Health and Nutrition Officer (El Deain) – UNICEF

Job Description

Job no	555153
Contract type	Temporary Appointment
Location	Sudan
Duty Station	Khartoum
Level	NO-2
Categories	Health and Nutrition
Advertised	13 Sep 2022 E. Africa Standard Time
Deadline	27 Sep 2022 E. Africa Standard Time

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.

For every child, www.unicef.org/sudan

According to S3M II 2020, East Darfur has a high under-five mortality rate (U5MR) of 112 per 1,000 live births compared with the national average of 52 per 1000 live births. Child undernutrition in East Darfur is high, characterized by high levels of stunting and acute malnutrition. 39% and 4% are the rates of stunting and Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) respectively. The state has one of the lowest rates of medical professionals per 1,000 people and the COVID-19 pandemic continues to have significant effect on the state, creating an additional burden to the already fragmented and weak basic health system. The state has Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) prevalence at 17% which is above WHO very high threshold. Significantly, ED is increasingly prone to climate variability whereby shifting rainfall patterns are resulting in damaging floods and dry-spells. Together with continued tribal clashes and armed conflict, these factors are having a direct impact on the health and nutrition of children.

Key determinants of malnutrition and mortality in the state include widespread occurrence of diarrhea, fever and acute respiratory tract infections (ARI). The S3M-II reported prevalence of diarrhea, fever, and RI at 17.95, %, 30.2%, and 11.8% respectively. Measles immunization and immunization coverage for the basic vaccines are as low as 19.4% and 16.9% respectively. Antenatal care coverage is only 40% whereby pregnant women are only attended four times by a health service provider. The lack of awareness about maternal and child feeding care and practices and inadequate care seeking behaviour among the community, inadequate utilization of antenatal care, skilled delivery, post-natal care, and childcare services lead to delays in identification of high-risk pregnancies, newborn complications and common childhood illnesses which are leading contributing factors to poor health and nutrition outcome in ED.  This situation is indicative of a weak health system that requires more support through capacity building and empowering health committees especially at locality level.

In response to the health and nutrition needs of vulnerable populations, UNICEF in collaboration with the State Ministry of Health and non-governmental organization have continued to implement a package of H&N interventions at health facility & community level. The Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) through which lifesaving treatment is provided for children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. The community Infant and Young Child Feeding (c-IYCF) has also been implemented to provide counselling services to mothers and child caregivers on recommended infant and young child feeding practices at community level as a preventive approach for reduction of malnutrition with potential long-term impact on stunting reduction. The Mother Support Group approach has been adopted for the c-IYCF. Meanwhile, UNICEF has greatly invested in the immunization program, including by supporting the cold chain and vaccination services in remote areas. UNICEF also supported RH services, with pre-service and in-service training of community midwives. In addition to the institutional support to the midwifery school in Ed daein, UNICEF is also supporting the integrated management of childhood illness & micronutrients supplementation for children & PLWs.  While progress has been made on these interventions, one of the key challenges faced is insufficient monitoring at state and locality levels. This unfortunately translates into suboptimal programme coverage and quality such as low uptake of admissions in CMAM sites, poor immunization coverage, high defaulter, and death rates. Also, some Mother Support Groups (MSGs) do not meet regularly and hence are not providing regular counselling services in their communities.

UNICEF in collaboration with the State Ministry of Health (SMOH) and NGO partners developed innovative strategies to address these gaps. This includes orientation on how to detect severe acute malnutrition through MUAC screening for mothers seeking treatment services in CMAM sites for their children and encouraging them to assist in screening and referral of children from their communities. Key community leaders will be engaged to send out information about the signs and dangers of severe acute malnutrition and availability of CMAM services. Mother Support Groups will also be linked to the CMAM programme and participate in screening and referral of children to CMAM sites. UNICEF has invested as well in scaling up ICCM program to cover areas lack health facilities services through capacity building and providing Medical Supplies mainly ICCM kits. This will fight Malaria, ARI and Diarrheal Diseases and contributed to reducing morbidity and mortality in children under five.

In East Darfur the Health and Nutrition programme, has highlighted the main priorities for going forward, which embraces the scaling up of integrated Health and Nutrition interventions, including routine vaccination programme through mobile and outreach services delivery strategies in hard-to-reach and nomadic communities’ routes, and strengthening the capacity of the decentralized health and nutrition data/information management system at the locality and state levels. Furthermore, tackling the high prevalence of malnutrition by engaging all the stakeholders at community, locality and state levels with a multisectoral coordination system framework and enhancing the awareness of the communities on health promotion and disease prevention and control using the SBC models are the most pressing agendas in the HN program.

Purpose

The Health & Nutrition Officer will provide professional technical assistance and support for programme/project design, planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and administration of programme/project activities, including data analysis, progress reporting, knowledge networking and capacity building, in support of achievement of planned objectives of the work plan, aligned with Health & Nutrition programme goals and strategy. Specifically, the purpose of the position is to support relevant activities and strategies to deliver on the programme priorities of East Darfur as identified above.

