Nutrition Technical Advisor

GOAL is an Irish international humanitarian organisation founded in 1977 and currently operational in 14 countries working across the crisis to resilience trajectory. GOAL stands with local populations and actors to assist them to overcome crises and move towards longer-term solutions. For GOAL, crises are defined as when local systems are unable to respond or continue to function when confronted with shocks and stresses. GOAL works to understand these shocks and stresses; including conflict, climate change, environmental degradation, rapid unplanned urbanisation, weak or unstable governance, inequality and forced displacement all of which interact and threaten the health, safety and well-being of affected populations.

Description of the Role

The Nutrition Technical Officer will work in collaboration with – and be line managed by – the Global Nutrition Advisor, providing technical expertise to support the implementation of GOAL’s crisis to resilience work, through nutrition specific and nutrition smart initiatives. The Nutrition Technical Officer sits within the global Programme Technical Team (PTT). GOAL’s PTT supports the technical quality of programme design and implementation through developing strategies and guidelines, collaboration on new programming, support-visits to country programmes, internal evaluations, use of evidence-based learning from operational programs, documenting and sharing learning and providing external technical representation.

The position will have up to 25% travel to support Country Offices (COs) and represent GOAL with key stakeholders.

The PTT has four key objectives, detailed below.

Key Responsibilities

Objective 1. Strategy and Design

The Nutrition Technical Officer will contribute to the achievement of GOAL’s global strategy through support to country offices to undertake analysis of communities and systems, for use in the design of programming and in conjunction with ongoing monitoring and evaluation, to inform prospective adaptive management of programming. The Nutrition Technical Officer:

• Contribute to the Programme Technical Team engagement in GOAL global strategy development, the Country Strategic Plans and the Annual Country Planning processes as required.
• Guide country strategies to support the achievement of improved nutrition outcomes for the communities we serve, using global best practice as well as internal evidence and learning.
• Use global evidence and learning to advance GOAL’s strategic focus for achieving sustainable nutrition goals.
• Lead on the technical oversight and guidance provided to support the Nutrition Impact and Positive Practice (NIPP) approach across GOAL countries and ensure a high quality of programming and MEAL activities are carried out.
• Identify opportunities to raise the profile of the NIPP approach both nationally and globally and work with country teams to develop national scale-up strategies.
• Produce annual data summary reports for country programs on NIPP achievements, plus a global synthesis report consolidating results across all operational contexts.
• Support the scale-up of digital NIPP data collection use (through CommCare) and analytics (through PowerBI) in collaboration with MEAL, through trainings and capacity building, data reviews etc. to support county-level adaptive management of the approach.
• Review NIPP Guidance and tools and update as necessary – focus should be placed on a) systematic inclusion of the Family-MUAC approach as an integrated component, b) systematic inclusion of gender equality and female empowerment, c) systematic inclusion of safeguarding and d) voluntary graduation into VSLAs as the first step towards financial inclusion. Ensure translations to Arabic and French are also updated.
• As requested, support with the recruitment and briefings of high-level CO nutrition technical staff

Objective 2. Donor Positioning and Proposal Development

The Nutrition Technical Officer will work to position GOAL to identify, analyse and respond to funding opportunities and be able to develop strong technical proposals/bids which are coherent with both donors’ and GOAL’sorganisational global goals.

• Identify funding opportunities through technical networks and support analysis for go/no go decision making.
• Support the development of technical content for new proposals.
• Liaise with donor technical advisors and respond to technical queries from donors.
• Engage with internal stakeholders on technical elements of funding opportunities.

Objective 3. Quality Programme Delivery for Crisis to Resilience

The Nutrition Technical Officer supports country offices to deliver high quality, innovative and adaptive programming, including in emergencies, through remote and in-country support.

• Stay abreast of current good practice and ensure this informs GOAL’s own thinking and programming.
• Support COs in undertaking context analyses to understand systematic constraints and opportunities for programming.
• In coordination with other GOAL programme advisors encourage effective integrated and cohesive programming
• Encourage use of innovation and operational research to explore new ways of working to optimise outcomes.
• Technical reviews and support on evaluations of programming delivering on nutrition outcomes.
• Support country and global teams to use learning and best practice in adaptive management of programs delivering nutrition outcomes through regular interactions with CO project managers.
• Provision of training, mentoring and other support for country teams in areas with nutrition specific or nutrition smart programming
• Support teams in understanding the linkages between resilience, gender equality and social inclusion, and integrating these considerations in programming.
• Support the recruitment and briefing of nutrition technical staff.

Objective 4. Evidence & Learning

The Nutrition Technical Officer will work with COs to capture learning from programming and research and share internally and externally to contribute to the global evidence base and communicate GOAL’s programmatic innovation and successes, in collaboration with the Programme Innovation Lab (PIL) and MEAL.

• Identify research questions with COs that will help to drive improved programming and/or global goals warranted to drive positive nutrition change.
• Support country offices to capture, document and share learning and programme outcomes.
• Support opportunities for cross country learning.
• With the Global Nutrition Advisor, support the planning and facilitation of the monthly internal Nutrition Technical Café Network meetings, focused on learning & experience sharing.
• Technical representation & engagement with global networks and other relevant networks – facilitate the exchange of technical information and identify opportunities for cooperative work and joint ventures with other agencies.
• In collaboration with COs, interpreting and reflecting on data to support adaptive management and progress towards programmatic goals.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Required

• B.Sc./M.Sc. or equivalent in Public Health Nutrition, Global Nutrition or related degree.
• Fluent in English to a standard to allow drafting of technical documents.
• At least three years of experience in INGOs or equivalent, with both emergency and development programming experience. Previous experience in a global technical role is desirable but not essential.
• Understanding and experience of working to achieve nutrition outcomes through systems-based programming, including work within health systems (including WASH) and through market systems including experience with food systems.
• Experience in field research and qualitative and quantitative techniques for collecting information (e.g., focus group discussions, interviews, etc).
• Experience incorporating gender equality and social inclusion in resilience or disaster risk reduction programming, through integrated and targeted approaches.
• Experience in providing technical input to proposals, reports and budgets, with good writing, communication and computer skills.
• Ability to represent GOAL with donors, INGOs, commercial entities/other external institutions.
• Skilled communicator with ability to work effectively across cultures, including remotely.
• Ability and willingness to travel (up to 25%) including to places with difficult living conditions and insecure environments.

Desired

• French then Arabic considered highly desirable second and/or third languages.
• Experience developing training materials and in running training.
• Skills in statistical software and graphics
• Ability to work under pressure and continually reprioritise multiple tasks in light of new information.
• Demonstrated knowledge of the potential of cash and vouchers to support nutrition outcomes.
• Demonstrated experience in writing articles and texts for professional publications.