Nutrition Officer

UNICEF works in the world’s toughest places to reach the most disadvantaged children and adolescents – and to protect the rights of every child, everywhere.

Since 1964, nutrition has been a key focus in the strong partnership between the Government of Malaysia and UNICEF. UNICEF’s work in Malaysia is driven by the ultimate aim of ensuring that every child, especially the most vulnerable, including access to food and nutrition. This means that all girls and boys – regardless of location, family income, or disability – should have equal access to nutritious food and the opportunity to develop to their full potential.

Malaysia, an upper-middle-income and culturally diverse country, is home to 32.7 million people, including 9.2 million children. The country has made significant progress in reducing poverty and improving access to primary health care, education, and child rights. However, gaps in the legal, regulatory, and policy framework, comparatively low levels of public expenditure on nutrition, and limited public sector capacity to meet equity demands constrain child nutrition and rights. In Malaysia, many children still suffer from malnutrition, particularly stunting. Investing in nutrition not only saves lives but also significantly reduces GDP losses related to under-nutrition, offering exceptional returns. Enhancing nutritional outcomes is imperative for Malaysia to realize its goal to achieving advanced nation status.

UNICEF Malaysia is a unique country office because it operates in an upper-middle-income country with significant remaining disparities and inequalities, requiring both advocacy and programming approaches. UNICEF adds value by influencing the country’s development narrative through quality evidence generation, evidence-based advocacy, and policy recommendations, supported by partnerships with civil society, academia, and think tanks. UNICEF Malaysia also has a highly developed Private Sector Fundraising Team (PSFR) that raises significant resources for children in innovative ways. In this context, multi-faceted evidence-based communications, policy advocacy, and partnership building play critical roles in advancing child nutrition.

Under the general supervision of the Nutrition Specialist and the guidance of the Chief Social Policy, the UNV Nutrition Officer will provide technical assistance in evidence generation in the nutrition portfolio. The range of evidence needs includes both quantitative and qualitative. The UNV will focus on supporting the Government and collaborating with research teams to identify knowledge and evidence gaps for improving maternal and child nutrition. This will involve focusing on nutrition interventions, implementation research, and evaluation studies. Responsibilities will include providing technical support, monitoring data collection and analysis, ensuring quality assurance, and developing dissemination products to support advocacy efforts. These efforts aim to strengthen the overall effectiveness of nutrition programmes and policies.

Key function, accountabilities and related duties/tasks
– Conduct comprehensive literature reviews to support projects and identify knowledge gaps.
– Provide administrative support for research projects, including scheduling meetings, coordinating activities, and managing documentation.
– Monitor research project implementation, coordinating with research teams and ensuring clear communication with partners.
– Review and quality-assure research methods and data collection tools to ensure their appropriateness for specific projects and contextual relevance.
– Oversee data collection, analysis, and reporting to maintain data integrity, validity, and reliability.
– Conduct field visits to monitor the progress of research projects, ensure compliance with project objectives.
– Review technical outputs, including analyses, briefs, and reports, ensuring quality and providing inputs and recommendations to the research teams.
– Manage the financial aspects of research projects by overseeing budget utilization, ensuring proper fund allocation, reviewing funding requests, and ensuring timely reporting from implementing partners and research teams.
– Ensure compliance with ethical standards and regulatory requirements in all research activities.
– Prepare policy papers, briefs, and other strategic materials for dissemination or advocacy purposes.

Other programme areas
– As necessary, provide support in the implementation of nutrition programme in support of country programme delivery.

Furthermore, UN Volunteers are encouraged to integrate the UN Volunteers programme mandate within their assignment and promote voluntary action through engagement with communities in the course of their work. As such, UN Volunteers should dedicate a part of their working time to some of the following suggested activities:

– Strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the concept of volunteerism by reading relevant UNV and external publications and take active part in UNV activities (for instance in events that mark International Volunteer Day);
– Be acquainted with and build on traditional and/or local forms of volunteerism in the host country;
– Provide annual and end of assignment self- reports on UN Volunteer actions, results and opportunities.
– Contribute articles/write-ups on field experiences and submit them for UNV publications/websites, newsletters, press releases, etc.;
– Assist with the UNV Buddy Programme for newly-arrived UN Volunteers;
– Promote or advise local groups in the use of online volunteering, or encourage relevant local individuals and organizations to use the UNV Online Volunteering service whenever technically possible.

Results/Expected outputs:
– Provide strategic oversight to monitor contract implementation, support meeting coordination, and oversee the implementation of projects generating nutrition-related evidence to enhance efficiency and effectiveness in delivery.
– Provide continuous technical support for projects focused on generating nutrition-related evidence.
– Coordinate date collection efforts with partners and institutions, providing support and entry points as needed. Facilitate the process and offer assistance when required to ensure smooth operations.
– Perform quality checks on the collected data to ensure consistency, address any issues with the data collection firm or institution, and conduct basic analysis and disaggregation of data after each collection phase.
– Contribute to the review of technical nutrition report, policies, strategies, terms of reference and concept notes.
– Compile recommendations for scaling up successful interventions, identifying obstacles, adaptation strategies, and opportunities for integration into national health programmes.