International Consultancy to Provide Technical Assistance on Nutrition and Climate Change, Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office Job at UNICEF

Goal and objective:
Under the supervision of Regional Advisor Nutrition, the main purpose of this assignment is to coordinate a climate sensitive nutrition response to current nutrition emergencies in the region and provide support to current efforts to strengthen capacities of the UNICEF ESA Regional Office and country offices in climate sensitive nutrition programming, by providing support to various activities focusing on the nexus of nutrition and climate change, and enhance climate resilient and shock-responsive nutrition programming .
The objective of this assignment is to assess drivers of climate change impacts on nutrition and identify potential adaptation options to inform the development of a strategy on climate change mainstreaming in nutrition services, as well as support to shock-responsiveness of nutrition programmes to the impacts of climate induced emergencies. This will be achieved through providing data, information, knowledge and skills to analyse and interpret the relation between nutrition and climate change; support development of models on shock-responsiveness of systems; providing support to the development of training materials and toolkits on nutritional vulnerability as a component of risk assessment and resilience planning; contributing to the drafting of reports through provision of technical input to documents focusing on nutrition challenges in the context of climate change; and providing technical expertise for meetings, briefs and similar deliverables.

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Specific objectives include:
• Undertake evidence generation/analysis: on how climate change has been impacting on food security and malnutrition outcomes; livelihoods, choice of diets and feeding habits; assess climate risks to food security and maternal and child malnutrition services provided, access to healthcare services, and how this impact would evolve in near and long-term future in the ESA region; document the impact of climate change on women’s workload, and child-caring practices resulting in repeated humanitarian disasters.
• In consultation with regional and country teams, develop a climate change – and nutrition program framework and strategy for ESAR, including development of conceptual linkage between the broader nutrition resilience and climate sensitive nutrition programming, and climate risk-informed nutrition indicators.
• Frame nutrition as a core element to be included within the strategies, plans and proposals to be funded with climate financing – e.g. Green Climate Fund, funding commitments arising from the COP-27 conference to support low income countries address the impacts of climate change, and identify opportunities for country offices to include nutrition
• In consultation with regional and country teams, further refine Surge Approach and other shock-responsiveness approaches that aim at improving the elasticity of systems to absorb climate induced nutrition shocks.
• Support country offices to integrate climate sensitive nutrition within their program documents, AWP/RWPs, donor proposals, and PCAs with partners
• Contribute to the UNICEF climate and resilience agenda through engaging on multi-sectoral climate change programming with relevant sections (WASH, Health, Social Protection).
• Provide surge support to countries in a major climate-related emergency in consultation with Nutrition Manager for wasting/emergency and the ESARO nutrition advisor.

Responsibilities and Tasks
Under the direction of the Nutrition Advisor, and in close coordination with other members and technical specialists of the Nutrition Team and other sections as appropriate, responsible for / support the development, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of climate change and nutrition programming, the expert will:
• Support to country Office activities focused on resilience of nutrition services to children in the context of climate change, and environment and natural resource degradation. These might include technical assistance to field level staff for the implementation of specific activities.
• Develop capacity within ESARO and country offices to analyse and interpret the relation between nutrition and climate change. This will include developing risk assessment methodology, and training materials and toolkits.
• Provide technical nutrition input to documents focusing on resilience in the context of climate change
• Support the development of innovative approaches to improve elasticity of health systems for surge response during climate induced nutrition emergency like drought, cyclones and floods.
• Provide technical review for nutrition components to diverse documents on resilience and climate change mitigation and adaptation.
• Produce a document framing nutrition as a core element to be included within the strategies, plans and proposals to be funded with climate financing – e.g. Green Climate Fund, funding commitments arising from the COP-27 conference to support low income countries address the impacts of climate change, and identify opportunities for country offices to include nutrition
• Support the nutrition advisor and team members by providing data, information and knowledge and expertise on nutrition aspects of resilience building especially in the context of climate change, including risk assessment and mitigation against humanitarian disasters resulting from climate change.
• Support UNICEF regional office in development of tools to identify entry points, policy recommendations and programmatic actions to address climate change as a driver of malnutrition.
• Provide surge support to countries in nutrition emergencies as needed
• Perform other duties as required.

Desired Competencies. technical background and experience
• An advanced degree or higher qualification in Nutrition, Public Health, climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, earth and environmental sciences, geography, or a related field. Degree in human nutrition is an asset.
• At least eight years of relevant experience in programme and/or policy support in the area of nutrition and climate change or natural resource management or humanitarian response.
• A professional work experience in the UN or other international organizations, national governments or the private sector is an asset.
• Knowledge and proven analytical skills and experience in experience in public health nutrition and/or emergency nutrition project development, drafting, implementation, monitoring, reporting and verification.
• Knowledge and experience in climate change risk analysis, adaptation and mitigation, and climate financing.
• Background/familiarity to approaches for development, implementation and management of nutrition program approaches to disaster risk management and reduction, resilience building, and linkage with health, WASH, social protection and food security programming.
• Ability to design mapping, landscape analyses, programme reviews etc and apply knowledge from contemporary research in the field of nutrition/DRR/climate change, and translate this into programming strategies for different contexts (humanitarian, urban slum, etc.)
• Fluency in English (verbal and written). knowledge of another UN language an asset.

Method of Application
Interested and qualified? Go to UNICEF on jobs.unicef.org to apply