Nutrition Analyst
WFP seeks candidates of the highest integrity and professionalism who share our humanitarian principles
Selection of staff is made on a competitive basis, and we are committed to promoting diversity and gender balance
Job Title: Nutrition Analyst
Type of Contract: International Consultant Level I
Division: Nutrition: Nutrition Division
Duty Station (City, Country): Rome, Italy
Duration: 11 months
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:
Background
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is one of the leading global institutions helping to measure and alleviate malnutrition and has long been involved in efforts to expand the scope and impact of Large-Scale Food Fortification (LSFF). WFP supports national food and health systems across 73 countries as they strive to provide access safely and systematically to healthy, nutritious diets and reduce micronutrient deficiencies in women, children and the population at large. A key part of this work is the generation of data on food and nutrition security, dietary diversity and access to nutritious foods and nutritious diets, including food costs and expenditure, and using these data to highlight where there are risks of insufficiencies, by target group, geography or vulnerability, reflected as hunger (insufficient dietary energy and coping strategies), unaffordability of nutrient-adequate diets, inadequate dietary diversity and likelihood of micronutrient deficiencies.
When households, and specific household members, are unable to meet their dietary micronutrient needs due to physical, financial or sociological barriers, it becomes necessary to consider additional pathways that can safeguard against micronutrient malnutrition. Food fortification is a powerful, cost-effective intervention for improving micronutrient intake that can be adapted to many food vehicles and contexts and delivered through different platforms, including both conventional commercial markets and food assistance, including school meals and social protection programs.
Ultimately, decisions about LSFF programmes and policy, specifically regarding whether, where, what, how and for whom to implement such initiatives, require evidence of the likelihood that current diets are able to meet the recommended requirements for key vitamins and minerals, of current intake including among specific sub-groups of the population, as well as of consumption of different food vehicles, (fortifiable) staples and condiments. They also require information about the extent to which different LSFF programmes and other interventions could assist in filling nutrient intake gaps for key populations. Such data are imperative to inform decisions across the LSFF ecosystem, including policy formulation, setting standards, and determining whether LSFF is having an impact, in general, and with particular emphasis on those who are most vulnerable, with a focus on gender. However, due to cost, time consumption and complexity of primary vitamin and mineral deficiency (VMD) data collection, there are still many gaps in data needed to quantify the problem, e.g., magnitude and distribution of micronutrient malnutrition and nutrient inadequacy, as well as food consumption patterns within a population, required for proper program design and exploration of new cost-effective vehicles and entry points for fortification. Further, existing data or methods of obtaining data are limited in their ability to describe dimensions of VMD related to vulnerability in terms of gender, age, geography, biological status and illness.
The WFP uses innovative data approaches to support governments make informed decisions about the design and effective implementation of nutrition policy and programs, including the integration of nutrition objectives across food systems – to achieve maximum impact. The WFP Nutrition Division’s Fill the Nutrient Gap (FNG) analysis, led by the Analytics and Science for Food and Nutrition (AS4FN) team, has been conducted in over 35 countries. The FNG estimates the cost and affordability of nutritious diets for households and nutritionally vulnerable individuals at the sub-national level and models the potential of programmes from across sectors to fill nutrient intake gaps, including through fortification as well as increasing incomes, increasing production, and lowering prices of nutritious foods etc. Further, WFP’s Research, Assessment and Monitoring Division’s HungerMapLive is widely used to inform humanitarian programming and food security situation monitoring. HungerMapLive displays real-time information on food insecurity, nutrition and various relevant drivers using primary data collected using remote monitoring, estimates generated using machine learning-based predictive analytics and publicly available secondary data pulled automatically through APIs. Lastly, the WFP Innovation Accelerator (INKA), sources, supports and scales high-impact innovations to achieve Zero Hunger. Through the Accelerator, WFP is leveraging unprecedented advances in digital innovation—such as mobile technology, artificial intelligence, big data and blockchain—and new business models to transform the way WFP and partners serve vulnerable communities across the world, including innovations on fortification at small mills with Sanku.
The expansion of the Hunger MapLive to include a data layer on risk of dietary vitamin and mineral deficiencies and the potential of different programs, including LSFF, to fill nutrient gaps has been identified as an opportunity to support programme and policy decision-makers from national governments and other stakeholders. This activity will bring together the analytical and government technical assistance expertise of the AS4FN team, data collection and visualisation experience from the HungerMapLive Team and INKA’s digital innovation and project accelerator capacities.
About the Project
The Modelling and Mapping risk of Inadequate Micronutrient Intake (MIMI) project aims to generate and increase access to modeled data on risk of dietary VMD at national and sub-national levels, which will be critical to advocate for and inform the design and roll-out of large-scale food fortification as well as complementary programs.
