Job Description
The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) seeks to recruit a Senior nutrition specialist, to lead the nutrition component of the Feed the Future (FtF) – Accelerated Value Chains Development (AVCD) program in Kenya. The program will be implemented by a consortium of three CGIAR centres working on four main value chains, namely: livestock (meats) by ILRI dairy by ILRI, root crops by International Potato Centre (CIP) and drought tolerant crops by International Crops for Research Institute for Semi-Arid Areas Tropics (ICRISAT), with ILRI as the lead centre.
The FtF – AVCD program will assist small scale farmers and all players throughout the selected value chain to attain resilience, food and nutrition security, and economic development through rapid and wide adoption of improved technologies and innovations. The Senior nutrition specialist who will work closely with the nutrition specialists of the four Value Chain Components and the M&E Specialist to provide programmatic and technical support for AVCD activities. As part of a larger USAID-funded agriculture development program, ILRI is leading a project to accelerate the impact of livestock and dairy market interventions on household incomes, with the goal to reduce poverty and hunger in eight counties in Kenya. The focus is on taking successful interventions to scale to achieve broad impact on agricultural incomes and nutrition. The interventions span four areas: Enhancing market access and promoting business development, increasing livestock and milk productivity, enhancing the enabling environment for livestock and dairy production, improving nutrition for women and children.
ILRI works with partners worldwide to enhance the roles that livestock play in food security and poverty alleviation, principally in Africa and Asia. The outcomes of these research partnerships help people in developing countries keep their farm animals’ alive and productive, increase and sustain their livestock and farm productivity, find profitable markets for their animal products, and reduce the risk of livestock-related diseases. www.ilri.org
ILRI is a not-for-profit institution with a staff of about 700 and in 2015, an operating budget of about USD 83 million. A member of the CGIAR Consortium working for a food-secure future, ILRI has its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, a principal campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and offices in other countries in East, West and Southern Africa and in South, Southeast and East Asia. www.cgiar.org
Reporting to the Program manager, the Senior nutrition specialist will be responsible for implementing the nutrition component of the AVCD program based on the approved work plan, assist the Value Chain Components to develop and implement behaviour change approaches strategies and advocacy plans to improve nutrition status.
Responsibilities
- In conjunction with the Program Manager, develop a consolidated strategy and work plan for implementation of the nutrition component of the Accelerated Value Chain program.
- Follow up and coordinate the implementation of the nutrition component of the AVCD program.
- In collaboration with other Value Chain Components nutrition specialists, source and/or develop training material for behaviour change to improve nutrition status.
- Provide technical assistance to the value chain nutrition component to implement sustainable Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) approaches.
- In conjunction with the nutrition specialists of the other value chains, build the capacity of the stakeholders to use electronic reporting platforms for nutrition commodity management and nutrition service data at facility and county levels.
- Assist value chain components to conduct demonstrations on food preparation at household level, develop strategies on dietary diversity and design nutrition education activities, targeting mother to mother support groups and caregivers of children on basic feeding practices and food safety and hygiene.
- Monitor program implementation and prepare progress reports for all activities based on indicators identified in the performance monitoring plan.
- Contribute to the development of work plans, budgets, quarterly and annual reports.
- Represent AVCD at key meetings at value chain level on food nutrition matters.
- Coordinate with other implementing and service delivery partners (NPHplus, UNICEF and institutions of higher learning) to identify opportunities for collaboration, track progress, review results, and address challenges for joint activities related to nutrition and health.
Requirements
- A Master’s degree in Public Health Nutrition, Food science, Dietetics or other relevant Nutrition disciplines.
- At least 7 years of experience in nutrition which should include some of the following areas:
- Social Behaviour Change and Communication.
- High impact nutrition interventions for child survival and development.
- Nutrition Assessment Counselling and Support (NACS).
- Nutrition-sensitive programming.
- Monitoring and evaluation of nutrition interventions.
- Knowledge of the Scaling up Nutrition (SUN) movement and familiarity with the Kenya. nutrition action plan and the key nutrition stakeholders.
- Experience with USAID and/or NGO nutrition programs.
- Strong analytical skills and ability to organize diverse information in a systematic way.
- Excellent interpersonal, oral/written communication.
- Experience in project management and Organizational skills.
- Ability to transform complex technical materials into practical user-friendly tools and approaches.
- Ability to write concisely and clearly in English.
- Ability to work in an interdisciplinary team with different technical backgrounds and levels of qualification.
- Computer literate with good experience word processing, data bases, presentation and statistical packages.
Post location: The position is based in ILRI Nairobi, Kenya.
Terms of Appointment
This is a Nationally Recruited Staff (NRS) position based at ILRI’s Nairobi campus and is open to Kenyan nationals only. The position is on a 3-year contract, renewable subject to satisfactory performance and availability of funding.
Job level
This position is job level 4A and is eligible to Kenyan Nationals only. ILRI offers a competitive salary and benefits package which includes; pension, medical and other insurances for ILRI’s Nationally Recruited Staff.
How to apply: Applicants should send a cover letter and CV explaining their interest in the position, what they can bring to the job and the names and addresses (including telephone and email) of three referees who are knowledgeable about the candidate’s professional qualifications and work experience to the Director, People and Organizational Development. The position title and reference number RE: SNS/FTF/AVCD/09/2015 should be clearly marked on the subject line of the cover letter.
All applications to be submitted online on our recruitment portal: ILRI Vacancy: Senior Nutrition Specialist by 25 September 2015.
To find out more about ILRI, visit our website at: http://www.ilri.org/
To find out more about working at ILRI visit our website at: http://www.ilri.org/ilricrowd/
ILRI is an equal opportunity employer
