Nutrition Cluster Coordinator (P-4), Kabul/Afghanistan - ROSA

On behalf of the IASC Humanitarian Coordinator in Afghanistan and UNICEF as the lead agency for the IASC Nutrition Cluster and in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the Nutrition Cluster Coordinator will facilitate a timely and effective nutrition response in Afghanistan and ensure that the capacity of national institutions is strengthened to respond to and coordinate emergency nutrition interventions that demonstrate results and impact achieved.

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.

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We are the first United Nations agency to be awarded the EDGE certification - the leading global standard for gender equality in the workplace.

UNICEF prides itself on fostering a multicultural and harmonious work environment, guaranteed by a zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse, and on any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment and discrimination. All selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

For every child, a fair chance

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does — in programmes, in advocacy and in operations. UNICEF works in partnership with a wide range of implementing partners, both government and CSO partners, to deliver results for children across the globe. Effective implementing partnership management is therefore essential for ensuring that resources are utilized as intended and results are being achieved.

UNICEF has adopted the Harmonized Approach to Cash Transfers (HACT) as an approach for obtaining assurance that results have been achieved in line with resource utilization. It aims at managing risk related to cash transfers made to implementing partners in support of programme implementation, reducing partner transaction costs and allowing progressive use of national systems for management and accountability of results and resources.

Work for UNICEF: https://youtu.be/43aiG4w2q_M?t=2 

For every child:  https://www.unicef.org/afghanistan/ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X14aZpU4tM&list=PLwPNz2WEU9RTWRyjrP7_A89t2JE4e-PJE

How can you make a difference?

The Nutrition Cluster Coordinator will facilitate a timely and effective nutrition response in Afghanistan and ensure that the capacity of national institutions is strengthened to respond to and coordinate emergency nutrition interventions that demonstrate results and impact achieved.

ACCOUNTABILITIES AND KEY END-RESULTS

With the support of the Global Nutrition Cluster, the Chief Nutrition, the Nutrition Cluster Coordinator will be responsible for leading the Nutrition Cluster. The Nutrition Cluster Coordinator’s major tasks and responsibilities will include but not be limited to:

General activities:

1. Identification of key partners:

• Continuously identify key humanitarian partners for the Nutrition Cluster response, respecting their respective mandates and program priorities
• Continuously identify other key partners including national and Sub-National authorities, private sector, etc.
• Carryout and update capacity mapping of all current and potential actors – government, national and international humanitarian organizations as well as national institutions, the private sector and advocate to donors, NGOs, government and other stakeholder on the nutrition programme needs and services.
• Monitor Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition (IMAM) and Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies (IYCF-E) activities to ensure that cluster members are adhering to national and international best practice documents.
• Document IMAM and IYCF-E best practices and lessons learned.

2. Establishment and maintenance of appropriate humanitarian coordination mechanisms:

• Ensure appropriate coordination between all Nutrition humanitarian partners (including OCHA, national and international NGOs, the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, IOM and other international and national organizations active in the sector) as well as Sub-National authorities and local structures
• Ensure the establishment/ and maintenance of appropriate sector coordination mechanisms including working groups as needed;
• Ensure full integration of the IASSC’s agreed priority cross-cutting issues, namely human rights, age, gender and environment, utilization participatory and community-based approaches.  In line with this, promote gender equality by ensuring that the needs, contributions and capacities of women and girls as well as men and boys are addressed;
• Secure commitments from cluster participants in responding to needs and filling gaps, ensuring an appropriate distribution of responsibilities within the cluster, with clearly defined focal points for specific issues where necessary;
• Ensure that cluster participants work collectively, ensuring the complementarities of the various stake holder’s actions;
• Promote emergency response actions while at the same time considering the need for early recovery planning as well as prevention and risk reduction concerns;
• Ensure effective links with other clusters, especially Health, WASH, Agriculture and Food Security and Education;
• Represent the interests of the Nutrition Cluster in discussions with the Humanitarian Coordinator, the head of OCHA as well as donors on prioritization, resource mobilization and advocacy;
• Act as focal point for inquiries on the Nutrition Cluster’s response plans and operations.