Specifically, the project will work with academic and policy partners to develop an index for the risk of inadequate dietary micronutrient intake, to be estimated using publicly available food consumption data. This index will be validated against individual-level consumption and micronutrient status data in three countries. Intervention modelling approaches will then be applied to estimate the extent to which large scale food fortification (LSFF) (of different commodities and fortified according to different specifications) improve the index for risk of inadequate micronutrient intake, to inform policy decision-making and advocacy. Led by the data science team within the RAM division, the project will then use publicly available data on food supply, consumption and expenditure, socioeconomic characteristics, and environment, to train machine learning models to predict the index in countries where it is not possible to estimate values for the risk of inadequate micronutrient intake due to data gaps Model outputs will be developed into inputs to display on interactive sub-national maps, with the support of WFP’s RAM Division, and INKA. Finally, the project will engage with decision-makers in each of the focus geographies to support their application, validation and buy-in of the data and visualisations to inform policy and advocacy and document the process. The project overall will benefit from WFP in-country presence and partnerships with the MNF Data Alliance, among other stakeholders, to promote transparency, provide a forum for discussion, maximise stakeholder involvement at the global-level, incorporate the views of potential end users at the country level and build community acceptance.
PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:
The Nutrition Analyst will play a critical role in the MIMI project, led by the WFP Nutrition Division’s Analytics and Science for Food and Nutrition team. Under the supervision of the Project Lead, and working as part of a dynamic, multidisciplinary team of analysts, data scientists, policy and advocacy specialists, this position will contribute to the development of analytical methods, data analysis and data visualisation, and present data to diverse stakeholders at the global- and country-level. The Analyst will bring technical expertise in the collection, analysis, modelling and visualisation of nutrition and food consumption or expenditure data, especially data from Household Consumption and Expenditure Surveys to estimate food and nutrient intake and inform LSFF and other nutrition programmes and policy.
ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Map and explore data and indicators relevant to the development of an index for dietary VMD risks.
- Data collation, cleaning and processing for 3-6 countries.
- Work collaboratively with team members, and analytical partners to develop and test methods to calculate the index for dietary VMD risks and conduct analysis for 3-6 countries.
- Contribute to thought leadership on the development and application of modelling to test the potential impact of LSFF and other nutrition interventions against outcomes including the index for dietary VMD risks.
- Present project specific analytical methods and findings to and participate in technical-level discussions with analytical partners and stakeholders.
- Support the display of data from the project on an interactive, sub-national dashboard, with the RAM HungerMapLive team.
- Prepare and participate in dissemination and policy implementation activities to in-country stakeholders, based on the data outputs and dashboard, led by WFP Country Offices.
- Take the lead to draft or contribute to academic manuscripts for submission to peer-reviewed journals.
- Presentation at academic webinars conferences, as relevant.
- Represent WFP during meetings with partners to contribute to technical discussions, exchange of knowledge and experience, advocate for appropriate interventions (based on an evidence base) and identify areas for potential collaboration.
DELIVERABLES AT THE END OF THE CONTRACT:
- Market and retail for Nutrition Guidance developed, approved and shared to all relevant stakeholders internally and externally. Listing of potential entry points for an approach including key activities, objectives, outputs and outcomes.
- Roll out of the guidance in key strategic countries to build lessons learned and evidence of the approach
- Inclusive market-based, nutrition-focused retail implementation plan for different food environments, based on Nutrition Division country typologies.
- Oversight provided to on-going country level work on retail, and support scale up of the approach.
- Lessons learned and case studies have been captured for this specific approach and workstream
- Strengthened collaboration/relationships with key stakeholders within and outside Nutrition including Food Systems, CBT, PPF, Supply Chain Retail & Markets, field-based staff, and selected external partners.
- Support fundraising opportunities for Market and Retails system approach for Nutrition, potentially jointly with other divisions
- Develop a roster of quality external consultants that can be engaged in Nutrition in Retail Systems initiatives at the country-level.
QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:
Education:
Master’s degree or higher in Nutrition, Public Health, Epidemiology, Medical Statistics, Data Science, or a related field.
Experience:
• 3-5 years’ work experience, some of that on informing development, health or nutrition programmes would be a plus.
• Experience participating in research projects or analyses with diverse stakeholders and data inputs, including research design, data analysis and write up.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively in a team environment, especially with colleagues from diverse backgrounds.
• Familiarity cleaning, merging, and processing large, complex datasets, ideally Household Consumption and Expenditure Surveys.
• Experience analysing primary and secondary data.
• Experience presenting analysis findings to diverse audiences, including government stakeholders, programme staff and academic partners, in a digestible and context-relevant format.
• Previous experience presenting research findings at academic conferences and meetings and through authorship of peer-reviewed journal articles.
Knowledge & Skills:
Relationship management, communications, and networking skills.
• Proficient in the analysis of quantitative data using statistical software such as R (preferred) or STATA.
• Analytical and problem-solving skills, with a strong solution and action orientation.
• Flexibility, sound interpersonal skills and cross-cultural sensitivity.
Languages:
• Advanced professional level of written and spoken English
• Professional knowledge of a second UN language (French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic or Chinese) an asset.
Terms and Conditions
WFP offers a competitive compensation package which will be determined by the contract type and selected candidate’s qualifications and experience.
Please visit the following websites for detailed information on working with WFP.
http://www.wfp.org Click on: “Our work” and “Countries” to learn more about WFP’s operations.
Deadline for applications: 30 April 2023
Ref.: VA No. 798460
Qualified female applicants and qualified applicants from developing countries are especially encouraged to apply
WFP has zero tolerance for discrimination and does not discriminate on the basis of HIV/AIDS status
No appointment under any kind of contract will be offered to members of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), FAO Finance Committee, WFP External Auditor, WFP Audit Committee, Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) and other similar bodies within the United Nations system with oversight responsibilities over WFP, both during their service and within three years of ceasing that service.