How can you make a difference?

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Support the availability of accurate health and nutrition programme gender/sex disaggregated data and analysis and documentation to contribute to situation analysis, sectoral input, and reporting and provide the technical information in a timely and precise manner.
• Provide technical assistance, including in design and planning, to government and civil society partners for the implementation of Health & Nutrition initiatives.
• Establish and maintain partnerships to promote innovative approaches to address immediate and underlying determinants of maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition including working with other sectors such as water, education, livelihoods, agriculture and social behaviour change.
• Promote a UNICEF office-wide approach to operationalise a strategy of multi-sector, integrated and vulnerability-based programming.
• Support the improvement of State level Health and Nutrition programme delivery with emphasis on sustainability of intervention and community participation based on Human Rights framework and cross sector approach to programming and Community Capacity Development.
• Support the state level nutrition cluster coordination meeting and actively participate, as appropriate, in other coordination sectors including Health and WASH.
• Assist in identifying health and nutrition training needs and conducts relevant orientation, workshop, training, and learning/development activities for the front-line health and nutrition staff as well as for government personnel and beneficiaries.
• Provide timely implementation follow-up, including monitoring UNICEF inputs, local conditions and resources, flow of health and nutrition supplies and non-supply assistance, and project status to build on project efficiency and effectiveness.
• Participate in field visits to project sites for monitoring health and nutrition project activities and local conditions and follows up with health and nutrition partners and other partners on project implementation.
• Assists in identifying necessary action for Health and Nutrition programme adjustments, acceleration, improvement, and sustainability at the state level. Assists government counterparts and other partners in the planning and management of Health and Nutrition Programme. 
• Liaises with State Ministry of Health and other partners to ensure timely submission of financial requests and reports of health and nutrition program at the state level. Monitors disbursement of funds, ensuring those activities are within established plans of action and programme budget allotments; and to orientate and train Government and UNICEF implementing partners in UNICEF supply and non-supply policies and procedures.
• Assist the government counterpart in establishing effective monitoring, knowledge database/network and reporting systems to ensure the availability of current and accurate health and nutrition programme information/data and contributes to the development of communication materials and strategies to support advocacy and community participation for Health & Nutrition programme.
• Maintain close contact with external counterparts, including those of the UN and national partners, to improve the ability to collect and disseminate relevant health and nutrition data, exchange information on programme/project development and implementation. Share knowledge, information, experience, and lessons learned.
• Support and facilitate strategies that help to foster social cohesion and resilience in the context of floods, drought, wider climate change impacts and ongoing tribal conflict.
• Assist the state ministry of health, and other health and nutrition partners in the preparation and implementation of emergency preparedness plan relating to Health & Nutrition in the state. In case of emergency, assists in monitoring and assessing the nature and extent of the emergency in the assigned area.
• Perform any other duties and responsibilities assigned as appropriate to the purpose of this post, and delivers the results as required.

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

• Academic requirements:
• University degree in Public Health / Medicine, Nutrition, Child Survival Development, other related qualification. Working knowledge of Health, Nutrition and WASH-related issues is required.
• Experience:
•  A minimum of  of two years of experience working with the health, nutrition and child survival programmes. Minimum of two years of experience working in humanitarian or development contexts in public health and nutrition.  
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.
• Languages
• Fluency in English writing and speaking. Knowledge of Arabic is an asset.
• Technical requirements
  • Knowledge of MS office is must.
  • Knowledge of emergency health and nutrition response planning and implementation.
  • Good interpersonal/ communication skills with all different level of partners.
  • Should have good working knowledge of the various tools used for reporting for Health and Nutrition, HNO and HRP, have a good knowledge of targets, indicators.
  • Knowledge of various national policy and strategies on health and nutrition and linking program response.
  • To be aware of triple nexus (Humanitarian – Development and Peace nexus -DPN) and should be able to link the actions in between.
  Duty Station & Travel
• El Daien, East Darfur State with frequent travel to localities.

For the full TOR please visit the link below:

 H&N TA for East DarfurTOR.docx

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability (CRITA) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: https://uni.cf/UNICEFValues

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…Core Competencies

• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (1)
• Works Collaboratively with others (1)
• Builds and Maintains Partnerships (1)
• Innovates and Embraces Change (1)
• Thinks and Acts Strategically (1)
• Drive to achieve impactful results (1)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (1)

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

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.

We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.

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 be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

UNICEF’s active commitment towards diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children.  

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

*Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

* Appointments are also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason. 

* Candidates found suitable in this process not appointed for this post may be retained and contacted for similar future employment opportunities with UNICEF Sudan over the next 36 months.

*Note for internal candidates within UNICEF ,UNICEF National Officer (NO) and General Service (GS) Staff Members on fixed-term, continuing or permanent contracts applying to a TA may be able to retain a lien on their existing post for the duration of the TA.

Advertised: 13 Sep 2022 E. Africa Standard Time
Deadline: 27 Sep 2022 E. Africa Standard Time