SPIR II Health and Nutrition Specialist – World Vision Ethiopia

Number of Position: One

Duty station:  SPIR II Regional Office

Strengthen PSNP Institutions and Resilience II (SPIR II) is a 5-year USAID/BHA funded Resilience Food Security Activity (RFSA) led by World Vision and including consortium partners CARE, ORDA and IFPRI. World Vision and its partners will create a strong, shock responsive ecosystem of public, private, and community level actors to support PSNP households to graduate from poverty and sustain income and food security gains in 17 targeted woredas in Amhara and Oromia regions. Building from key formative and research studies during an initial refinement period, SPIR II will use continuous learning to drive program level reflection, analysis, and adaptation.

Purpose of the position:

The SPIR II Health and Nutrition Specialist will support testing, adapting and refining appropriate community-based health and nutrition promotion models in the SPIR II implementation context. She/he will provide technical guidance and support for the training and capacity building of both staff and government partners. The SPIR II Health and Nutrition Specialist will provide guidance and monitoring of health and nutrition implementation with a view to support ongoing quality improvement processes.

Major Responsibilities:

• Support learning processes which include studies during the R&I period, testing new program components, and ongoing learning to refine Health and Nutrition program models or strategies.
• Work closely with SPIR II Health and Nutrition Technical Advisor for adaptation of materials and tools based on  key learning results in Health and Nutrition program refinement both during the R&I period and as a part of the annual planning/budgeting process.
• Support the development of integration strategies and relevant key nutrition component across SPIR II technical programs
• Support health & nutrition work with SPIR II Learning partner, IFPRI, and other local researchers in the design and roll-out of planned studies in the R&I period.
• Conduct assessment at the key delivery points/platforms of Health &Nutrition interventions at health professional, Health facility and community level in order to identify skill gaps, technical assistance and capacity building needs.
• Conduct the training for Health and Nutrition program staff at Regional, Zonal/Woreda and Kebele levels.
• Facilitate cascaded of training and capacity building activities for GoE Ministry of Health counterparts at different administrative levels.
• Provide consistent high quality technical support and follow-up to all level field staff (regional  coordinator and  zonal officers)
• Actively participate in national Nutrition forums or technical working group /nutrition cluster with other RFSA or HRA partners,
• Support and collaborate the ongoing learning and program adaptation activities of SPIR-II implementers, and government partners (MoH, FSD, etc.) to exchange ideas, learning and implementation experiences
• Contribute to PSNP-5 program Health and Nutrition intervention  related dialogue and strategy and policy engagement with key stakeholders and partners
• Work closely with Health & Nutrition technical advisor in refining DIP, ensuring consistency with the respective SPIR-II strategic direction and priorities
• Support quality assurance monitoring processes and tools adoption /development (e.g. QIVC) to identify areas of improvement or capacity gaps, for targeted technical support
• Work closely with technical advisor and MEL team, identify and track key performance indicators and area of improvement and share to respective manager or technical team for targeted action and /or engorgement
• Conduct regular onsite support, field monitoring visit and supportive supervision to field team to empower the field staff and keep uniformity of Health and Nutrition intervention across implementing partners and provide regular feedback
• Conduct mapping exercise of relevant Health & Nutrition partners & learning platforms to exchange learning evidence from SPIR II research and experience.
• Work closely with Technical Advisors and identify key implementation challenges, best practices/ promising practices and document and share to relevant internal and external stakeholders
• Document and share key Health and Nutrition learning with other RFSAs, Ethiopia-based researchers and other stakeholders.
• Support the review, synthesis and write-up of Health & nutrition intervention results for quarterly and annual reports.

Qualifications:  Education/Knowledge/Technical Skills and Experience

 Required Professional Experience:

• A minimum of 7 years working experience in Health and Nutrition programs in a rural development context, three years of which were at a supervisory or nutrition specialist role or equivalent positions.
• Demonstrated technical leader in the health and nutrition field in Ethiopia, with an established reputation for contributions in relevant forums, networks, and among USAID and its partners.
• Experience in conducting quantitative and qualitative field research, and experience working closely with universities and/or other research institutions.
• Strong interpersonal, networking and facilitation skills.
• Excellent analytical, oral and written communication skills.

Qualification required:

• Health and Nutrition professional with an advanced (Master’s) degree in Public Health, Nutrition or related field.

Preferred Knowledge and Qualifications:

• Knowledge of community-based health interventions including Timed and Targeted Counseling, Community based Participatory Nutrition Promotion, Care Groups, dialogue-based counseling techniques to address nutrition during the 1000 window and positive deviance approach to improve complementary feeding are strongly preferred. Excellent report writing skill
• Ability to communicate and write clearly in English and local language of the operation area (Amharic and Afan Oromo) is preferable

Working Environment / Conditions:

• Frequent travel to the designated Woredas for co-facilitation, monitoring or supportive supervision of Health and Nutrition officers.