Social Behaviour Change (SBC) Consultant

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

WFP celebrates and embraces diversity. It is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all its employees and encourages qualified candidates to apply irrespective of race, colour, national origin, ethnic or social background, genetic information, gender, gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, religion or belief, HIV status or disability.

ABOUT WFP

The World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity, for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

At WFP, people are at the heart of everything we do and the vision of the future WFP workforce is one of diverse, committed, skilled, and high performing teams, selected on merit, operating in a healthy and inclusive work environment, living WFP's values (Integrity, Collaboration, Commitment, Humanity, and Inclusion) and working with partners to save and change the lives of those WFP serves.

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WHY JOIN WFP? 

• WFP is a 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

• WFP offers a highly inclusive, diverse, and multicultural working environment.

• WFP invests in the personal & professional development of its employees through a range of training, accreditation, coaching, mentorship, and other programs as well as through internal mobility opportunities.

• A career path in WFP provides an exciting opportunity to work across the various country, regional and global offices around the world, and with passionate colleagues who work tirelessly to ensure that effective humanitarian assistance reaches millions of people across the globe.

• We offer an attractive compensation package (please refer to the Terms and Conditions section of this vacancy announcement).

WFP IN TURKIYE

The World Food Programme (WFP) has been present in Türkiye for more than a decade, supporting one of the largest refugee populations worldwide while contributing to national systems that strengthen resilience and social protection. In close partnership with the Government of Türkiye, municipalities, UN agencies, NGOs, and academic institutions, WFP delivers assistance and builds capacity to ensure vulnerable populations are supported and national frameworks are reinforced. Current priorities include refugee response, emergency preparedness, and technical assistance to the Government of Türkiye in line with social protection schemes, including school meals, food literacy, and food waste reduction initiatives. Türkiye’s strategic location and diversified economy also enable WFP to leverage local procurement and logistics capacity to support operations beyond its borders. Through these efforts, WFP combines humanitarian assistance with long‑term resilience building, ensuring sustainable impact for both refugees and host communities.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:

While cash‑based transfers (CBTs) have improved welfare and food security among refugees and vulnerable households, nutrition outcomes remain mixed. According to the 2018 DHS, 60 percent of refugee women aged 15–49 are overweight or obese, while 17 percent of children under five are stunted and 10 percent overweight. Micronutrient deficiencies are widespread: only 33 percent of Syrian children aged 6–23 months consume iron‑rich foods during a critical growth period. These challenges are linked to low food literacy, constrained purchasing power, and coping strategies that prioritize price and satiety over dietary diversity and nutritional value.

Similar concerns are evident among vulnerable Turkish families benefiting from national social safety nets. Household surveys and programme monitoring highlight that while financial assistance helps stabilize food access, dietary diversity remains limited. Families often rely on calorie‑dense staples rather than nutrient‑rich foods, leading to rising rates of overweight and obesity among adults and persistent micronutrient gaps among children. Food waste at household level and limited awareness of healthy feeding practices further compound these issues.

These findings underscore that financial access alone is insufficient to secure positive nutrition outcomes. Without targeted Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) interventions, households continue to face barriers to healthier diets and practices. Embedding SBC approaches into WFP’s programmes and national social safety nets provides a pathway to address these behavioural drivers, ensuring that assistance translates into improved dietary diversity, appropriate infant and young child feeding, and reduced household food waste.

Against this backdrop, WFP Türkiye Country Office is seeking to engage a consultant to design and operationalize SBC programming that strengthens nutritional outcomes for both Syrian refugees and vulnerable Turkish families. The consultant will conduct behavioural analysis, develop culturally appropriate models, and ensure alignment with national priorities, enabling institutionalization and sustainability through government‑led systems.

ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:

The consultant will report to the Head of Programme, work closely with WFP programme teams, and coordinate with relevant Government counterparts, and partners, with technical support from HQ-based Social and Behaviour Change Specialist.

Objective

The consultant will be responsible for developing two evidence‑based and contextually appropriate Social Behaviour Change (SBC) strategies, each accompanied by a one‑year costed implementation plan. While distinct in scope, both strategies should be designed coherently, grounded in behavioural insights, and aligned with national priorities to ensure sustainability and scalability through Government‑led mechanisms.

