Nutrition Consultant: To provide onsite technical assistance to the Nutrition Section of Family Welfare Division/DoHS/MoHP,Kathmandu, Nepal

UNICEF Nepal Country Office is looking for committed professional and expert to provide focused and intensive technical support to the Nutrition Section of Family Welfare Division, HMIS section and coordinate with Procurement and Supply section of Management Division of DoHS/Ministry of Health and Population to ensure effective implementation of comprehensive nutrition specific packages, quality reporting on progress and program performance for 1 year.

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, result

From 1996 to 2023, Nepal experienced considerable improvements in maternal health and child survival, declining the Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR) from 50 to 21 per 1000 live births and the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) from 539 to 151 per 100,000 live births. Despite the progress, several systemic and programmatic problems exist, making it challenging to meet the SDG target of 70 per 100,000 live births for MMR and 12 per 1000 live births for NMR by 2030. Still significant percentage (70%) of mothers die due to preventable pregnancy and childbirth related obstetric complications. Department of Health Services (DoHS), Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) developed SHP and SBA national strategy 2020-2025 to replace National strategy on Skilled Birth Attendant, 2006 with major recommendation in restructuring training package into modular package for different cadres according to the nature of their job description, academic qualification, and level of health intuitions they are stationed.

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

 The objective of this consultancy is to provide focused and intensive technical support to the Nutrition Section of Family Welfare Division, HMIS section and coordinate with Procurement and Supply section of Management Division of DoHS/Ministry of Health and Population to ensure effective implementation of comprehensive nutrition specific packages, quality reporting on progress and program performance.

Scope of work:

Nepal is one of the lead countries to implement Multi-Sector Nutrition Plan (MSNP) since 2013. With UNICEF technical and financial assistance, the second phase of MSNP has been implemented from 2018-2022. Nutrition specific, nutrition sensitive and enabling environment for nutrition interventions are the key components of MSNP. The Ministry of Health and Population is the lead Ministry for nutrition specific interventions throughout the country. As per the UNICEF CPAP (2023-2027), out of four outputs for overall nutrition interventions, all 4 outputs except nutrition sensitive interventions such as Early Childhood, Wasting and Cluster Coordination; Middle Childhood, Adolescent and Maternal Nutrition; SBC and System Strengthening on nutrition are the outputs led by health sector with UNICEF assistance. Currently, Nutrition specific interventions have been implemented throughout the country with UNICEF technical and financial assistance to MoHP.
UNICEF has been providing technical and financial assistance to scale up and strengthen the Comprehensive Nutrition Specific Interventions (CNSI) training package throughout the country. The CNSI training package for health workers and FCHVs supports to strengthen the IYCF counselling and GMP by building their capacities and developing the skills. Still the IYCF counselling and GMP practices are far from optimum. Similarly, with UNICEF technical and financial assistance Mother- Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (MBFHI) and Expansion of Lactation Management Units (LMUs is ongoing in different federal and provincial hospitals and there is a plan to expand this initiative to additional hospitals. Similarly, the capacity building of the maternity staff on breastfeeding counselling and scale up the CLMC/LMU is ongoing.
Family MUAC pilot program has been completed in 4 districts. It is in the scale up phase. SBC is a focused area where more efforts will be used to strengthen the SBC component. Disaster risk reduction and nutrition in emergencies is another area of work supported by UNICEF and led by the nutrition section of FWD who is lead of the federal level nutrition cluster and supports the seven provincial nutrition clusters. Nutrition information and logistics management in humanitarian and development situations are key areas under the support. Similarly, systems approach to nutrition is an emerging area where support is required to strengthen the different systems to improve the nutritional status.
For the development of annual workplan and budget (AWPB) on nutrition specific interventions, UNICEF has been providing technical as well as onsite support to the nutrition section of FWD every year. UNICEF has been providing financial support through DCT to FWD to implement the nutrition specific interventions. UNICEF has also been facilitating both FWD and Management Division for the procurement and supply of nutrition commodities from the government resources and information management of Work:

Duration of Contract: The total duration of the contract is for 12 months. 

Duty Station: The consultant will be Office Based: Family Welfare Division, DoHS, Teku, Kathmandu

Deliverables: 

To qualify as an advocate for every child the consultant will have… 

Academic Qualification:

• A University Degree in nutrition, public health nutrition, food and nutrition, nutritional epidemiology, global/international health and nutrition, health/nutrition research, nutrition policy and/or management, or other nutrition related science field is required.
  
   

Work Experience:

• A minimum of five years of professional experience in nutrition policy, public health nutrition, nutrition planning and management and/or in relevant areas of maternal, infant and child health/nutrition care.
• Experience in health/nutrition program/project development in UN agencies or organization and experience working with health sectors and relevant partners including Nutrition Section of Family Welfare Division of Ministry of Health and Population, Development partner and CSOs will be considered as an asset.

Language Proficiency:

• Fluency in English and Nepali 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. 

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.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment. 

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 also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. 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. 

Remarks:  

Request to submit financial proposal (Nepalese currency) based on the deliverables for this assignment. 

Female candidates and candidates from the under-represented ethnic groups are strongly encouraged to apply.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. 

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws. 

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.