Food Security & Nutrition Coordinator

Position: Food Security & Nutrition Coordinator

Responsible To: SHC/CNC

Directly Managing: Nutrition Assistants, Outreach supervisor, NIS Officers, Nutritionists, WMOs (Sc)

Location: Thatta

Start Date: ASAP

Duration: 9 months

Salary: TBD in line with national salary grid Grade G

Context and Background

Merlin is the UK’s leading international health charity, sending medical experts to the frontline of global emergencies and staying on to build lasting health systems. We entered Pakistan in 2005 after an earthquake in Jammu Kashmir left 75,000 dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. Since then we have expanded to provide a wide range of primary health care, malaria control, family planning, post abortion care and nutrition services to over 2.2 million people. We currently support 110 health facilities and ten hospitals, and have scaled up in times of emergency including the devastating floods of 2010 and 2011.

In Sindh, the province was worst affected by the floods of 2010 and hit again by severe rains in 2011, Merlin is providing health, nutrition and RH services in district Thatta, Badin, Dadu and Tharparkar. This includes treatment centres for communicable diseases like diarrhea, feeding programmes for severely and moderately malnourished children and vaccinations to protect children under the age of 5 from diseases such as polio.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, we are working in the Swat Valley, Peshawar, Buner and Nowshera districts – areas which are still confronting political instability, widespread militancy and displacement in wake of the conflict in neighbouring Afghanistan. Merlin has provided emergency healthcare to internally displaced people (IDPs) in Jalozai camp since 2009, which were scaled up at the start of 2012 following an influx of IDPs from Khyber Agency. As people return to the Swat valley, we are working with government of Pakistan to strengthen the country’s health system, including training lady health workers to provide family planning advice in an effort to stem maternal mortality

Main purpose of the Position:

Under the overall managerial and administrative leadership of the Senior Health Coordinator & Country Nutrition Coordinator, the Food Security and Nutrition Coordinator will be responsible for the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the food security and nutrition program. He/She will also facilitate a synergic relationship on food security and nutrition with Government (Department of Health, Provincial Nutrition Cell & PPHI) and other Organizations’ programmes within the targeted areas.

Specific tasks of position:

1. Toplan, implement monitor and evaluate nutrition activities andfood security activities and provide technical assistance to staff accordingto technical guidelines and recommended standards.
2. Toco-ordinate with the partner organisations to scale up on food securityand nutrition activities.
3. Todevelop strategies, methodologiesand identification of current and new nutrition approaches based oncoverage trends of high impact for improving programme delivery, with emphasis on:

- advocacy, community participation and social mobilization

- specific nutrition interventions (Community based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM)

- Integrated Management of child hood illnesses and promotion of optimal breastfeeding and complementary feeding

- Nutrition surveillance through different surveys.

1. Under the guidance of the Country Nutrition Coordinator & Senior Health Coordinator provide ongoing assistance,capacity building and training for project staff and community groups.
2. Facilitate and monitor screening process for developing link with conditional cash grants/transfers.
3. Train Nutrition staff for raising awareness on effective utilization of cash transfer/grants for improvement of children nutrition within age range of 0-2years.
4. To plan, organize and conduct training and orientation for food security and nutrition activities, for the purpose of capacity building at community,district & provincial levels.
5. To undertake field visits in order to monitor and evaluate programme implementation.

9. Provide input into the design, delivery and revision of the project, specifically those that increase the capacity of the staff to implement the project successfully.

1. To identify problems and propose remedial action. Identify alternative courses of action to accelerate/improve programme delivery.
2. To prepare, analyze and submit weekly and monthly Screening, SFP, OTP & SC reports to the SHC and CountryNutrition Coordinator.
3. To coordinate activities and exchange information/ideas with other stakeholders/partners,to contribute to achievement of overall programme objectives,
4. Ensure Merlin priority issues of Health & Nutrition are addressed across the program.
5. To participate in establishing effective monitoring, information and reporting systems, and in the development of communication materials and strategies to support advocacy and community participation.

15. Provide regular feedback from key persons, including partners, residents, and vulnerable groups, ongoing programme activities.

1. Toparticipate in development of evaluation tools andto contribute actively in the baseline surveys including SMART& KPC surveys.

17. Represent Merlin’s Food Security & Nutrition Programme on different forums including cluster meetings, district coordination meetings and to other international organization working on food security and Nutrition in the area.

18. Any other related tasks at the request by the SHC, CNC and Program Manager.

Person Specification:

• MSc-Human Nutrition/Masters or MBBS, with diploma in Nutrition or Master in Public Health.
• Minimum 4 years of relevant work experience at provincial or district levels in programme planning, management, monitoring, and evaluation, in the related field.
• Preferably experience of health & nutrition surveys (e.g. SQUEAC, KPC survey, SMART tools).
• Ability to cope well under stressful conditions.
• Ability & flexibility to understand the cultural and political environment and to work well with other stakeholders.
• Excellent communication skills, with good spoken and written English and Urdu; and spoken Sindhi.
• Good computer skills – ability to write weekly and monthly report and data analysis.
• Previous experience within a humanitarian aid organization on nutrition.
• Experience working in emergencies and humanitarian programmes.
• Experience in coordination and networking.
• Have the confidence, initiative, patience and integrity to work independently.
• Knowledge of government health system, policies and procedures.

Desirable

} Experience of working in nutrition related programs with its linkages to Food Security initiatives.