Nutrition and Dietary Diversification Team Lead

Nutrition and Dietary Diversification Team Lead

ACDI/VOCA

Lusaka, Zambia

ACDI/VOCA is seeking a Nutrition and Dietary Diversification Team Lead for an Agricultural Diversification Activity in Zambia funded by USAID. The anticipated program will transform Zambia’s agricultural sector into an efficient, equitable, and sustainable producer of high quality and nutritious food for consumption, sale, and trade.

The Nutrition and Dietary Diversification Team Lead will be responsible for leading analyses of the local food system and food environment, developing and implementing an integrated, multi-sectoral nutrition strategy, designing and facilitating partnerships with private sector and regional institutions to improve diet quality, and learn and adapt approaches over the life of the project. The program is anticipated to start in 2024 and this position will be based in Zambia.

Responsibilities

• Analyze the food system and food environment to identify critical factors that hinder or encourage consumption of quality, nutritious diets by all households, especially women and children and others more at-risk of malnutrition.
• Identify strong potential partners including government agencies, local and regional institutions, other projects, and private sector actors. Lead and support the co-creation and implementation of activities to address the most significant challenges to nutrition in the project regions.
• Develop, adapt, and lead participatory workshops and ongoing support for partners to strengthen their capacity on social and behavior change for nutrition, promotion and utilization of indigenous nutritious crops, maternal and child nutrition, and the development and promotion of fortified foods.
• Support the integration of policies and practices into institutional and government programs to increase uptake of effective nutrition activities and ensure sustainability beyond the life of the project.
• Contribute to and advocate for high-quality, ongoing monitoring, evaluation, and learning of the function of the food system towards provision of high-quality, nutritious diets and household adoption of improved nutrition practices.
• Provide ongoing leadership within the project team on nutritious food systems approaches and champion the integration of nutrition into agriculture and market systems activities.
• Provide regular feedback and recommendations for the refinement of ACDI/VOCA tools and approaches for nutritious food systems activity design and implementation, and lead or support the development and testing of suggested adaptations or new tools as appropriate.

Qualifications

• Minimum 7 years of experience integrating nutrition into agriculture and/or market systems development.
• Experience working on nutritious food systems development, including rural producers and farmers’ associations, private sector processing and marketing of nutritious foods, and/or with government nutrition services, institutions, or other nutrition-sensitive projects. Preference for a range of experience throughout the food system.
• Experience working with government agencies and institutions to adopt policies and practices to improve positive impact on program participants.
• Experience or demonstrated interest in climate-smart, resiliency, and social and behavior change approaches greatly preferred.
• Strong analytical skills, including ability to gather and analyze a variety of information pertaining to issues and to develop appropriate recommendations for action.
• Excellent written communication skills required, with a demonstrated ability to write reports in a clear, concise manner.
• Fluency in English is required.

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