Food Systems and Nutrition Analyst
Food Systems and Nutrition Analyst
Employer Active
Job Alert
You will be updated with latest job alerts via email
Share
Job Alert
You will be updated with latest job alerts via email
Job Description
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS
1 April 202523:59GMT01:00 Central European Time (Rome)WFP celebrates and embraces diversity. It is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all its employees and encourages qualified candidates to apply irrespective of race colour national origin ethnic or social background genetic information gender gender identity and/or expression sexual orientation religion or belief HIV status or disability.
ABOUT WFP
The World Food Programme is the worlds largest humanitarian organization saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict disasters and the impact of climate change.
At WFP people are at the heart of everything we do and the vision of the future WFP workforce is one of diverse committed skilled and high performing teams selected on merit operating in a healthy and inclusive work environment living WFPs values (Integrity Collaboration Commitment Humanity and Inclusion) and working with partners to save and change the lives of those WFP serves.
To learn more about WFP visit our website: follow us on social media to keep up with our latest news: YouTube LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Twitter TikTok.
WHY JOIN WFP
WFP is a 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
WFP offers a highly inclusive diverse and multicultural working environment.
WFP invests in the personal & professional development of its employees through a range of training accreditation coaching mentorship and other programs as well as through internal mobility opportunities.
A career path in WFP provides an exciting opportunity to work across the various country regional and global offices around the world and with passionate colleagues who work tirelessly to ensure that effective humanitarian assistance reaches millions of people across the globe.
We offer an attractive compensation package (please refer to the Terms and Conditions section of this vacancy announcement).
JOB TITLE:
Food Systems and Nutrition Analyst
TYPE OF CONTRACT:
CST level 2
UNIT/DIVISION:
Nutrition and Food Quality Service Programme Policy & Guidance Division
DUTY STATION (City Country):
HQ Rome Italy
DURATION: 7.5 months NTE 31 December 2025
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:
The Nutrition & Food Quality Service leads WFPs efforts towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal target 2.2: ending all forms of malnutrition by 2030. This is an ambitious goal as malnutrition remains a universal and enormous global challenge with significant health and economic consequences to individuals communities and entire countries. WFP is therefore advancing its efforts to both prevent and treat malnutrition and has developed a situational assessment to support decisionmaking for the prevention of all forms of malnutrition:Fill the Nutrient Gap (FNG).
Improved nutrition situation analysis can increase the understanding of the likely magnitude and main causes of the nutrient gap among a particular target group e.g. children aged 623 months or pregnant and breastfeeding women and adolescent girls in a specific context. It can also inform where transformative change needs to happen in the food system to improve diets. The FNG analysis is based on a better and more indepth analysis of existing nutrition dietary intake food security food prices household food expenditure and socioeconomic data. Starting in 2015 WFP with technical input from key research institutes (University of California Davis IFPRI Epicentre Mahidol Harvard) and Save the Children and UNICEF developed the FNG assessment which aims to strengthen analysis build consensus and support decisionmaking for improving nutrient intake and preventing malnutrition including during the critical period of the first 1000 days.
The FNG uses nutrition modelling (enhanced Cost of Diet analysis) combined with a review of secondary data on food systems local dietary practices and malnutrition to identify options that enable people to access and choose a more nutritious diet. The analysis is designed to contribute to national policy and programming planning cycles by highlighting potential entry points for nutritionrelated action by different sectors and actors. Key stakeholders are engaged throughout the processed as needed particularly in analysis and utilization of the findings to facilitate multistakeholder discussions on the identification of contextspecific policy and programme options and prioritisation of actions.
The FNG process and the data analysis are facilitated and in parts led by the Systems Analysis for Nutrition team at WFP Headquarters (HQ) in collaboration with WFP Country Offices (COs) and Regional Bureaux (RBs).
By 2025 the FNG assessments concept and methods are well established and the analysis has been conducted in more than 50 countries including in fragile settings. WFP is working closely with the World Bank IFPRI UC Davis Johns Hopkins Centre for a Liveable Future Tilburg University Capgemini and others on further development and application of analytical tools and approaches for Systems Analysis for Nutrition that have evolved from and are also being applied in FNG analysis including capacity strengthening around stakeholder engagement for policy and program design costing of options and aligning FNG with other initiatives such as estimating the cost of a healthy diet assessing environmental impact of diets as well as impact of climate change on diets and characterizing subnational food environments using marketbased food price data collection.
The consultant will continue to increase his leading role of FNG processes support and guide the work of junior team members and providing technical assistance to WFP COs and government partners on nutrition situation assessment identifying the main policy issues and tailoring analysis to inform how these could be best addressed in the countrys context. The consultant will continue to lead the FNG analysis for Madagascar until completion of deliverables and provide support to other FNG analysis as needed.
This year the consultant will also continue his leadership of other workstreams covered by the L&I unit e.g. analytics to unpack the feasibility of dietary management of MAM with local foods analytics of vulnerabilities related to HIV disability and gender and support other nutrition analytics in line with the Nutrition & Food Quality Service Strategic Objectives as needed. The consultant will participate in the crossservice work on Supplementation of Acute Malnutrition and support other crossservice working group as needed. These roles will involve a high level of collaboration both among external stakeholders and internally in the organization.
This year the consultant will also support further consolidation of FNG analytical methods in relation to the development and rollout of the ENHANCE tool including engagement with RBs and COs to enhance ownership and transfer of capacities.
Lastly there will continue to be needs for scientific writing to seize publication opportunities and disseminate knowledge on collaborations with owners of other modelling tools.
ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:
FNG and nutrition analytics
- Lead and colead the coordination of FNG processes and provide support and guidance to junior team members including WFP colleagues at COs and RBs.
- Support or conduct scoping of analyses identify data sources (market prices income/expenditure household composition and size) plan analytical process including food price primary data collection when needed.
