Nutrition Specialist

Under the guidance of the Chief, Nutrition, the Nutrition Specialist will contribute to transforming diets and futures of children, adolescents, and women by driving strategies to increase availability, access, and consumption of diverse, nutritious foods at scale. The role involves advancing community-based approaches, supporting behaviour change, leading nutrition-responsive agriculture actions, strengthening partnerships, monitoring programme performance, and supporting multisectoral coordination to improve nutrition outcomes in Malawi.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to transforming diets and futures of children, adolescents, and women by driving strategies that increase availability, access, and consumption of diverse, nutritious foods at scale.
• Advance community-based approaches and support behaviour change to improve food utilization, preparation, and consumption.
• Lead the development and rollout of a minimum package of child-sensitive, nutrition-responsive agriculture actions aligned with national priorities, including biofortified crops, nutrient-rich value chains, food innovation, and local processing initiatives.
• Support implementation through community and district coordination structures and align with broader food systems efforts to improve availability, affordability, and accessibility of healthy diets.
• Strengthen partnerships with UN agencies, government ministries, and other stakeholders to support joint planning, multisectoral coordination, scale-up of nutrition-sensitive value chains, knowledge sharing, and learning.
• Monitor programme performance, strengthen data systems and evidence use, and document best practices and lessons learned to inform scale-up and policy advocacy.
• Strengthen programme quality and reach through proactive coordination and a strong drive for results, maximizing effectiveness and efficiency to make a meaningful and lasting impact.

Requirements

• Master or equivalent (Advanced University Degree) in nutrition, public health, epidemiology, global health, health policy, health management, health sciences, maternal and child health and any other related fields.
• A minimum of five years of professional experience in a developing country is required in one or more of the following areas: nutrition, public health, nutrition planning and management, or food systems strengthening.
• Experience implementing both preventive and treatment nutrition interventions.
• Strong expertise in child sensitive nutrition-responsive agriculture and food systems.
• Ability to design and implement scalable, community-based interventions.
• Experience in household-level production, processing, preservation, value addition, and consumption of diverse, nutrient-dense foods through interventions that improve access at household and community levels.
• Facilitate linkages with other sectors and programmes like social protection and income generating activities to improve dietary diversity of children.
• Coordinate with the health systems to ensure availability of nutrition services including MIYCAN counselling and screening for severe acute malnutrition and referral in the targeted districts.
• Proven partnership and coordination skills with government, UN partners (including FAO/WFP), CSOs and other stakeholders.
• Resource mobilization and grant management.
• Advocacy and system strengthening.
• Strong analytical and data-use capability.
• Effective communication skills.
• Fluency in English is required.
• Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.
• Experience in food systems.
• Familiarity with grant management for EU supported projects.
• Developing country experience.
• Experience in nutrition programme/project development and management within a UN system agency or organization is an asset.
• Humanitarian experience.
• Relevant experience at country level, particularly in development, fragile settings and humanitarian contexts.

Skills

• Nutrition Planning
• Public Health Nutrition
• Epidemiology
• Global Health
• Health Policy
• Health Management
• Maternal and Child Health
• Nutrition Interventions
• Preventive Nutrition
• Treatment Nutrition
• Nutrition-Responsive Agriculture
• Food Systems Strengthening
• Community-Based Intervention
• Household Food Production
• Food Processing
• Food Preservation
• Value Addition
• Dietary Diversity Improvement
• Social Protection Linkages
• Health Services Coordination
• MIYCAN Counselling
• Severe Acute Malnutrition Screening
• Partnership Coordination
• Government Relations
• UN Coordination
• Civil Society Engagement
• Resource Mobilization
• Grant Management
• Advocacy
• Systems Strengthening
• Data Analysis
• Nutrition Programme Development
• Nutrition Programme Management
• Humanitarian Nutrition
• Inter-sectoral Coordination
• Behaviour Change Communication
• EU Grants Management

Languages

English