Technical Specialist, Nigeria

Role or Purpose of the Position

Vitamin Angels (VA) is a 501(c)3 non-profit, global public health organization working to improve nutrition worldwide. VA works directly with local organizations, including governments, to reach the most nutritionally vulnerable populations – pregnant women, infants, and young children – who are underserved by existing systems. VA uses an implementation science (IS) approach to improve access to proven interventions, optimize implementation outcomes, and promote health equity. VA’s IS approach focuses on:

• Fostering knowledge exchange, collaboration, and ownership among stakeholders,
• Understanding contextual factors, barriers, enablers, and potential solutions to delivering and scaling proven nutrition interventions,
• Designing and testing implementation strategies,
• Promoting broad utilization of program research findings, and
• Support efforts to scale new or strengthened implementation strategies.

The role of the Technical Specialist is to support the development, planning, implementation, and evaluation of VA’s implementation science activities in Nigeria. The Technical Specialist will be part of VA’s Nigeria country program team, and will work in close collaboration with the Senior Regional Technical Director, Africa and the Senior Program Officer, Africa. The initial focus of the position will be to support VA’s global program to accelerate the use of multiple micronutrient supplementation (MMS) for pregnant women within Nigeria using an evidence-based approach. Additional research opportunities will seek to improve VA’s overall programming within Nigeria, including strategies to increase coverage and quality of Vitamin A Supplementation and Deworming for children under 5.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Technical Specialist will be responsible for the following:

1. Support Implementation Science (IS) activities. Support the development and implementation of IS activities in Nigeria, including:

• Provide technical guidance to support the design and implementation of implementation research aimed at assessing the acceptability, feasibility, scalability, and effectiveness of nutrition interventions.
• Participate in MOH-led MMS Taskforce to coordinate efforts among stakeholders towards a national roadmap for MMS introduction and scaling.
• Undertake advocacy with key stakeholders, including local and international NGOs, FBOs, academia, local businesses/philanthropies, and government to support IS activities.
• Lead the Vitamin Angels MMS Experience Survey, working with a third-party research agency to gather learnings from VA’s past MMS program implementation to inform future implementation strategies.
• Provide support, as identified, to other MIYCN projects in Nigeria.

2. Serve as a technical resource for VA program team, MOH, and other stakeholders on Implementation Science and Research.

• Provide training and direction to ensure program strategies are founded in evidence-based approaches as well as ensure learnings are fed back into program decisions.
• Provide technical support around Implementation Research to Department of Nutrition at FMOHSW in Nigeria, through participation in National Nutrition Technical Working Group.

3. Provide project-based leadership for a newly funded consortium project, which requires close coordination with select partners towards the goal of implementing a package of interventions targeting the health and nutrition of pregnant women and young children using an Implementation Science approach.

4. Technical representation through:

• Representing VA to technical stakeholders
• Support knowledge translation/learning activities.
• Contributing to the publication of IS activities in peer-reviewed journals, and develop technical briefs, reports, white papers, op-eds, etc.
• Supporting the development of proposals for funding agencies.

5. Any other duties as may be requested occasionally to support IS activities in Nigeria.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Master’s Degree in Public Health, Nutrition, Community Medicine, or similar discipline
• Minimum 8 years of experience in implementation science, implementation/operations research, or a related research field
• Strong understanding of maternal and child health and nutrition in the Africa region
• Demonstrated experience in program/research design, implementation, and evaluation in low- and middle-income countries
• Based in Nigeria and/or exposure to the state and federal health systems in the country
• Familiarity with data analysis including quantitative and qualitative methods
• Experience in developing project reports, power point presentations, and other dissemination materials for a wider sharing of project findings and undertaking literature reviews and contributing to publishing in peer reviewed journals
• Track record of publications
• Superior written/oral communications skills, interpersonal skills, and organizational skills
• Experience working with donor-funded initiatives
• Ability to collaborate with interdisciplinary teams and engage stakeholders effectively
• Computer literacy, including experience with Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint
• Willing and able to travel domestically during the consultancy
• Willing to work from home and in possession of reliable telephone/internet connectivity
• Fluency in English language