Nutrition Specialist (Food Systems for Children) P-3 TA (4 months), Nairobi, Kenya

## Nutrition Specialist (Food Systems for Children) P-3 TA (4 months), Nairobi, Kenya - Organization:UNICEF - United Nations Children's Fund - Office:UNICEF Nairobi, Kenya Nutrition Specialist (Food Systems for Children), P-3, TA, (4 months) # 00138331, Nairobi - Kenya Position type:Temporary Appointment Division/Equivalent:Nairobi Regn'l(ESARO) Department/Office:Nairobi, Kenya UNICEFworks in over 190 countries and territories to save children's lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence. At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do for as long as we are needed. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job - it is a calling. UNICEF is a place where careers are built: we offer our staff diverse opportunities for professional and personal development that will help them reinforce a sense of purpose while serving children and communities across the world. We welcome everyone who wants to belong and grow in a diverse and passionate culture, coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package. Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF. For every child,the right to advocacy. How can you make a difference? The UNICEF Nutrition Strategy 2020-2030 outlines UNICEF's commitment to assisting national governments and partners in safeguarding children's right to nutrition and eradicating child malnutrition globally. The strategy aims to be inclusive, encompassing all children, adolescents, and women worldwide. It stresses the importance of tailored programs that prioritize prevention across all contexts, with treatment as a crucial fallback if prevention falls short. In pursuit of this objective, the strategy advocates for a comprehensive approach to enhancing nutrition outcomes. UNICEF recognizes the pivotal role of the food system in creating an environment for nutritious, safe, affordable, and sustainable diets for children, collaborating with health, water and sanitation, education, and social protection systems. UNICEF's primary aim in this realm is to facilitate the establishment and realization of effective, responsible systems capable of addressing all forms of child malnutrition. Success in achieving nutrition goals hinges on the collective functioning of these five systems to deliver indispensable nutrition services and promote positive nutrition practices and diets throughout the life course, in all contexts: development, fragile and humanitarian; urban and rural. At the heart of Kenya's country programs for reducing all forms of child malnutrition is a commitment to food system transformation and the document "UNICEF Food Systems for Children", which delineates the role of a food-systems approach in supporting the overarching Nutrition Strategy and specifies the necessary actions for its execution. Guided by the document, UNICEF Kenya developed a KCO Food Systems for Children Roadmap which sets the focus on four action areas: 1. Improving children's food through actions in public policy, guidelines and standards, and food supply chains, including fortified foods, food supplements, and therapeutic foods. 2. Improving children's food environments where children live, learn, and meet through actions in public sector policies and programmes and in private sector products and practices. 3. Improving children's food practices through policies, strategies, and programmes that promote positive individual behaviors, caregiver practices, and social norms related to both consumption and production of nutrient dense foods. 4. Advocacy and leadership for the unique needs of children in the food system through capacity building, thought leadership and multi-sectoral engagement. Under the overall supervision of UNICEF Kenya Chief of Nutrition, the Nutrition Specialist TA will be responsible for technical support in the development and implementation of policies, programmes, advocacy and knowledge generation for food systems transformation for children, addressing all forms of malnutrition and covering young children, school age children and adolescents, and mothers. The Nutrition Specialist provides support to the Chief of Nutrition for the work of the Nutrition Section, in terms of technical assistance, advocacy, oversight on implementation of grants and quality assurance to the food systems aspects of nutrition programs in Kenya, including development of tools and guidance, innovation, evidence generation, analysis and knowledge products, dissemination and thought leadership. The position contributes to partnerships with stakeholders including UN agencies (e.g. WHO, FAO and WFP), NGOs, donors, academia, technical institutions and others on food systems for children. The Specialist provides authoritative technical guidance and management support throughout country programming processes to facilitate the achievement of concrete and sustainable results in FOOD SYSTEMS programs/projects according to plans, allocation, results based-management (RBM) approaches and methodology and UNICEF's Strategic Plans, standards of performance and accountability framework. Summary of key functions/accountabilities: - Support evidence generation and strategy development to operationalizeUNICEF's global work on Food System in the Kenyan context - Contribute to the development and results-based planning of sectoral program goals and objectives by identifying data gaps; generating evidence on food systems as they relate to all forms of malnutrition, the landscape of existing policies, strategies and stakeholders; identifying entry points for UNICEF and developing corresponding strategies. - Contribute to the development and/or introduction of new, innovative approaches within UNICEF and other UN agencies by keeping abreast on research and cutting-edge practices in nutrition and food systems. - Manage the implementation of the First Foods Africa initiative in Kenya which includes complex multi-sectoral engagement, innovative market based approaches to improve children's diets, and private sector partnership. - Lead the continued development of the climate responsive nutrition agenda including resource mobilization, engagement with academia and partners, and serving as a focal point for the CoE and the KCO Climate Change Taskforce. - Support UNICEF Kenya's work to improve children's food environmentswhere children live, learn, and meet through actions in public sector policies and programmes and in private sector products and practices. - Participate in technical committees/working groups and provide high quality and timely technical guidance in support of on-going regulatory and legislative policy initiatives, including food and beverage marketing restrictions, front of pack labeling system, and fiscal measures such as unhealthy food tax and healthy food subsidies. - Contribute to and support the assessment of existing policies and guidance on procurement of foods, identification of gaps and development of guidance on procurement of healthy foods in public institutions including schools in Kenya. - Together with UNICEF health colleagues, lead the establishment and implementation of overweight and obesity prevention programming, with a focus on leveraging the food system to regulate the environments where children and adolescents live, learn and play. - Lead UNICEF Kenya's work to improve children's foodsand positive food practices through actions in public policy, guidelines and standards, and food supply chain including in emergencies - Lead UNICEF Kenya's work on developing national standards for commercially produced complementary foods (CPCFs) through consolidating and coordinating exchange of evidence resulting from UNICEF's and partners' research activities (including marketing and advertising of CPCFs, nutrient content and healthiness, purchasing and consumption dynamics, informal market data), in coordination with ESARO's efforts to develop regional standards