Food and Nutrition Specialist

Details

Mission and objectives

The FAO subregional office for Eastern Africa (SFE) was officially established in February 2007 following the signing of a hosting agreement between the Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and FAO on 31 January 2007. SFE covers nine countries namely Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda. It is the FAO representation to the AU & UNECA and plays a liaison role to two Regional Economic Commissions (RECs) including the Eastern Africa Community (EAC) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and to a large number of important development partners based in Ethiopia and within the sub-region. SFE is the FAO technical hub in Eastern Africa that is responsible for developing, promoting, overseeing and implementing agreed strategies for addressing sub-regional food security, nutrition, agriculture and rural development priorities. The UN Volunteer will be assigned within the multidisciplinary team (MDT) of SFE, which is a core team of professional staff as well as several project-based consultants with multi-disciplinary expertise. The MDT is in charge of programming, project formulation, operations monitoring, information management related to regional projects. It also provides policy and technical backstopping to the FAO Representation in the nine countries, including on critical national issues pertaining to food and nutrition security. The MDT also represents FAO, upon instruction and guidance of the Subregional Coordinator, in various inter UN agency undertakings and task forces, as well as in regional discussions related to food and nutrition security, food systems, agriculture, among others.

Context

Within the multidisciplinary teamwork, nutrition is both a core technical thematic and a cross-cutting issue and is therefore a key priority for the office. Current projects are related to nutrition mainstreaming in agriculture policies and investment plans at county and regional level; school food and nutrition; nutrition education; food based dietary guidelines; nutrition sensitive value chain; nutrition sensitive social protection; etc. The office also provide support to IFNA countries in the implementation of their IFNA Framework and Action Plan. SFE Nutrition Team supports capacity building and is facilitating policy dialogue and advocacy initiatives with Parliamentarians and other relevant stakeholders to advance food security and nutrition agenda in the region.

Task description

Under the under the overall guidance of the FAO Representative to AU & UNECA and Subregional coordination for Eastern Africa (SRC SFE), the direct supervision of the SFE Nutrition Officer and in collaboration with the SFE MDT technical specialists, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks: • Support JICA IFNA focused countries in the Eastern Africa sub region (Ethiopia and Kenya) in implementing their IFNA country strategy; • Support documentation and dissemination of good practices and lessons learnt on implementing IFNA country framework and action plan. • Contribute to active fundraising for projects on integrated food security and nutrition programming under the IFNA; • Provide technical and policy support to the Africa Union and its Members States and relevant stakeholders for improved food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture which can support IFNA strategy and action plan; • Analyze relevant food systems and nutrition related technical social, economic and environmental information, data and/or statistics for input in various documents to inform policy and programming • Facilitate partner dialogue, to explore and develop potential areas of collaboration in the area of food and nutrition security • Provide technical support to FAO country Offices on food systems and nutrition programming • Plan, organize and participate in capacity development activities related to food systems and nutrition, and oversee the development of related materials and tools; • Participate in and follow-up recommendations of meetings, consultations and conferences, the production of required materials and the provision of information and assistance to partners • Perform other related duties, as required.