UNICEF Maternal Nutrition/IYCF/ECD Jobs in Kenya

UNICEF Maternal Nutrition/IYCF/ECD Jobs in Kenya

Background and Justification

The maternal, infant and young child nutrition situation in a number of countries in the Eastern and Southern Africa region (ESAR) has been improving over time, but further progress is needed to address all forms of malnutrition—undernutrition, overweight/ obesity, micronutrient deficiencies—in order to achieve the global SDG nutrition and health targets.

The quality of young child diets also remains very poor, with only one in ten children aged 6-23 months in ESAR receiving a minimum acceptable diet. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 66% of under 5 children are at risk of poor developmental outcomes - far too few children are thriving because of poor health, inadequate nutrition, exposure to stress, a lack of early stimulation, and limited opportunities for early learning.

Scaling up interventions to improve key direct determinants of malnutrition and poor child development outcomes- with a focus on the “1000 days” period during pregnancy and the first two year’s of a child’s life - including maternal and infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices and behaviors, responsive caregiving and stimulation, are essential to accelerate progress.

UNICEF’s HSS approach includes activities appropriate to the three major functional levels of health systems (community, sub-national and national) in different contexts, enabling the promotion of good health, delivery of essential interventions to all children and women, accountability, and achievement of equitable outcomes.

Scope of work

Goal and objective: To understand how maternal nutrition/IYCF/ECD counselling is integrated in the building blocks of health systems in selected countries of the region and is being delivered at both health facility and community levels.

A comprehensive understanding of the health system bottlenecks and enablers to fully integrate and deliver quality maternal nutrition and IYCF/ECD counselling services at facility and community level will be obtained in order to identify and prioritize context specific barriers and enabling factors to inform the design of evidence-based policies and programmes to deliver skilled counselling support and nutrition and ECD education that is fully integrated within all building blocks of the health system.

The findings will help to guide countries to better integrate maternal nutrition/IYCF/ECD counseling in the building blocks of the health system. A two-tier assessment is proposed: a multi-country scoping (in the 15 ESAR countries using the package), and a deep dive in four countries (to be decided in the inception phase of the consultancy).

Activities and Tasks:

The activities will have two main strands: a multi-country systems-focused desk review, survey and key informant interviews (1-3), and a deep dive in 4 selected countries, followed by a facilitated stakeholder consultation (4-5). The tools for the survey, deep dive and the approach to undertaking the stakeholder consultation will be written up as tools/guides that other countries can also use.

Multi-country desk review and mapping of relevant policies, strategies and guidelines:
Information will be gathered through a descriptive review and mapping of relevant overarching nutrition and health sector policies, strategies, plans, guidelines and other documents at the national and sub-national level that contain maternal, IYCF and ECD counselling, with a particular focus on the integration of counselling in the 6 building blocks on health systems. This will also encompass review of published and grey literature and programme documents.

Online survey-The survey aims to fill in gaps in information on IYCF/ECD in the 6 building blocks identified from the desk review. The process of completing the survey will be two staged involving consultations and consensus building among IYCF and ECD technocrats in country and completion of the survey by UNICEF IYCF focal person.

Semi-structured interviews with key informants
Semi-structured interviews with key informants (technical experts and stakeholders) involved in maternal and IYCF policy making and programme implementation will be conducted to solicit views and provide an in-depth understanding on the barriers and enabling factors for integration of maternal/IYCF/ECD counselling across all health system pillars. The key informant interviews will also help validate information gathered through the policy document review and mapping and the online survey.

Deep dive in 4 selected countries

This will consist of more in-depth interviews and a purposive small sample of health facilities and communities to assess how counselling is integrated and delivered. Information on maternal/IYCF/ECD counselling services availability and service delivery readiness will be collected through a mixed methods approach involving both qualitative and quantitative data collection.

A health facility assessment based on a purposive small sample of health facilities covering urban/rural/peri-urban, large/small facilities, and the range of contacts – e.g. ANC, PNC, well child, sick child, outreach, and inpatient and outpatient treatment of wasting, as well as community services, will be undertaken to assess service delivery readiness using a semi-structured questionnaire.

Semi-structured interviews with key informants (perspectives of service providers and managers on service delivery and utilisation) will be conducted to inform the understanding of programme delivery environment for maternal/IYCF/ECD counselling.

Stakeholder consultation workshop

Facilitated discussion among technical experts and stakeholders can be instituted to identify underlying causes and appropriate actions to address the key bottlenecks/barriers and enablers to maternal and IYCF counselling across the health system pillars. The stakeholder validation workshops should involve a wide range of stakeholders working in the health system who have an influencing role on the integration and delivery of maternal, IYCF and ECD counselling services.

Development of 1 brief with overarching findings and recommendations for strengthening the institutionalization of maternal/IYCF/ECD counselling in all health system building blocks (all countries) and 4 country briefs with specific findings and recommendations for the 4 deep-dive countries. Slide decks and a synthesis report will also be prepared, as well as a draft peer-reviewed paper.

Table 1: Key areas of enquiry across health system functions for evaluating health-system bottlenecks affecting delivery of maternal nutrition and IYCF counselling services.

Output/Deliverables

Expected Outcomes:

Regional and country specific knowledge on the bottlenecks and enabling factors affecting integration of maternal nutrition, IYCF and ECD counselling services is generated. The findings of the assessments will feed into country level briefs and a workshop and report in the deep dive country that will identify practical solutions to health system bottlenecks to greater institutionalization of maternal nutrition/IYCF/ECD counseling.

Payment Schedule

Payment shall be made on satisfactory completion of the deliverables, as detailed above, in 7 payments.

Desired competencies, technical background and experience

Education: An Advanced University Degree in Public Health Nutrition, Nutritional Epidemiology, International Health and Nutrition, Maternal and Child Nutrition, or other Nutrition-related science field including Early Childhood Development is required. *A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.

A minimum of 8 years of relevant professional experience in public health/nutrition assessment, planning, management, health and nutrition systems strengthening, policy research at the international level, including in low and middle income countries;

Experience of IYCF and ECD counseling programmes an asset

Must exhibit UNICEF Core Values of:

How to Apply

For more information and job application details, see; UNICEF Maternal Nutrition/IYCF/ECD Jobs in Kenya

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