Background/IRC Summary
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future. The IRC’s vision is that the impact of our programs and the influence of our ideas empowers those caught in crisis to make lasting change in their lives. The IRC is committed to addressing the world’s worst humanitarian crises through gender sensitive, evidence-based, outcome-driven interventions that bring real change to the lives of our clients.
To support achievement of this vision, the IRC’s Technical Excellence (TE) unit provides technical assistance to IRC’s country program staff and shares what we learn to influence policy and practice. The TE unit supports technical excellence through the following ways:
- Guide program design to achieve outcomes by incorporating the best available evidence
- Build technical capacity of country program staff to implement, measure and continuously improve programs
- Influence the IRC, peer agencies and donors to use proven interventions and generate new evidence to achieve change in peoples’ lives
The TE Unit is comprised of five technical Units, all of which have deep expertise in their respective sectors: Education, Economic Wellbeing, Governance, Health, Violence Prevention and Response, while cross-cutting work happens with the Gender Equality Unit and the Research & Innovation Unit. The Health Technical Unit (HU) is organized in three sectors: Health*,* environmental health, and nutrition. In nutrition, we focus on research of simplified approaches to wasting, advocacy for policy shifts to promote scaling up and programs to address all forms of undernutrition within IRC contexts.
Overview of role
The Nutrition Technical Advisor (TA) is responsible for promoting and collaborating with teams to achieve nutrition programs that increase reach, achieve quality standards, are informed by evidence, are contextually appropriate, driven by client and partner voices and widely inclusive. The Nutrition TA will cover Central Africa (DRC, CAR, Chad, Cameroon, Burundi, Tanzania) and Latin America (Venezuela and Columbia). Key areas of work will include business development, delivery of the IMPACT standards, development of technical resources in nutrition, roll-out of the nutrition outcomes and evidence framework, development of context-specific nutrition strategies, conducting assessments, routine MEAL support and leading strategic priorities to advance expertise and influence to accelerate action on undernutrition. They will work closely with Nutrition TAs in other regions, the Nutrition Senior Technical Advisor (STA), other Health Unit TAs, TAs from other units, advocacy, research, country and regional teams. This role will require travel and in-country technical support visits.
Specific Responsibilities
Impact at scale:
- Support the design of tools, country strategies and business development to scale up and expand wasting treatment within the health system, applying learning from high-coverage strategies and strategic projects
- Contribute technical support, monitoring and gathering of learning of strategic projects in countries of focus
- Increase technical expertise in relevant approaches for scaling up, e.g., CMAM SURGE, health systems strengthening, simplified approaches, Family MUAC and coverage surveys
- Support country reporting of Impact at Scale metrics
Engaging in business development and project design:
- At times, lead business development on Health Unit led grants, coordinating development, developing the strategy and writing the technical narrative and budgets in coordination with country teams
- Routinely support country program staff to design projects, develop theories of change, log frames, and MEAL frameworks
- Ensure collaborative design leadership with other TAs, Technical Coordinators, partners, and clients
- Support positioning & networking work with donors if requested by the Health Unit, country program/region
Project delivery support:
- Promote the application and contextualization of IMPACT Implementation standards/key messages
- Review and share program-specific tools / resources / curricula, including operational guidance of what works
- Conduct site visits focused on trainings and quality assessments at least once annually per country
- Lead technical trainings and provide ongoing technical mentoring for country program sector teams
- Support strategic action plan development and provide steer on outcome priorities and intervention selection, and lead discussions on contextualized TOC pathways and activities
- Support high-quality nutrition needs assessment, surveys and evaluations
- Support high-level partner mapping and partner strategy assessment
- Promote evidence generating programs where appropriate
- Identify and proactively share takeaways from prior work, other contexts to shape future program plans
- Routine engagement in project implementation meetings & learning
- Ensure quality issues are flagged (if necessary) and followed-up
High-quality MEAL support:
- Support analyzing, reviewing, and interpreting data (indicator data, client feedback, etc.) to inform project design and implementation
- Support country teams to identify primary data needs specific and essential to project design including the development of a learning plan
- Review proposed data collection tools to ensure that the content is adequate
- Review methodology, data collection tools, and analysis plan for assessments or evaluations
- Support discussion of results of analyzed data to ensure the best understanding of project performance
- Review and advise on sector reports summarizing key findings, methods, conclusions and recommendations
- Support collaboration with MEAL teams to conduct surveys to measure outcomes and final results
- Approve TORs, methodologies and analysis plans for final project evaluations
Management and Coordination:
- Coordinate and plan technical assistance priorities with relevant HQ, regional and country counterparts
- Participate in coordination efforts within the health unit and with other technical units
- Provide effective management support according to IRC standards to any direct report
Key Working Relationships
Position Reports to: the Senior Technical Advisor for Nutrition based in New York. Role may have a reporting line in the Central Africa region in the future
Position directly supervises: This position could potentially supervise interns or fellows.