1. Syrian Refugees

• Develop an SBC strategy to enhance nutrition outcomes of WFP‑supported cash‑based transfer (CBT) programmes for refugees.
• Strengthen food literacy and nutrition‑related choices among Syrian refugee households.
• Tailor interventions to both camp and off‑camp realities, ensuring cultural sensitivity and feasibility.
• Ground approaches in evidence and behavioural insights, aligned with national nutrition, health, and social protection strategies.
• Emphasize pathways for scalability through Government systems beyond WFP’s direct engagement.

2. Vulnerable Turkish Families

• Develop an SBC strategy targeting household food waste reduction and food literacy among families benefiting from social assistance.
• Embed SBC approaches within national service delivery platforms (case management, counselling sessions, household visits).
• Ensure coherence with Türkiye’s Food Literacy Strategy and Action Plan (2022–2028) and governmental operational structures.
• Prioritize interventions that can be institutionalized and sustained through Government systems, ensuring long‑term ownership.

3. Cross‑Cutting Principles

• Both strategies must be grounded in behavioural insights and evidence generation, ensuring context‑specific design.
• SBC interventions should reinforce dignity, inclusion, and sustainability, with clear pathways for institutionalization.
• Lessons learned and tools developed should be transferable across both workstreams, while respecting their distinct objectives and target groups.

Scope of Work

Situational and desk review for behavioural insights

The consultant will conduct a rapid situational and behavioural analysis to inform the design of two SBC strategies ((refugee caseload and vulnerable turkish families). This will include:

• Desk review of relevant grey and peer‑reviewed literature, programme documents, assessments, and available datasets related to: Dietary diversity and food consumption patterns; Infant and young child feeding (IYCF) and maternal nutrition practices; Gender dynamics, intra‑household decision‑making, and caregiving roles; Differences between camp (TAC) and off‑camp refugee contexts receiving CBT. Household food literacy, purchasing, storage, preparation, and waste practices among social assistance beneficiaries.
• Stakeholder consultations with key actors involved in nutrition, SBC, and social protection, including WFP programme and technical teams; Implementing partners; Relevant Government counterparts (e.g. health, nutrition, social protection, education, local authorities).
• If needed, community‑level consultations with refugee populations and vulnerable Turkish families to capture lived experiences, perceptions, priorities, and constraints influencing food and nutrition‑related behaviours, as well as preferred communication channels, languages, and formats.
• Behavioural analysis to identify and synthesise barriers, motivators, and social norms affecting nutritional outcomes among refugee populations and household food practices among social assistance beneficiaries.
• Audience segmentation to differentiate priority groups (pregnant and lactating women, caregivers of children under five, adolescents, men, women caregivers in social assistance households) and identify entry points for SBC interventions.

SBC Strategy Development

The consultant will develop two comprehensive, evidence‑based SBC strategies for the main two target groups, grounded in behavioural insights and tailored to each context. Each strategy will include:

• Behavioural objectives disaggregated by priority target groups.
• Behavioural pathways and theories of change articulating how interventions influence knowledge, attitudes, norms, decision‑making, and practices.
• Food literacy and waste reduction as core behavioural priorities, including meal planning, budgeting, safe food handling, and reduced waste.
• Key messages and communication approaches that are culturally appropriate, gender‑sensitive, and adapted to literacy, language, and access realities.
• Delivery approaches combining interpersonal communication, community‑based/group methods, digital/mobile platforms, and mass communication channels.
• Differentiated strategies for camp vs. off‑camp refugee settings, and for vulnerable turkish households, ensuring feasibility and relevance.
• Alignment with Government systems to enable institutionalization and sustainability beyond WFP’s direct engagement.

One‑year costed implementation plan

The consultant will prepare two operational and costed one‑year implementation plans for the two main target groups to translate the strategies into action. Each plan should:

• Clearly outline roles, sequencing, timelines, estimated budget, and monitoring arrangements.
• Define integration points with existing systems specifying how SBC activities will be embedded within WFP’s CBT delivery mechanisms (camp and off‑camp) and  governmental service delivery platforms (case management, counselling, household visits).
• Include mechanisms for community feedback and participation, drawing inputs from refugee, social assistance households, and frontline implementers, to support adaptive management, learning, and responsiveness of SBC interventions.
• Present a monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) framework, articulating output and outcome indicators aligned with the SBC theory of change, and with existing WFP and Government indicators where feasible.

