Country Action Specialist ( Anglophone Africa) at UNOPS

Functional Responsibilities:
Coordination:

• Facilitation :
• Support SUN Countries to articulate their needs and expectations and seize opportunities to accelerate results at country level.
• Support Countries within the designated region to develop and document appropriate national nutrition policies, strategies, and action plans to scale-up nutrition interventions.
• Support Country Focal Points/or Country Coordinators and partners to cost scale-up and identify resource requirements.
• Track and analyse the challenges, opportunities and progress of the portfolio of SUN countries.
• Facilitate information-sharing of relevant evidence and successful practices from other partners and countries to inform strategic planning processes.
• Identify and facilitate linkages with other initiatives and processes to avoid duplication of activity.
• Support the SUN Country Focal Points and/or Country Coordinators to request technical assistance from the in-country multi-stakeholder team to finance, implement and monitor the country action plan.
• Support the Country Action Facilitator to facilitate requests through the global SUN networks or other global partners for technical assistance to support country action plans, when requests exceed locally available resources.
• Identify opportunities to enhance collaboration with network focal points locally to integrate for impact and take action as appropriate.
• Support process management and facilitation of multi-stakeholder coordination mechanisms among the various Networks in the Movement.
• Assist SUN countries in the preparation of and implementation of Joint Annual Assessment (JAA) and support the timely reporting on JAA and other MEAL exercises.
• Identify opportunities to strengthen existing resources and infrastructure in regions and make recommendations as appropriate.
• Support analysis and advise on appropriate institutional arrangements for multi-sectoral coordination on nutrition utilising SUN case studies and experience.
• Strengthen process management and coordination skills of national counterparts.
• Innovation and knowledge management:
• Participate in discussion and engagement in an identified thematic area of work directly related to, and critical for advancing the engagement of SUN Countries in the region (e.g. gender, agriculture, food systems etc).
• Interact and follow up with SUN Countries to solicit and document case studies, lessons learned, success stories, and best practices for internal and external sharing.
• Contribute to the preparation of success stories and best MEAL practices for inclusion in internal and external communication products.
• Contribute to the development and introduction of innovation to ensure the Movement is continually incorporating best practice approaches.
• Contribute to strategic planning and data analysis:
• Monitor and analyse major developments in nutrition action of SUN countries in the designated region and work with the Facilitator to determine how the Movement might respond to such developments.
• Support the Facilitator and Global Technical Advisory Team to monitor and analyse opportunities for engagement of the Coordinator with high level representatives of SUN countries within the designated region, to encourage the implementation of a multi sector, multi stakeholder approach to nutrition.
• Support the Facilitator and Global Technical Advisory Team to identify, analyze and monitor political developments and emerging issues within the designated region in relation to key principles and core themes of the SUN Movement.
• Monitor national and regional political trends that might affect the SUN Movement and report to the Facilitator as appropriate.
• Resource mobilisation & country financing capacity strengthening:
• Coordinate and support SUN members to build sustainable nutrition financing in national budgets through stronger domestic resource mobilisation.
• Provide SUN countries with technical assistance and capacity strengthening to enhance their financing capacity, including in public finance management for nutrition.
• Develop and maintain Regional information repository on nutrition funding sources to enable countries to prepare themselves for funding opportunities.

Impact of Results

The effective and successful achievement of results will support the SUN Movement and its Secretariat to achieve its vision of a world free from malnutrition in all its forms by 2030.

Education/Experience/Language requirements:
Work Experience:

Education:

• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in nutrition, public health, international development, public policy or related field.
• A bachelor's degree with a combination of two additional years of relevant experience may be accepted in lieu of the Master's degree.
• A minimum of five (5) years of experience in international development, public health, nutrition or related field is required.
• Demonstrated professional work experience in an international setting, with at least three (3) years in a field setting is required.
• Experience in Resource Mobilisation for Nutrition is desirable.
• Experience working in Anglophone Africa is desirable.
• Language:
• Full working knowledge of English is essential.
• Knowledge of another official UN language, particularly French , is an asset.