Nutrition Cluster Coordinator L-4 (Fixed Term)

On behalf of the IASC Humanitarian Coordinator in Afghanistan and UNICEF as the lead agency for the IASC Nutrition Cluster and in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the Nutrition Cluster Coordinator will facilitate a timely and effective nutrition response in Afghanistan and ensure that the capacity of national institutions is strengthened to respond to and coordinate emergency nutrition interventions that demonstrate results and impact achieved.

PURPOSE OF THE JOB:

On behalf of the IASC Humanitarian Coordinator in Afghanistan and UNICEF as the lead agency for the IASC Nutrition Cluster and in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the Nutrition Cluster Coordinator will facilitate a timely and effective nutrition response in Afghanistan and ensure that the capacity of national institutions is strengthened to respond to and coordinate emergency nutrition interventions that demonstrate results and impact achieved.

ACCOUNTABILITIES AND KEY END-RESULTS

With the support of the Global Nutrition Cluster, the Chief Nutrition, the Nutrition Cluster Coordinator will be responsible for leading the Nutrition Cluster. The Nutrition Cluster Coordinator's major tasks and responsibilities will include but not be limited to:

General activities:

1. Identification of key partners:

• Continuously identify key humanitarian partners for the Nutrition Cluster response, respecting their respective mandates and program priorities
• Continuously identify other key partners including national and Sub-National authorities, private sector, etc.
• Carryout and update capacity mapping of all current and potential actors – government, national and international humanitarian organizations as well as national institutions, the private sector and advocate to donors, NGOs, government and other stakeholder on the nutrition programme needs and services.
• Monitor Community management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) activities to ensure that cluster members are adhering to national and international best practice documents.
• Monitor and document Infant and young child feeding best practices and lessons learned

2. Establishment and maintenance of appropriate humanitarian coordination mechanisms: 

• Ensure appropriate coordination between all Nutrition humanitarian partners (including OCHA, national and international NGOs, the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, IOM and other international organizations active in the sector) as well as Sub-National authorities and local structures
• Ensure the establishment/ and maintenance of appropriate sector coordination mechanisms including working groups as needed;
• Ensure full integration of the IASSC's agreed priority cross-cutting issues, namely human rights, age, gender and environment, utilization participatory and community-based approaches. In line with this, promote gender equality by ensuring that the needs, contributions and capacities of women and girls as well as men and boys are addressed;
• Secure commitments from cluster participants in responding to needs and filling gaps, ensuring an appropriate distribution of responsibilities within the cluster, with clearly defined focal points for specific issues where necessary;
• Ensure that cluster participants work collectively, ensuring the complementarities of the various stake holder's actions;
• Promote emergency response actions while at the same time considering the need for early recovery planning as well as prevention and risk reduction concerns;
• Ensure effective links with other clusters, especially Health, WASH, Agriculture and Food Security and Education;
• Represent the interests of the Nutrition Cluster in discussions with the Humanitarian Coordinator, the head of OCHA as well as donors on prioritization, resource mobilization and advocacy;
• Act as focal point for inquiries on the Nutrition Cluster's response plans and operations.

3. Planning and strategy development:

• Ensure predictable action within the cluster for the following:

• Needs assessment and analysis; development of standard assessment formats for use within the sector;
• Identification of gaps;
• Developing/updating agreed response strategies and action plans for the Nutrition Cluster and ensuring that these are adequately reflected in the overall country strategies, such as the Common Humanitarian Action Plan (CHAP) as an integral component of the CAP process.
• Drawing lessons learned from past activities and revising strategies and action plans accordingly;
• Developing an exit, or transition, strategy for the cluster.

4. Application of standards:

• Ensure that Nutrition Cluster participants are aware of relevant policy guidelines, technical standards and relevant commitments that the Government/concerned authorities have undertaken under international human rights law;
• Ensure that the Nutrition Cluster responses are in line with existing policy guidance, technical standards, and relevant Government human rights legal obligations.

5. Monitoring and reporting:

• Specifically needs to include an analytical interpretation of best available information in order to benchmark progress of the emergency response over time. That is - monitoring indicators (quantity, quality, coverage, continuity and cost) of service delivery which are derived from working towards meeting standards (mentioned in point 4).
• Ensure regular reporting against the Nutrition Cluster indicators of service delivery (quantity, quality, coverage, continuity and cost) supports analysis of the Nutrition Cluster in closing gaps and measuring impact of interventions.
• Develop and coordinate implementation of a nutrition surveillance system based on relevant information from service delivery points (e.g. TFU, OTPs, etc), community based GMP, periodic surveys, and regular data from established sentinel sites. This would entail triangulation of nutrition data with data from the relevant sectors, eg. Heath, WASH and food security.      

6. Advocacy and resource mobilization:

• Identify core advocacy concerns, including resource requirements, and contribute key messages to broader advocacy initiatives of the Humanitarian Coordinators and other actors;
• Advocate for donors to fund cluster participants to carry out priority activities in the sector concerned, while at the same time encouraging cluster participants to mobilize resources for their activities through the usual channels.

• Act as the focal point for reviewing and ensuring quality control for all the Nutrition Cluster project submitted for Flash Appeal, CAP, CERF and other funding mechanisms

7. Training and capacity building of Sub-National /local authorities and civil society:

• Promote and support training of the Nutrition Cluster partners personnel and build the capacity of all the Nutrition partners based on the mapping and understanding of available capacity;
• Support efforts to strengthen the capacity of the national / authorities and civil society.

8. Acting as "Provider of last resort":

• As agreed by the IASC Principals, the Nutrition Cluster lead agency is responsible for acting as the provider of last resort to meet agreed priority needs and will be supported by the HC in their resource mobilization efforts in this regard;
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• Under the principal of the "Provider of last resort", the Nutrition Cluster Coordinator will liaise with the Cluster Lead Agency UNICEF to ensure that gaps are filled

QUALIFICATION AND COMPETENCIES

Education

Advanced University degree in any of the following fields: Public Health, Nutrition or a related technical field

Work Experience

Minimum of eight years with significant experience working in emergency contexts preferably UN or NGO experience at a senior programme management level. Proven experience in strategic coordination, managing partnerships and knowledge of management tools and methods for effective coordination is critical.

Language Proficiency [ ]

Fluency in English (verbal and writing) and another UN language preferred