- Conduct and guide Enhance analysis including affordability analysis and intervention modelling of different types of strategies transfers and delivery modalities in coordination RBs COs and national stakeholders.
- Conduct deskbased research to gather and review secondary data and information sources relevant to FNG analysis (malnutrition characteristics availability and access to food and nutrients nutrient intake qualitative information on barriers to nutrient intake and influencers of dietary practices for key target groups).
- Support CO in technical discussions with key government counterparts and other stakeholders with regard to the analysis including to define modelling interpret findings and develop recommendations.
- Facilitate technical discussions with stakeholders from multiple sectors and support COs and RBs in planning and conducting inception validation recommendation development workshops and in the final dissemination of findings.
- Lead and colead the development of the Country FNG slide decks reports and summaries.
- Support CO in the development of advocacy materials with messages derived from the nutrition situation analysis and the recommendations of contextspecific strategies to improve access to diets that meet the nutrient needs among key target groups.
Contribute to further strengthening FNG concept and nutrition analytics
- Lead on the continuous improvement of the analytical concepts and tools by developing improved methods for integrating vulnerability analysis in nutrition analyses including feasibility and cost of meeting nutrient needs of children with MAM through local foods.
- Support capacity strengthening related to the FNG processes and other analytical concepts among junior team members other teams within the Nutrition & Food Quality Service as well as CO colleagues and national stakeholders. Contribute to develop training sessions and lead on the implementation of activities towards this goal.
- Contribute to strategic positioning of the nutrition analysis and insights gained both among external stakeholders and internally in the organization. This involves contributing as coauthor and developing content for peerreviewed publications articles reports and other types of dissemination materials on nutrition analytics FNG and on other modelling tools.
- Support the crossservice working group on Supplementation and other working groups as needed
- Participate in international conferences and/or technical meetings representing WFP on nutrition analytics and FNGrelated issues when needed.
- Any other duties as required.
DELIVERABLES AT THE END OF THE CONTRACT:
Related to FNG analyses
- Extended report or annotated slide deck technical annex summary report and 2page executive summary for each FNG country. If required ad hoc thematic papers on FNG in specific countries as agreed with CO and other national stakeholders.
- Draft advocacy material summarizing the key messages derived from the FNG analysis to be used by the CO for further policy discussions with their government counterparts upon demand.
- Review and guide junior team members analyses and deliverables to improve quality and support learning.
Related to further strengthening FNG concept and nutrition analytics
- Relevant input to update FNG analysis and analytical toolbox including guidance on management of MAM will local foods and other tools and guidance as needed.
- Inputs to team workplan and process planning tools conduct presentation to internal meetings emphasizing the FNG as a systems analysis for nutrition.
- Training materials are developed to build countrylevel capacity at the start and end of a FNG process.
- Analytical support to the crossservice working group on Supplementation and other service priorities upon demand
- Peer reviewed articles reports and other documents and contributions submitted for publication
- Presentations in international conferences fora technical meetings as needed.
- Collaboration with key Nutrition Service and partner organisations strengthened.
QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:
Education:
Graduate level (Masters or above) in Public Health (Epidemiology or biostatistics) Nutrition Economics (Econometrics) Sustainable food systems Agronomy Statistics or other socioeconomic disciplines with a strong quantitative data analysis component.
Experience:
Between 68 years of relevant professional experience.
- Of which at least 3 years of experience in food and nutrition data analysis.
- Solid knowledge of nutrition and food systems required.
- Experience with linear programming (e.g. CotD or Enhance) considered an asset.
- Previous experience in database management appreciated.
- Previous experience of working in lowmiddle income countries experience in fragile contexts considered an asset.
Knowledge and Skills:
- Proficient and very comfortable to conduct quantitative data analysis based on secondary data using statistical software (Stata R or other).
- Advanced expertise in Excel.
- Good ability to conduct literature review and identify key themes.
- Experience with qualitative research methods an asset.
- Proven ability to structure and manage processes required.
- Capacity to coordinate with a range of different stakeholders including national governments research institutions private sector NGO partners among others.
- Good interpersonal skills and ability to work in multicultural setting.
- Flexibility in thinking ability to adapt to different situations quickly and with ease.
- Ability to work with and as part of a team and structure work with little input.
Languages:
- Professional level of written and spoken English.
Level B in French an asset.
WFP LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORK
WFP Leadership Framework guides to the common standards of behavior that guide HOW we work together to accomplish our mission.
Click here to access WFP Leadership Framework
REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION
WFP is committed to supporting individuals with disabilities by providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process. If you require a reasonable accommodation please contact:
NO FEE DISCLAIMER
The United Nations does not charge any application processing training interviewing testing or other fee in connection with the application or recruitment process. Should you receive a solicitation for the payment of a fee please disregard it. Furthermore please note that emblems logos names and addresses are easily copied and reproduced. Therefore you are advised to apply particular care when submitting personal information on the web.
REMINDERS BEFORE YOU SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION
We strongly recommend that your profile is accurate complete and includes your employment records academic qualifications language skills and UN Grade (if applicable).
Once your profile is completed please apply and submit your application.
Please make sure you upload your professional CV in the English language
Kindly note the only documents you will need to submit at this time are your CV and Cover Letter
Additional documents such as passport recommendation letters academic certificates etc. may potentially be requested at a future time
Please contact us at in case you face any challenges with submitting your application
Only shortlisted candidates will be notified
All employment decisions are made on the basis of organizational needs job requirements merit and individual qualifications. WFP is committed to providing an inclusive work environment free of sexual exploitation and abuse all forms of discrimination any kind of harassment sexual harassment and abuse of authority. Therefore all selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks.
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.
Required Experience:
IC
Employment Type
Full-Time