Other Internal and/or external contacts:
Internal: Regular communication with the nutrition team, HU teams, other unit TAs, research and innovation teams, and gender equality teams. Close relationships with regional and country program teams including regional measurement action coordinators (RMACs). Interacts with IRC internal departments, including business development, external relations, communications, and advocacy.
External: Serve as an IRC program representativein outside regional meetings and global meetings and academic forums with donors, other non-governmental organizations, inter-agency groups and foundations as agreed by the supervisor.
Requirements
- A Master’s/post-graduate degree in Public Health Nutrition, or relevant degree
- A minimum of 5 years of work and lived experience in nutrition in humanitarian contexts in Africa and preferably in Latin America, of which at least 3 years have been in managerial/coordination positions with Non-Governmental Organizations.
- An authority in the field of nutrition programming in humanitarian settings. Must be able to provide technical advice on the treatment of wasting, evidence-based programs to address undernutrition, nutrition assessments and M&E
- Demonstrated expertise in working with donors, project design, proposal development, and monitoring and evaluation, with the ability to turn concepts and strategy into measurable action
- Must be able to write a strong proposal and budget with effective writing skills
- Must work respectfully with multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary teams maintaining a positive work environment
- Strong interpersonal verbal and written communication skills and ability to facilitate collaboration
- Thinks strategically, ability to build consensus, influence and problem-solve
- Outstanding capacity to understand the country context in Central Africa and Latin America, the portfolio, and overall programmatic needs, and pull and coordinate the relevant technical assistance from within and outside the health unit.
- Ability to transfer technical knowledge and skills to a diverse audience and in writing. Demonstrated commitment to renewing and maintaining currency with best practices.
Language Skills: Fluency in English and French is required. Proficiency in Spanish is preferable.The role requires work in all three languages and candidates must be able to speak, read and write in at least English and French with ease. Candidates who do not speak English and French proficiently will not be considered.
Working Environment
- Standard office work environment (with remote work an option during high COVID-19 transmission)
- Up to 40% travel may be required. Must be willing to travel to IRC country offices and field sites, sometimes in very difficult conditions
- Job available in these locations: London, Dakar, Kinshasa, Yaoundé, Abidjan and Nairobi. Candidates must have the right to work in the location they apply for. We are unable to sponsor work visas.
COVID-19: All IRC staff travelling must adhere to the IRC’s core COVID-19 measures, and the IRC’s guidance on mitigating COVID-19 travel related risks. Adherence to these measures is intended to reduce the risk of COVID-19 exposure whilst travelling, as well as limit the likelihood and impact of transmitting COVID-19 infection during travel and whilst in-country.
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The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way – Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Equality, Service, and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.
IRC et les employés de IRC doivent adhérer aux valeurs et principes contenus dans le IRC WAY (normes de conduite professionnelle). Ce sont l’Intégrité, le Service, l’Égalité, et la Responsabilité. En conformité avec ces valeurs, IRC opère et fait respecter les politiques sur la protection des bénéficiaires contre l’exploitation et les abus, la protection de l’enfant, le harcèlement sur les lieux de travail, l’intégrité financière, et les représailles.
More Information
- Job City Cameroon, Senegal
