BACKGROUND
The Global Nutrition Cluster Technical Alliance (GNC Technical Alliance or Alliance) is an initiative for the mutual benefit of the nutrition community, and affected populations, to improve the quality of nutrition in emergency preparedness, response, and recovery. The GNC Technical Alliance Partners are made up of the GNC partners and other individuals, organizations, initiatives, and academia at global, regional and national levels that hold nutrition technical expertise across the humanitarian and development spheres.
The Alliance’s Technical Support Team (TST) exists to provide timely, cost effective, coordinated, and sustainable technical support to nutrition emergencies. This is achieved by offering expert guidance, high quality learning and training, either remotely, through the deployment of an Advisor or through recommendations of expert nutrition consultants. The TST exists thanks to the generous support of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, Irish Aid and UNICEF.
The TST Coordination Unit, co-hosted by Action Against Hunger (AAH) Canada, UNICEF and the GNC Coordination Team, ensures the coordination of technical support requests, including matching to appropriate advisors, funding and high-quality delivery. The Unit works closely with TST technical leads and TST Partners. In order to find the most appropriate Advisor for each request, we draw upon the 19 deployable or remotely based TST members, the staff from 20 TST Partners, and over 150 vetted consultants. If the appropriate profile cannot be found, we often advertise and use other specific contacts relevant to the request.
Technical support is generally available in four modalities: 1) quick remote support (response to technical queries, or reference to appropriate resources), 2) in-depth remote support (working remotely with a country-based partner for an extended period with a detailed ToR), 3) in-country technical support (again working for an extended period, typically 6-12 weeks, but deployed) or 4) through the recommendation of vetted consultants.
The TST brings a wealth of knowledge and experience, on issues including (but not limited to) Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies, Maternal Nutrition, Early Detection and Treatment of Child Wasting, Social Behaviour Change for Nutrition Outcomes, Nutrition Surveillance and Surveys, Cluster Coordination and Information Management and Intersectoral Collaboration. Via the TST Partners, and consultants, additional expertise also available includes prevention SAM and MAM, Food Assistance, Micronutrient and Multi-Sectoral Nutrition
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Programming, Coverage Assessment, Prevention and Management of stunting, Cash and Voucher Assistance, Adolescent Nutrition and Adult Malnutrition.
Conflict has been affecting people’s lives and driving humanitarian needs in eastern Ukraine since 2014. One consequence has been the separation of the country into the government-controlled areas (GCAs) and the non-government-controlled areas (NGCAs) with a 427km-long contact line, where most security incidents between government and non-government forces occur (OCHA 13/01/2022). Conflict in Ukraine escalated on 24 February 2022 when the Russian military entered into the country and started advancing into the capital Kyiv. Fighting is resulting in civilian casualties and significant damage to infrastructure and buildings. Insecurity is forcing people to leave their homes; most of them are women, children, and elderly people, as men between 18–60 are asked to stay and fight. About 66% of the displaced people fled to Poland, and the others to Moldova, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. About 100,000 people are estimated to be displaced within Ukraine, and numbers are expected to increase quickly because of the hostilities.
The conflict in Ukraine is projected to deepen and increase humanitarian needs for millions of Ukrainians. Refugees, families displaced within the Ukraine and those affected by conflict in their place of residence are likely to be in an extremely difficult situation facing high levels of stress and uncertainty, food shortages, unsanitary conditions, risk of communicable diseases, and significant protection threats.
Whilst the humanitarian response, including the nutrition response, is building with the increase in need, specialized technical expertise, able to speak relevant languages, will likely be required to support the overall response, both international and nationally led.
OBJECTIVE
The TST are looking to identify nutrition and/or public health experts who speak Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian and Romanian.
Applicants would be available to the TST to provide technical support to the on-going response to the Ukraine Crisis in Ukraine and neighboring countries.
Whilst ideally, we are looking for speakers of these languages with experience in emergency nutrition programming, we are also interested in those with more general nutrition or public health programming, with the ability to support emergency nutrition programmes, perhaps with technical backstopping from other experts.
SERVICE DESCRIPTION
The required activities will be specific to a request but could include any activities for nutrition in emergency technical areas listed above.
Whilst each technical support package is tailored to specific needs, across the technical areas support provided could include capacity strengthening, the design and delivery of trainings and orientations, development of training plans, survey design and implementation, formative research, personnel, organizational and programmatic capacity mapping, policy assessment, coaching, strategy and work plan development, tool development, development of operational guidance, support to technical working groups, monitoring and evaluation design, learning and documentation, and advocacy support.
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TIMELINE
Candidates should apply as soon as possible, but specific timeline will be developed for any future requests. Typically, duration for the work required will be 6-12 weeks, with potential to extend, depending on the need. The overall Framework Agreement period will be one year, extendable for one additional year if needed.
REQUIRED PROFILE
QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE
Required:
● Master’s degree in Economic, Social Science, Nutrition, Public Health, or related field
● At least 5 years work experience in nutrition or public health programmes in emergency or development contexts
● Ability to analyze diverse information and develop recommendations for an appropriate response to public health/nutrition challenges
● Demonstrated understanding and commitment to humanitarian principles
● Ability to adapt ways of working in the face of changing needs and contextual characteristics
Desirable:
● Knowledge and demonstrated experience on nutrition and public health in emergencies
● Experience on monitoring and evaluation
● Experience in the assessment of staff and organisational capacity, development of strategies and delivery of capacity strengthening activities
● Experience in the development of innovative training tools and approaches
● Experience in designing and conducting surveys of gaps and mapping of initiatives
● Practical experience of the cluster approach at country and global level
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, ABILITIES AND OTHER ATTRIBUTES
Required:
● Strong skills in coordination and the ability to work effectively with a range of stakeholders, including nutrition clusters, partners and the Ministry of Health
● Highly developed writing skills – both at a programmatic level (assessment reports, proposals) and a policy level (policy papers, guidance notes)
● Strong communications skills (both written and verbal) at a level appropriate for high- level external representation presentations)
● Ability to work in Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian or Romanian
● At least intermediate level English
Desirable:
● Ability to travel at short notice, to potentially remote and insecure locations
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DUTY STATION/LOCATION:
This will depend on the specific work. It could be either home based or involve travel, or a mixture of the two. The work might be required to apply flexible working hours to accommodate collaboration with colleagues in different time zones.
SUPERVISORS
The consultant will be supervised by both the TST Coordination Unit (based at AAH Canada) and the in-country requester.
CONTRACT MODALITY
Framework Agreement will be offered for one year, extendable for one additional year if needed.
Applications are open to individuals, teams of people or organizations.
HOW TO APPLY
Proposals responding to this RFQ should include:
● Updated CV detailing experience in conducting similar work.
● Maximum 1 page Cover letter.
● Three references for which you have conducted relevant work.
● Please provide your daily rate in Canadian Dollars (CAD).
Applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible given the emergency nature of the response. Applications will close on Thursday, March 31, 2022, 23:59 EST to:
procurement@actionagainsthunger.ca
Please highlight “Nutrition/Public Health Experts for Ukraine response” in the subject heading.