Duration and level of effort

The assignment is expected to be conducted over 10 months with an estimated level of effort of 200 working days.

Deliverables

• Inception Report: Outlines methodology, detailed workplan, stakeholder mapping, and community consultation plan to guide the assignment. The inception should clearly distinguish between the refugee SBC stream and the vulnerable turkish households SBC stream, while presenting a unified framework for behavioural analysis.
• Situation Analysis & Behavioural Insight Report: Summarizes findings from desk review, stakeholder consultations, and community inputs. Highlights behavioural drivers, barriers, motivators, and social norms affecting nutrition outcomes among refugees and household food practices among social assistance beneficiaries. Provides evidence base for tailored SBC interventions in both streams.
• Draft SBC Strategies: Provides preliminary strategies for each stream: Refugee SBC strategy to support nutrition outcomes in CBT programmes (camp and off‑camp). Vulnerable turkish family SBC strategy to reduce household food waste and strengthen food literacy among social assistance beneficiaries. Each draft should include prioritized behavioural objectives, pathways, and theories of change.
• Preparation of One‑Year Costed Implementation Plans: Develops detailed, time‑bounded operational plans for the first year of implementation, fully costed and aligned with Government systems to enable scalability. Separate plans should be prepared for refugee SBC interventions and vulnerable turkish family SBC interventions, with clear sequencing, roles, and monitoring arrangements.
• Final SBC Strategies & Implementation Plans: Incorporates feedback from WFP, Government counterparts, and partners. Produces validated strategies and implementation frameworks for both streams, ensuring alignment with national nutrition, health, and social protection strategies.
• Presentation of Findings & Recommendations: Presents key insights, recommendations, and final strategies to WFP and Government counterparts, highlighting pathways for institutionalization and sustainability.
• Execution Support for Year One: Provides technical support for delivery of activities outlined in the implementation plans. This may include trainings, sensitization campaigns, SMS nudges, counselling integration, and monitoring support. Ensures outputs are achieved under WFP oversight, while progressively building Government ownership.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

Education:

• Advanced degree in social or behavioural science, public health, nutrition, marketing and communications, psychology, education, or other relevant university degree

Experience:

• At least 5 years of postgraduate professional experience designing and implementing behaviour change related interventions for improved nutrition or public health required.
• Proven experience linking SBC approaches to nutrition outcomes and/or cash-based social protection programmes.
• Experience conducting formative research using mixed methods, and behavioural sciences consumer insights research required
• Experience developing SBC strategies, including theories of change and M&E frameworks
• Programming experience in humanitarian or refugee settings desirable
• Experience working with WFP, UN agencies, or comparable international organizations is an asset.

Knowledge & Skills:

• Advanced knowledge of behaviour changes programming in public health, nutrition, and humanitarian response
• Knowledge of behaviour and social change theories/frameworks and SBC programming cycle
• Strong capacity to liaise and engage with Government counterparts
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills required for in-person and remote team-based work
• Excellent analytical, writing, and facilitation skills
• Demonstrated ability to work in complex settings
• Understanding of Government systems, institutionalization, and transition planning

Language:

• Fluency in written and spoken English is essential.
• Proficiency in Turkish is required.
• Knowledge of Arabic is an asset.

WFP LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORK

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REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION

WFP is committed to supporting individuals with disabilities by providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process. If you require a reasonable accommodation, please contact:  global.inclusion@wfp.org

NO FEE DISCLAIMER

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REMINDERS BEFORE YOU SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION

• All applications must be submitted exclusively through our online recruiting system. We do not consider CVs or applications sent by email, LinkedIn, or any other channel.

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• If you experience technical issues while submitting your application, you may contact us at global.hrerecruitment@wfp.org. Please note that this email is only for technical issues with an application - unsolicited applications or documents sent to this inbox will not receive a reply.

• At the application stage, the only required documents are your CV and Cover Letter. Additional documents (passport, certificates, recommendation letters, etc.) may be requested later in the process.

• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and invited to proceed to the next stage of the recruitment process.

All employment decisions are made on the basis of organizational needs, job requirements, merit, and individual qualifications. WFP is committed to providing an inclusive work environment free of sexual exploitation and abuse, all forms of discrimination, any kind of harassment, sexual harassment, and abuse of authority. Therefore, all selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

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.