3. Planning and strategy development:

Ensure predictable action within the cluster for the following;

• Needs assessment and analysis; development of standard assessment formats for use within the sector;
• Identification of gaps;
• Developing/updating agreed response strategies and action plans for the Nutrition Cluster and ensuring that these are adequately reflected in the overall country strategies, such as the Common Humanitarian Action Plan (CHAP) as an integral component of the CAP process.
• Drawing lessons learned from past activities and revising strategies and action plans accordingly;

• Developing an exit, or transition, strategy for the cluster.

4. Application of standards:

• Ensure that Nutrition Cluster participants are aware of relevant policy guidelines, technical standards and relevant commitments that the Government/concerned authorities have undertaken under international human rights law;

• Ensure that the Nutrition Cluster responses are in line with existing policy guidance, technical standards, and relevant Government human rights legal obligations.

5. Monitoring and reporting:

• Specifically needs to include an analytical interpretation of best available information in order to benchmark progress of the emergency response over time.  That is - monitoring indicators (quantity, quality, coverage, continuity and cost) of service delivery which are derived from working towards meeting standards (mentioned in point 4).
• Ensure regular reporting against the Nutrition Cluster indicators of service delivery (quantity, quality, coverage, continuity and cost) supports analysis of the Nutrition Cluster in closing gaps and measuring impact of interventions.

• Develop and coordinate implementation of a nutrition surveillance system based on relevant information from service delivery points (e.g. TFU, OTPs, etc), community based GMP, periodic surveys, and regular data from established sentinel sites. This would entail triangulation of nutrition data with data from the relevant sectors, eg. Heath, WASH and food security. 

6. Advocacy and resource mobilization:

• Identify core advocacy concerns, including resource requirements, and contribute key messages to broader advocacy initiatives of the Humanitarian Coordinators and other actors;
• Advocate for donors to fund cluster participants to carry out priority activities in the sector concerned, while at the same time encouraging cluster participants to mobilize resources for their activities through the usual channels.

• Lead on coordination and act as the focal point for reviewing  and ensuring quality control for all the Nutrition Cluster project submitted for Flash Appeal, CAP, CERF and other funding mechanisms.

7. Training and capacity building of Sub-National /local authorities and civil society:

• Promote and support training of the Nutrition Cluster partners personnel and build the capacity of all the Nutrition partners based on the mapping and understanding of available capacity;

• Support efforts to strengthen the capacity of the national / authorities and civil society.

8. Acting as “Provider of last resort”:

As agreed by the IASC Principals, the Nutrition Cluster lead agency is responsible for acting as the provider of last resort to meet agreed priority needs and will be supported by the HC in their resource mobilization efforts in this regard;

• Under the principal of the “Provider of last resort”, the Nutrition Cluster Coordinator  will liaise with the Cluster Lead Agency UNICEF to ensure that gaps are filled.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

Education: Advanced University degree in any of the following fields: Public Health, Nutrition or a related technical field.

Experience: Minimum of eight years with significant experience working in emergency contexts preferably UN or NGO experience at a senior programme management level.  Proven experience in strategic coordination, managing partnerships and knowledge of management tools and methods for effective coordination is critical.

Language Requirements: Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language or local language of the duty station is considered as an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

The competencies required for this post are….

Functional Competencies:

• Leading vision and change  [ I ]
• Strategic and Global thinking  [ II ]
•  Deciding and Initiating Action [ II ]
• Applying Technical Expertise [ III ]
• Planning and Organizing [ II ]  
• Relating and Networking [ II ]

Technical Knowledge

a) Common Technical Requirements

• Knowledge of humanitarian reform principles, international humanitarian law, inter-connectedness and reform pillars & reform updates

View our competency framework at

http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/files/UNICEF_Competencies.pdf

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

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, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.

Remarks:

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

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