Nutrition CBNP-officer

Need Statement:

Stunting rates of 41% imply that 4 out of 10 children cannot reach full mental or physical capacity. Many factors contribute to stunting in Afghanistan including sub-optimal infant and young child feeding (IYCF) and care practices, low dietary diversity, food security, lack of clean water and sanitation, poor hygiene and access to health services.  The Government of Afghanistan has undertaken several measures to bring strong focus on child nutrition including strengthening community-based nutrition interventions to address child under-nutrition. The Public Nutrition Directorate (PND) of MoPH through support from development partners have developed a well thought out community-based nutrition program (CBNP) has been developed with the support of UNICEF and partners, that is a practical comprehensive minimum service that are delivered at community level. The CBNP comprises both community mobilization and practical demonstrations to educate and motivate behavior change among caregivers through community health workers (CHWs). The CHWs are trained and provided with materials and job aids to ensure they implement the community-level activities such as nutrition education, counselling, and food demonstration on breastfeeding and complementary feeding.

However, the roll out and scale up of CBNP in all the 34 provinces will need close coordination, planning, budgeting, management, and supportive supervision at all levels to ensure quality and that services are reaching all households in Afghanistan. Therefore, the MoPH-PND is looking for a senior officer who will provide technical support and oversight to all implementing partners in the implementation of CBNP and achievement of results for children.

Objective:

Support to Nutrition Extenders and National Technical Advisers for continuation of existing and scale up of nutrition services including Nutrition UNICEF staff

Reference to the RWP:

Reasons why the assignment cannot be done by a UNICEF staff member

As community nutrition portfolio of the programme requires joint work of different stakeholders particularly Ips and other technical entities, it is impossible to be managed through a UNICEF staff member. The extender support is much needed particularly due to recent inability of UNICEF to directly work with the government entities. The extender therefore will work closely with PND and all related stakeholders including from the provinces. In the meantime, UNICEF is scaling up its nutrition programme with additional nutrition community components. This scale up requires dedicated independent individual to facilitate the platform for the new programme components, and implementation which requires engagement with government stakeholders at national and provincial levels.

Reporting to Regional Coordinator and CTG Account Manager

Specific Tasks/Activities

ØCoordination and partnership

·To organize, conduct, lead, and follow up of the community-based nutrition technical working group within the frame of MoPH-PND.

·Partnership management with the MoPH-CBHC department and all stakeholders who are involved in nutrition and community-based activities.

·Coordinate and participate in CBNP review meetings, CBHC TWG/TFC meetings as well as relevant coordination meetings (health promotion TFC, CAH meetings, meeting with BPHS, citizen-charter Afghanistan program (CCAP) and other relevant events in-side and out-side the country and to represent MoPH-PND.

·Collaborate with AIM technical working group and HMIS to ensure complete, correct, consistent and comprehensive data is collected through established community-based information system, timely analysis and used for evidence planning and programming.

·Integration CBNP with other nutrition-specific programs (MIYCN, micronutrients, IMAM, nutrition SBCC activities adolescent and maternal nutrition etc.,) and nutrition sensitive programmers (WASH, Agriculture, MNCH) for strengthening all community-based nutrition interventions.

·Follow up of establishment CBNP task force committee in case of needs.

ØReport, Supervision, and monitoring

·Monitoring and supportive supervision of community-based nutrition activities and to ensure competencies at all levels for implementation.

·To participate in assessments and implementation research of the community-based nutrition programm that include field travel to all provinces.

·Review and follow up of report of activities related to CBNP from implementing partners.

ØSupply and knowledge management

·To ensure appropriate community nutrition supply including community kits, facilitators kits, job aids, cooking demonstration kit, and other tools.

·Ensure knowledge management and documentation of lessons learnt CBNP implementation and keep abreast of relevant nutrition policies and guidelines and communicate necessary updates to all PND`s staff, PNOs and the NGOs focal points.

·Support Tashkeel staff to build her/him capacity to performing related tasks properly.

 Any other activities and tasks assigned by PND Director

 C. Field visits and Monitoring

1.Conduct monitoring and supervision of program /training in all Micronutrient areas with focus on anemia prevention among adolescent girls and PLW to ensure quality supervision

This role has no team management responsibility. 

Minimum Qualification and Experience:

General skills:

·Management and team leadership ability.

·Having the required skills in general management.

·Writing and communication ability in professional and related area.

·Data analytic and data management

Language Proficiency:

• Fluency in English is essential
• Fluency in both local languages (Pashto and Dari) is must

Computer:

Be able to work in all aspects of Ms. Office (Ms. Word, Ms. Excel, Ms. Power point etc.), outlook and internet browsers

Key qualifications

• Minimum requirements MD with diploma in nutrition with 5 years’ experience in the related field (nutrition).
• Good analytical skills
• Excellent computer skills (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SPSS, Power BI, etc.)
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

·Excellent analytical and writing skills in English, Pashtu and Dari

Excellent facilitation skills