Back Consultancy - Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF), China, Beijing

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, nutrition

In China, children are faced with the double burden of malnutrition. Thanks to rapid economic development and government interventions targeting undernutrition, the prevalence of underweight and wasting have dropped dramatically. However, stunting remains a problem, especially in poor rural areas.

UNICEF has been invited to strengthen health worker’s knowledge and capacity on infant and young child feeding practices. This involves improvement of key IYCF practices while aiming to increase demand and uptake of services as well as to improve norms and behaviours related to good nutrition. Thus, UNICEF country office needs to hire a consultant to focus on IYCF work including facilitating the revision and promotion of IYCF counselling package to be endorsed by the government, strengthening the IYCF counselling capability of health workers and dietitians by organizing IYCF trainings and supporting IYCF works involved in WASH-Nutrition program of Qinghai province.

How can you make a difference?

The consultant will fill the gap of a staff maternity leave. S/he will be responsible for programme focused on infant and young child nutrition, that seeks to finalize and promote the competency-based Infant and Young Child Feeding counselling package, strengthen capacity among health workers through the implementation of IYCF counselling training, supporting the scaling up of Ying Yang Bao, supporting a joint WASH- Nutrition program in Qinghai.

Under the guidance and direct supervision of the Nutrition Specialist of Health Nutrition & WASH, main areas of responsibilities of the Consultant include:

Provide technical assistance to the competency-based Infant and Young Child Feeding counselling package. Support counterparts to implement IYCF counselling training and assist in monitoring outputs and routine assessment of results. Support integrated nutrition and WASH intervention in Qinghai province such as supporting in IYCF training for health workers from county and village level and the implementation of IYCF counselling. Provide technical assistance to the development of assessment tool of IYCF counselling. Provide technical assistance to national priority programs like IYCF improvement in Ying Yang Bao(YYB) project counties, with training packages, monitoring tools and demand generation strategies. Conduct regular program field visits and surveys and/or exchange information with partners/stakeholders monitor and provide technical support, communicate with counterparts on project feasibility and effectiveness. Collect and analyze data for nutrition programme planning, management, monitoring and evaluation. Support documentation of best practices for learning purposes, such as YYB scaling up in China.

For more specific information on this role, please view the TOR -ToR_Consultant on child nutrition - for VA 20200213.docx

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

Qualifications:

An advanced university degree (Master's or higher) in one of the following fields: nutrition, nutrition epidemiology, international health, public health, food science or other related field; At least five years of professional working experience in nutrition, maternal, infant and child health, nutrition care, or public health Experience with management and coordination of projects Fluency in English and Chinese is required

Competencies:

Respect for and adherence to UNICEF's core values of Commitment, Diversity and Inclusion, Integrity and proven understanding and sensitivity to cultural nuances Interpersonal skills, capacity to work with different personalities to deliver on shared results Drive for results, setting high standards for the quality of work Capacity to think outside of the box and drive innovation Strong communication skills, fluently and confidently gathering and expressing and writing opinions and information

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA) and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

View our competency framework at

http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/files/UNICEF_Competencies.pdf

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.

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.