Community Nutritionist/ Public Health Specialist-Scientist

Scientist -Community Nutritionist / Public Health Specialist

The Position: ICRISAT is seeking a globally recruitedstaff who is highly motivated and qualified Community Nutritionist/ PublicHealth Specialist to lead and implement project activities in Sub-SaharanAfrica. The ideal candidate should be an expert with considerable experience incommunity nutrition and/or public health and with a passion to leverage thepotential of grain legumes, dryland cereals and oil seed crops to promotenutri-sensitive âFood Systems Transformationâ towards improving the quality ofpeopleâs diets/dietary diversity and health.

The candidate should be willing to work at all globallocations of ICRISAT. The incumbent will contribute to the design of innovativeand multisectoral interventions that lead to nutrition outcomes and will bepart of ICRISATâs Global Research Program - Enabling SystemsTransformation. The incumbent will report functionally to the ProgramDirector based in Hyderabad, India. The position will be based in Nairobi,Kenya with the incumbent reporting administratively to ICRISATâs RegionalDirector, East and Southern Africa based in Nairobi, Kenya, Bulawayo (Zimbabwe)and/or Lilongwe (Malawi)Nairobi. 

ICRISAT is a non-profit, non-political organizationthat conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-SaharanAfrica with a wide array of partners throughout the world. Covering 6.5 millionsquare kilometers of land in 55 countries, the semi- arid or dryland tropicshas over 2 billion people and 644 million of these are the poorest of the poor.ICRISAT and its partners help empower these disadvantaged populations toovercome poverty, hunger and a degraded environment through better agriculturalproduction systems.ICRISATis headquartered at Patancheru near Hyderabad, India, with two regional hubsand eight country offices in sub-Saharan Africa. ICRISAT envisions aprosperous, food-secure and resilient dryland tropics. Its mission is to reducepoverty, hunger, malnutrition and environmental degradation in the drylandtropics.

ICRISAT conducts research on its mandate crops of chickpea, pigeonpea,groundnut, sorghum, pearl millet and finger millet in the arid and semi-aridtropics. The Institute focuses its work on the drylands and in protecting theenvironment. Tropical dryland areas are usually seen as resource-poor andperennially beset by shocks such as drought, thereby trapping drylandcommunities in poverty and hunger and making them dependent on external aid. Pleasevisit â www.icrisat.org

Duties andResponsibilities: 

·Bringa community nutrition/public health lens to nutri-sensitive âFood SystemsTransformationâ approach applied by ICRISAT in project development, planning,and implementation.

·Providesupport on technical issues related to health (i.e., malnutrition, anemia,lifestyle diseases etc.), nutrition, dietary behavior, agri-food environmentstowards promoting nutri-sensitive Food Systems /value chains, globally;

·Designand undertake dietary and nutrition assessments using mixed methods to supportdevelopment of nutrition-specific/sensitive agricultural interventions forimproving household diet quality and nutrition especially for women andchildren;

·Conductresearch on issues associated with increasing consumption of grain legumes anddryland cereals, food and nutrition, dietary quality and dietary diversity;

·Implementcommunity-based initiatives to increase awareness on linkages betweenagriculture, nutrition, hygiene, and health with emphasis on production,processing/cooking and consumption of safe and nutritious grain legumes,dryland cereals and oil seeds crops and other foods;

·Contributeto develop and implement monitoring/nutritional assessment (i.e., baseline,midline, endline anthropometry studies) and evaluation plans, sampling andstudy design, and analytical protocols for nutrition-specific/sensitiveagricultural interventions;

·Closelycollaborate with project partners to set up a behavior change communication(BCC) team in planning, implementing, and monitoring of nutrition activitiesand interventions;

·Contributeto research, and develop standards and guidelines for food safety and hygieneto ensure safety and hygiene across: production, transportation, storage andhandling of raw materials and cooked/processed products, from the human healthaspect;

·Develop,maintain and strengthen partnerships for research and development inagriculture, food and nutrition, postharvest and gender and youth programmingaspects, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa;

·Contributeto the development of survey materials/ focus group discussions (FGDs),training materials, tools and facilitate capacity building on nutrition andimproving household dietary diversity and resilience;

·Contributeto ICRISAT's knowledge sharing and capacity strengthening activities withrespect to ICRISATâs âNutrition, Dietary Behavior and Smart Foodâ clusterinitiatives, especially in SubSaharan Africa;

·Assistthe Global Research Program Director â Enabling Systems Transformation,Regional Director, East and Southern Africa and Instituteâs Leadership tomobilize new financial resources by way of externally funded nutrition relatedprojects to sustain the Instituteâs activities globally;

·Facilitateother ICRISAT scientists, project partners as well as donors and developmentpartner visits to project sites;

·Buildtechnical capacity in local communities to assist target project districts indeveloping an approach to guide the implementation of nutrition interventions.Mentor NARS, NGO scaling partner staff, and student interns in relevant areasof community nutrition research;

·Assistin writing high-quality peer reviewed articles and publish in high impactfactor publications; Develop productive partnerships to further ICRISATâsâNutrition, Dietary Diversity and Smart Foodâ clusterâ and its 3 GlobalResearch Programs and actively participate in regional and internationalnutrition and health research communities and networks;

·Performother related duties as assigned by the Cluster Leader for âNutrition, DietaryDiversity and Smart Foodâ and immediate functional Supervisor. 

Program Specific Skills: 

·Provenability in using nutrition R&D tools and study designs to generate evidencefor public health nutrition research and apply evidence-based nutritioninterventions.

·Provenexperience in quantitative and qualitative data collection, computation, andstatistical analysis, preferably with a research and development organizationimplementing integrated agriculture-nutrition-health related projects.

·Knowledgeand proven experience on undertaking anthropometric studies in children under 5years old, as per WHO recommendations: organization of an anthropometricsurvey, field work procedures, data processing, quality assessment, analysis,and reporting, will be an added advantage.

·Agood track record in achieving impact and producing high quality technicalreports/publications.

·Experiencein networking with multiple project partners in the field of nutrition andhealth. Ability to speak and write English fluently, with very good workingknowledge of French will be desirable.

·Aself-starter and ability to plan and work independently with minimalsupervision.

·Possessdemonstrated strategic thinking and time management skills.

·Excellentinterpersonal skills and be able to work as a member of an interdisciplinaryteam in a multi-cultural environment and should be able to interact effectivelywith project partners and service providers.

Requirements: 

·APhD in community nutrition, public health, nutritional epidemiology, or relateddiscipline from a recognized institution with a minimum of four (4) yearsworking experience in international studies being desirable.

·Atleast five (5) years working experience in international agricultural ornutrition research with practical hands-on experience in community/publichealth etc. interventions.

·Experiencein developing and implementing projects addressing malnutrition and anemia(especially among women and children in vulnerable communities) and lifestylediseases through food/nutrition based approaches.

·Experiencein âlinking agriculture to nutrition and healthâ is a distinct advantage.

·Experiencein an international and multi-disciplinary/cultural environment is an asset.

General:

This is a contractual role for a period of 36 months (3 yearsâ).