Food systems and nutrition analyst

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

22 January :59-GMT+01:00 Central European Time (Rome)

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ABOUT WFP

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WHY JOIN WFP? 

• WFP is a 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

• WFP offers a highly inclusive, diverse, and multicultural working environment.

• WFP invests in the personal & professional development of its employees through a range of training, accreditation, coaching, mentorship, and other programs as well as through internal mobility opportunities.

• A career path in WFP provides an exciting opportunity to work across the various country, regional and global offices around the world, and with passionate colleagues who work tirelessly to ensure that effective humanitarian assistance reaches millions of people across the globe.

• We offer an attractive compensation package (please refer to the Terms and Conditions section of this vacancy announcement).

JOB TITLE: Food systems and nutrition analyst
TYPE OF CONTRACT: Regular Consultant level 2
UNIT/DIVISION: Systems Analysis for Nutrition team, NUTRITION, SCHOOL MEALS & SOCIAL PROTECTION SERVICE (PRGS)
DUTY STATION (City, Country): HQ, Rome, Italy
DURATION: 11 Months

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:
The Nutrition Service leads WFP's efforts towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal target 2.2: ending all forms of malnutrition by 2030. This is an ambitious goal as malnutrition remains a universal and enormous global challenge, with significant health and economic consequences to individuals, communities, and entire countries. WFP is therefore advancing its efforts to both prevent and treat malnutrition and has developed a situational assessment to support decision-making for the prevention of all forms of malnutrition: Fill the Nutrient Gap (FNG).

Improved nutrition situation analysis can increase the understanding of the likely magnitude and main causes of the nutrient gap among a particular target group, e.g. children aged 6-23 months or pregnant and lactating women (PLW) and adolescent girls, in a specific context. It can also inform where transformative change needs to happen in the food system to improve diets. The FNG analysis is based on a better and more in-depth analysis of existing nutrition, dietary intake, food security, food prices, household food expenditure and socio-economic data. Starting in 2015, WFP, with technical input from key research institutes (University of California Davis, IFPRI, Epicentre, Mahidol, Harvard) and Save the Children and UNICEF, developed the FNG assessment, which aims to strengthen analysis, build consensus and support decision-making for improving nutrient intake and preventing malnutrition, including during the critical period of the first 1,000 days.

The FNG uses nutrition modelling (enhanced cost of diet analysis) combined with a review of secondary data on food systems, local dietary practices and malnutrition to identify options that enable people to access and choose a more nutritious diet. The analysis is designed to contribute to national policy and programming planning cycles by highlighting potential entry points for nutrition-related action by different sectors and actors. Key stakeholders are engaged throughout the processed as needed, particularly in analysis and utilization of the findings, to facilitate multi-stakeholder discussions on the identification of context-specific policy and programme options and prioritisation of actions. 

The FNG process and the data analysis are facilitated, and in parts led, by the Systems Analysis for Nutrition (SAN) team at WFP Headquarters, in collaboration with WFP Country Offices and Regional Hubs.

By 2025, the FNG assessment's concept and methods are well established, and the analysis has been conducted in more than 50 countries, including in humanitarian and fragile settings. WFP is working closely with the World Bank, IFPRI, UC Davis, Johns Hopkins Centre for a Liveable Future, Tilburg University, Capgemini and others on further development and application of analytical tools and approaches for Systems Analysis for Nutrition, that have evolved from and are also being applied in FNG analysis, including capacity strengthening around stakeholder engagement for policy and program design, costing of options and aligning FNG with other initiatives such as estimating the cost of a healthy diet, assessing environmental impact of diets as well as impact of climate change on diets, and characterizing sub-national food environments using market-based food price data collection.

The consultant will join a multidisciplinary team and providing technical assistance WFP Country Offices on the FNG analysis and stakeholder engagement process. The consultant will lead and support on selected FNG processes and optimized diet analyses as well as specific topic analyses upon demand. Lastly, scientific writing to seize publication opportunities and disseminate the FNG analysis and analytics associated with WFP's nutrition objectives will be provided upon demand.

ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:
FNG and nutrition analytics
1)    Review and analyse data related to nutrition, dietary intake, food security, food prices, household food expenditure and socio-economic indicators.
2)    Support Governments and WFP Country Offices to prepare for and conduct the FNG food systems-focused nutrition situational analysis, including modelling such as Enhance analyses and secondary data analysis, summarizing and presenting findings for discussion, facilitating in-country and virtual stakeholder workshops for formulating 
3)    Coordinate FNG processes with WFP Country Offices and with Regional Hubs.
4)    Support the continuous improvement of the analytical concepts and tools, e.g., by
a.    improving methodology and analytical approach on sustainable healthy diet
b.    applying multi-objective linear programming methodology to develop analytical approach within FNG and wider WFP nutritional analytics
c.    integrating measures of environmental impact of different diets and of climate change on food production and nutrition; 
d.    interfacing with software developers to adjust environmental outputs and visualization in Enhance, as needed. 
5)    Coordination of analyses and provide technical guidance to junior team members, including WFP colleagues at Country Offices and Regional Hubs.
6)    Collaborate with other teams within the HQ Nutrition team to support Regional Hubs and Country Offices through analysis on malnutrition prevention and treatment programming and healthy diets.
7)    Liaise and collaborate with other divisions and services in the WFP (e.g.  Vulnerability Analysis & Mapping (VAM), Social Protection, School Meals, Supply Chain, Climate & Resilience) to improve the understanding and use of the SAN analytical toolbox and engagement approach, and support integration of nutrition relevant considerations in their analytical and programming toolboxes. 
8)    Take actions that will lead towards strategic positioning of the analysis and insights gained, both among external stakeholders and internally in the organisation, including through writing of topic briefs, scientific papers and other publications, and presenting in meetings, webinars and other convenings. 
9)    Any other duties as required. 

DELIVERABLES AT THE END OF THE CONTRACT:
Related to FNG analyses and diet optimization 

•    Full dissemination slide deck, report, executive summary, and extended report or annotated slide deck, for each FNG analysis the consultant worked on.

•    If required, ad hoc thematic papers or other publications on FNG results.

•    Draft advocacy material summarizing the key messages derived from the FNG analysis, to be used by WFP Country Offices and Regional Hubs to inform their programming and for further policy discussions with their government counterparts.

•    Reviews and comments for improvement to junior team members' analyses and deliverables.

•    Additional nutrition analysis, reporting and guidance supported upon demand.

Related to thought leadership on systems analysis for nutrition 

•    Relevant input to the development and strengthening of analytical tools as needed.

•    Guidance on the methodology to analyse the impact of climate change on food production and quality 

•    Peer reviewed articles, reports and contributions submitted for publication as applicable.

•    Presentations in international conferences, fora, technical meetings as needed.

•    Collaboration with WFP colleagues on nutrition integration, particularly by providing analytical inputs and identifying entry points across sectors and programming platforms.

•    Strengthened collaboration with key partner organisations 

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:
 
Education:
Graduate level (Masters or above) in Public Health (Epidemiology or biostatistics), Nutrition, Economics (or Econometrics), Sustainable food systems, Agronomy, Statistics or other socio-economic disciplines with a strong quantitative data analysis component.

Experience:
 Between 6-8 years of relevant professional experience.

•    Of which at least 3 years of experience in food and nutrition data analysis.

•    Solid knowledge of nutrition and food systems required.

•    Experience with dietary assessment, linear programming-based (CotD, Optifood, Enhance) or other Nutrition Modelling tools, GIS and/or mapping software.

•    Previous experience cleaning, processing and analysing large datasets and in database management appreciated.

•    Previous experience of working in low-middle income countries, experience in fragile contexts considered an asset.

•    Presenting detailed analysis findings or evidence to diverse audiences in a digestible and context-relevant format.

•    Proven ability to engage with stakeholders from different sectors (agriculture, health, finance, education) and constituencies (government, private sector, civil society, academia) towards nutrition integration in strategies, polices and/or programs through design of analytical approaches and discussion of the findings.

Knowledge and Skills:

•    Proficient and very comfortable to conduct quantitative data analysis using Stata or R.

•    Advanced expertise in Excel.

•    Demonstrated ability to conduct literature reviews and identify key themes, preferably related to food systems or nutrition.

•    Knowledge about and experience applying qualitative research methods.

•    Proven ability to structure and manage projects required.

•    Good interpersonal skills and ability to work in multicultural settings.

•    Flexibility in thinking, ability to adapt to different situations quickly and with ease.

•    Ability to work independently in a timely and organised manner and as part of a multidisciplinary team.

•    Capacity building and facilitation skills appreciated.

•    Knowledge of different types of programmes such as social protection, health, school feeding, livelihoods and resilience and emergency programmes a strong asset.

Languages:

•    Professional level of written and spoken English, and aptitude to writing different types of communications.

•    Professional knowledge of a second UN language an asset, preferably French, Spanish or Arabic.

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REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION

 

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