenting good nutrition program practices for sharing and learning
Support the nutrition and broader programs team identifying nutrition related topics worth sharing, especially related to the strategic priorities in the region such as rice fortification, nutrition sensitive programming, Fill the Nutrient Gap Analysis, among others.
Document good practices and programmatic successes happening in countries or at regional level and write success stories, briefs or other communication materials for internal or external sharing.
Use available success stories to illustrate them in visual ways e.g. on slides for use in presentations
Collect inputs from countries and the region for the Nutrition Division’s quarterly newsletter with focus on RBB region
Support preparing quarterly or ad hoc briefs for senior management and other audiences
Support the development of a capacity development / learning strategy
Inform advocacy and communication through analysis and documentation
Gather relevant information and support preparations of PowerPoint presentations and other visuals, abstracts, write ups required for use in regional symposiums, workshops, meetings, as required
Liaise with the Bureau’s Monitoring & Evaluation team and explore use of program data / analysis to illustrate WFP’s nutrition outcomes and achievements region-wide for use in communication materials and briefs, workshops.
Carry out analyses of available information to feed into knowledge and communication products, as required
Track implementation of WFP’s Nutrition Policy core elements in Asia and Pacific region through Country Strategic Plans using key indicators, and prepare status updates and summary of progress
Review, map and consolidate specific programming aspects from Country Strategic Plans such as Social and Behaviour Change Communication or Nutrition sensitive school meal programs to inform WFP’s regional program strategy
Partnerships & Collaboration
Conduct mapping of nutrition relevant regional academic institutions and networks and identify their core focus areas to explore:
potential partnerships to support evidence generation/research on specific nutrition related topics in the region or training programs
identify key institutions relevant for talent acquisition for nutrition in the region
Identify networking/ collaboration opportunities more generally
Knowledge management platforms
In collaboration with Knowledge management teams in the Bureau and headquarters, explore and suggest appropriate platforms for sharing of documents, briefs and communication materials and organise them accordingly for use by the team and county offices (links to point 1)
Manage available documents and files, as part of broader document managements strategy
Provide any other support, as required
Deliverables
Communication and information sharing approach with country office nutrition team developed, and validated
Specific programmatic areas are summarised, analysed and detailed from County Strategic Plans to provide regional overview and determine support needs
An inventory of country office write ups (documents) on specific topics is established that are worth sharing and made how and where to store them for broader access; additional topics of interest for documentation are identified
Matrix of nutrition relevant academic institutions and their core areas prepared and opportunities highlighted
Nutrition team’s core documents are well organised and files are up to date on recommended platform(s)
QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:
Educational Requirements:
Postgraduate Degree, preferably Master of Science in Nutrition, Public Health Nutrition, or related field
Required skills and experience (essential):
- At least 3 years of work experience in international nutrition, preferably with a UN agency or non- governmental organisation
Sound knowledge of latest global development in areas of Public Health and Nutrition
Experience in supporting organization of events such as technical (nutrition) meetings
Strong analytical skills
Excellent communication skills, both written and oral in English
Good computer knowledge and skills; including to produce visuals such as dashboards
Key functional competency requirement:
Knowledge of macro- and micronutrients relevant for human nutrition
Situational analysis and assessment (evidence generation)
Knowledge of public health
Knowledge on food systems
Applying programme and policy standards
Critical success Factors:
Ability to engage effectively with a wide range of colleagues and actors including those in the international humanitarian or development community
Ability to work under tight deadlines;
Maturity, initiative, courtesy, tact and ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.
Ability to handle any other additional tasks as requested by the supervisor.
Basic knowledge of Knowledge Management Concepts
Work experience with WFP would be an asset
Working Languages:
- Fluency in English is essential
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS
Thursday, 5 July 2018 (Midnight Thailand time)
Only short-listed candidates will be contacted
How to apply:
To apply, click on the following link;
Internal WFP candidates: https://performancemanager5.successfactors.eu/sf/jobreq?jobId=84825&company=C0000168410P&username=
External candidates: https://career5.successfactors.eu/sfcareer/jobreqcareer?jobId=84825&company=C0000168410P&username=
WFP seeks candidates of the highest integrity and professionalism who share our humanitarian principles. Selection of staff is made on a competitive basis, and we are committed to promoting diversity and gender balance.
Female applicants and qualified applicants from developing countries are especially encouraged to apply.
WFP has zero tolerance for discrimination and does not discriminate on the basis of HIV/AIDS status.
No appointment under any kind of contract will be offered to members of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), FAO Finance Committee, WFP External Auditor, WFP Audit Committee, Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) and other similar bodies within the United Nations system with oversight responsibilities over WFP, both during their service and within three years of ceasing that service