Senior National Consultant- Nutrition

Senior National Consultant- Nutrition

Objective of the programme

Bangladesh has achieved significant progress in tackling undernutrition but, still it is considered as a major public health concern. About 31% children under 5 years are suffering from chronic malnutrition (stunting) while 8% are acutely malnourished (wasting) National commitments e.g. vision 2021, seventh five-year plan and global commitments like Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), Scaling up Nutrition (SUN) movement, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), World Health Assembly (WHA) and also recent COVID19 pandemic have added urgency to expand and accelerate nutrition actions across sectors for achieving the target of stunting reduction. To improve nutritional status of the people by addressing the malnutrition problem, the National Nutrition Policy (NNP) and the Second National Plan of Action for Nutrition (NPAN2) 2016-25 were developed respectively in 2015 and in 2017. The NPAN2 represents the collective aspirations and commitment of the Government through 22 ministries, relevant organizations and development partners to reduce malnutrition.

BNNC, an apex body for nutrition activities is responsible for coordinating among multi-sector stakeholders at different level as well as policy guidance, evidence uptake in policy making and ensuring that nutrition is adequately mainstreamed in the nutrition relevant policies /action plans Malnutrition is multi-factorial and thus these multifactorial causation needs multi-sectoral, multipronged policies, strategies, plans to alleviate the problem of malnutrition. Considering the fact, BNNC is therefore, planned to conduct a review of nutrition sensitive policies, plans, strategies, legislations of Government and development agencies in Bangladesh to determine whether these are adequately addressed and incorporated nutrition issues. Subsequently, policy interventions will be recommended if nutrition issues are not adequately addressed or incorporated. This review will create profound opportunity to mainstream and operationalizing nutrition issues into relevant policies and programs.

Description of duties:

The incumbent will provide support through performing of the following duties:

• Mapping of existing sectoral nutrition specific and sensitive policies, legislations, plans, strategies of government as well as nutrition relevant country strategies of national and international development entities such as UN, other donors.
• Identify key nutrition specific and sensitive policies, legislations, plans and strategies that need to be reviewed and analyzed.
• Design guidelines, data collection methods/approach; Key Informant Interviews (KII), Focus Group Discussion (FGD) guides, checklist and other information collection and analysis tools as appropriate.
• Collect nutrition specific and sensitive policies, legislations, plans, strategies document (soft/hardcopy) and make a repository.
• Review identified key nutrition specific and sensitive policies, legislations, plans and strategies in line with the SUN national nutrition plans review checklist 2016 and assess the extent to which nutrition relevant contents are incorporated into the goals, objectives, targets and actions of these policies, legislations, plans and strategies of government as well as development agencies.
• Carry out discussion/meeting/interview with key stakeholders/individuals as part of information collection, triangulation.
• Determine potentiality of incorporating nutrition specific and nutrition sensitive issues in the goals, objectives, targets and actions of these policies, legislations, plans and strategies.
• Make recommendations to make the policies, legislations, plans and strategies adequately nutrition sensitive.
• Validate the findings and recommendations through a validation workshop.
• Develop a policy brief for advocacy based on the analysis findings and recommendations.

Any other relevant duties as necessary

Required Qualifications:

Education:

Essential: A postgraduate degree (Masters/MPH/MPhil) in nutrition or health sciences (medical, public health or nutrition) from a recognized university.

Desirable: Doctoral level qualification in any of the above fields would be an added advantage.

Experience:

Essential:

• The consultant must have comprehensive understanding of the nutrition relevant policies and minimum ten (10) years of professional experience in dealing with nutrition relevant public policies, legislations, plans and strategies of Bangladesh. Evidences of engagement on nutrition relevant policy formulation and review in Bangladesh and international is required.
• Working experience with nutrition relevant development agencies and government including National Nutrition Program is required.
• Comprehensive understanding or experience in development of or dealing with country nutrition policies, national nutrition action plan, HPN sector plan, Scaling Up Nutrition assessment, strategies of development entities is required.
• Experience of working with Bangladesh National Nutrition Council (BNNC) with similar type of analytical work experience is required.
• Working with UN system particularly in Nutrition sector is required.

Desirable:

• Familiar with public as well as development partners’ policies, priorities, structure and procedures relevant to Nutrition.
• Member of any committees of Bangladesh National Nutrition Council will be an added advantage

Competencies:

• Respecting and promoting individual and cultural differences
• Teamwork
• Producing results
• Communication
• Building and promoting partnerships across the organization and beyond

Languages:

• High level of proficiency in written and spoken English, and report writing

Computer Literacy

• Excellent knowledge of MS office applications and computer skills including the ability to make high quality technical presentations and data analysis.

Duration

One and half months within four and half months period(15 July 2021 to 30 November 2021)

Salary & others benefits:

Monthly salary: BDT 640,871.00 (NO-C Min)

Limited Insurance Coverage as per WHO rules.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

•This vacancy notice may be used to fill other similar positions at the same grade level

•Only candidates under serious consideration will be contacted.

•A written test and /or a presentation using computer followed by an interview will be held only for qualifying candidates.

•In the event that your candidature is retained for an interview, you will be required to provide, in advance, a scanned copy of the degree(s)/diploma(s)/certificate(s) required for this position. WHO only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU)/United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed through the link: http://www.whed.net/. Some professional certificates may not appear in the WHED and will require individual review.

•Any appointment/extension of appointment is subject to availability of fund and performance.

•For information on WHO's operations please visit: http://www.who.int.

•WHO is committed to workforce diversity.

•WHO's workforce adheres to the WHO Values Charter and is committed to put the WHO Values into practice.

•WHO has a smoke-free environment and does not recruit smokers or users of any form of tobacco.

•This post is subject to local recruitment and will be filled by persons recruited in the local commuting area of the duty station.

•This vacancy is open to Bangladeshi Nationals (all genders) only.

•Qualified female candidates are encouraged to apply.

• Any attempt to unduly influence on WHO’s selection process will lead to automatic disqualification of the applicant.