Technical Officer – Nutrition

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Description

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OBJECTIVES OF THE PROGRAMME

The overall objective of the Nutrition and Food Safety (NUT) Programme is to provide leadership and action to promote national adoption, adaptation, implementation and monitoring of global and regional standards towards universal access to safe, healthy and sustainable diets by people of all ages in the WHO African Region through effective nutrition actions and services. The Programme supports Member States to develop, implement and monitor integrated, evidence-based policies, strategies, guidelines, multi-sectoral action plans, and programmes to prevent disease and promote health and wellbeing through access to high-impact interventions throughout the individuals’ life course. These focus on the prevention of under nutrition, overweight/obesity, diet-related noncommunicable diseases and foodborne diseases. In collaboration with the AMR Unit, the NUT Programme conducts surveillance on antimicrobial resistance in foodborne bacteria by facilitating collaboration between the agriculture, animal health,human health and environment sectors to deal with food safety aspects of antimicrobial resistance. It promotes preparedness for, and response to,food borne and nutritional disease outbreaks/emergencies, including in humanitarian settings. The Programme further assists in the generation and use of data for effective programme management and service delivery to address all forms of malnutrition; promotes effective monitoring, evaluation and implementation research for programme strengthening; and ensures the fostering of strategic partnerships and integration with other teams within the organization to enhance people-centered, service delivery and with global and regional partners to ensure harmonized support for nutrition and food safety to Member States. The goal is to enable countries in the WHO African Region to ensure evidence-based policies and strategies are in place through strengthened and resilient health systems to achieve universal access to high-quality, integrated, health services, increase the coverage and quality of effective interventions,and to create mechanisms to measure the impact of those strategies and interventions.

DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES

The incumbent will be expected to perform the following duties: The incumbent will implement innovative waysof working to facilitate strong collaboration and linkages with programmes, clusters,and partners (WHO Collaborating Centers, research and teaching institutions,regional and sub regional economic entities, NGOs, etc.) to ensure that appropriate, efficient and timelysupport is provided to countries, even during emergencies. Provide technical expertise for strengthening national capacities to develop,implement and monitor evidence-based policies, strategies, action plans and programmes that increase population access to high-impact interventions in nutrition and food safety forthe promotion of health and wellbeing throughout the life course;Build effective partnerships (within and across designated countries) with other UN agencies, civil society organizations and research institutions to support governments in developing and implementing integrated and multi sectoral approaches to improve the safety of food and reduce all forms of malnutrition.

Provide technical guidance for country adaptation and integration of essential nutrition actions into health service delivery packages for maternal, child, adolescent, adult, and elderly care in collaboration with other regional programmes that provide life course, disease-focused and health systems services; Participate in designing, testing and disseminating AFRO-wide approaches to the integration of evidence-based,context-relevant nutrition and food safety content in preservice training curricula for physicians, nurses, midwives, dieticians, nutritionists, food scientists, and public health specialists; Support country capacity building forage-appropriate nutritional assessment and the prevention and management of wasting, other forms of malnutrition and diet/nutrition-related diseases instable and humanitarian settings.

Support countries to develop and implement food safety guidelines and tools to prevent, assess and manage foodborne risks; In the context of emergencies and outbreaks, provide nutrition and food safety content and support its integration and implementation within the humanitarian response, in collaboration with the EPR (health) cluster and the partner agencies working in food security, nutrition, food safety, water and sanitation, disease control, etc.;

Identify, document and share experiences, best practices and impact case studies with countries, the Regional Office, other MCATs, and partners;Support the development and strengthening of strategic partnerships in designated countries, including drafting interagency proposals for resource mobilization to support nutrition and food safety activities and contributing to joint support for programme implementation, monitoring and evaluation; Support the development of related work-plan sand budgetary proposals, as required within the framework of WHO staff Rules and Regulations; financial rules and AFRO accepted procedures and ensure the integration of VfM assessment, analysis and reporting in all the activities implemented; Perform other related responsibilities, as assigned, including replacing and backstopping for others as required.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

Education

• Essential: Postgraduate degree in Clinical or Public Nutrition and related fields, or in Food Science and Technology.
• Desirable: University degree in Medicine, Public Health or Food and Nutrition

Experience

• Essential: A minimum of seven years’ experience managing the development and implementation of national programmes in nutrition or food safety, including nutrition monitoring and surveillance, especially in the African Region; Track record of delivering nutrition actions in routine health care services or in food borne disease surveillance and screening.
• Desirable: Work experiences that are diverse, incorporating private sector, NGOs, other UN, or governmental Health related agencies will bean advantage.

Use of Language Skills

• Essential: Expert knowledge of English. Expert knowledge of French. Expert knowledge of Portuguese.
• Desirable: Intermediate knowledge of UN Languages.

Source: https://careers.who.int/careersection/ex/jobdetail.ftl?job=2403794&tz=GMT%2B05%3A30&tzname=Asia%2FCalcutta

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