Nutrition Analyst

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. 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. WFPs Fill the Nutrient Gap (FNG) analysis has been conducted in over 40 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 WFPs HungerMapLive is widely-used to inform humanitarian programming and food security situation monitoring. HungerMapLive displays realtime 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.

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 Nutrition and Food Quality Service and data collection and visualisation experience from the HungerMapLive Team.

About the Project

The Modelling and Mapping risk of Inadequate Micronutrient Intake (MIMI) project generates and increases access to modeled data on risk of dietary VMD at national and sub national levels which is critical to advocate for and inform the design and roll-out of large-scale food fortification as well as complementary programs.

Specifically the project works with academic and policy partners to develop and model a composite proxy-index for the risk of inadequate dietary micronutrient intake and modelling to assess the extent to which large scale food fortification (LSFF) (of different commodities and fortified according to different specifications) can address this to inform policy decision-making and advocacy. These indicators are developed using publicly available data on food supply consumption and expenditure among others and allow exploration of nutritional vulnerability by geography gender and socioeconomic characteristics. To date these indicators have been calculated and validated against individual-level consumption and micronutrient status data in three countries Nigeria India and Ethiopia. Complementing this modelling has been carried out to estimate the cost and affordability of nutritious diets for specific population groups and model the potential impact of fortification and other programmes on closing nutrient gaps. The outputs have been developed into inputs to display on interactive sub-national maps with the support of WFPs Hunger MapLive Team. Finally the project has engaged 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 has benefited from WFP in-country presence and partnerships with the MNF Data Alliance and the Micronutrient Action Policy Support (MAPS) project 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.

In 2024 given the MIMI projects progress and success the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) funded WFP for a two-year supplement to the MIMI project to (resulting in a USD $6.3 million 4-year project) to expand evidence generation and stakeholder engagement activities to an additional eight countries and explore the potential of integrating WFPs real-time data monitoring into the modelling and analysis. This ToR reflects work that would be undertaken under this new project supplement moving into the 4th year of the project. Essential to this project supplement is ongoing close work with the BMGF-funded Micronutrient Action Policy Support (MAPS) project through a subaward to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:

The Nutrition Analyst will continue to play a leading role in the Modelling and Mapping Risk of Inadequate Micronutrient Intake (MIMI) team led by the WFP Nutrition and Food Quality Service. Under the supervision of the Team Lead this position will lead on the analytical component of the MIMI workplan including contributing to the development of analytical methods managing large data analyses and visualisation. The Analyst will also be responsible for representing the team when meeting with high-level stakeholders including national government representatives and policymakers and members of the global nutrition policy community. This will include presenting analytical results to diverse stakeholders at the global- and country-level in response to CO donor and partner government demand at country-level events conferences and other relevant international fora. Building on their excellent performance and increasing responsibility over the first two years of the project the Analyst will continue to supervise and guide 2-4 junior analysts and the work of collaborating academic partners on the project.

The Analyst will focus on the analysis modelling and visualisation of food security and nutrition data to estimate food and nutrient intake and inform LSFF and other nutrition programmes and policy. Specifically the analyst will oversee or lead on pieces of analysis in response to requests from the donor COs and partner governments to understand the potential impact of and provide programmatic advice on micronutrient interventions. This work will culminate in technical reports or draft manuscripts for publication written with country Government counterparts.

The Analyst will bring technical expertise in the collection analysis modelling and visualisation of nutrition data especially concerning the use of data from Household Consumption and Expenditure Surveys to estimate food and nutrient intake and inform LSFF and other nutrition programmes and policy. Further the Analyst will manage the technical relationship with the MAPS project collaborators at LSHTM and partners from Oxford University through regular in-person technical meetings and shared work.

ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:

- Supervise 2-4 nutrition analysts who clean process and analyse household food consumption and food composition data from to estimate individual consumption of different micronutrients and explore factors that contribute to this.

- Map data and indicators relevant estimating or predicting the risk of inadequate micronutrient intake and data collation cleaning and processing for 3-6 countries.

- Design and conduct modelling to test the potential impact of LSFF and other nutrition interventions against outcomes including risk of inadequate micronutrient intake.

- Lead on and supervise analysis activities in response to project priorities requests from the donor COs and Government Partners to understand the need for and potential contribution of fortification and other micronutrient interventions.

- Represent MIMI and the MIMI team at high-level meetings with government representatives and policy makers donors and global nutrition partners.

- Present project specific analytical methods and findings to and participate in technical level discussions with analytical partners and other project stakeholders.

- Support the display of data from the project on an interactive sub-national dashboard with the HungerMapLive team.

- Lead or 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 oversee or contribute to relevant academic manuscripts for submission to peer-reviewed journals.

- Presentation at academic webinars and conferences as relevant.

- Management of the technical relationship with the MAPS project at LSHTM through participation in regular MAPS team meetings and development and management of the subaward workplan.

DELIVERABLES AT THE END OF THE CONTRACT:

- Substantial technical inputs to project methodology

- Supervision of the analysis of data inputs from at least three countries to generate estimates of apparent intake of individual micronutrient intake and an overall index of risk of inadequate micronutrient intake and intervention modelling.

- Analysis reports and manuscripts presenting methods and results of the development and validation of methods and intervention modelling for at least three countries

- Data inputs for visualisation on the HungerMapLive platform for at least three countries.

- Relevant analysis synthesis and thematic presentations and publications developed.

- Development of peer-reviewed articles topic briefs and other external-facing project materials to present project methodology analysis and validation results.

- Training and technical assistance provided to country-level partners WFP CO staff and other partners as required.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

Education: Masters degree or higher in Nutrition Public Health or a related field (with a major in Nutrition)

Experience: Participating in research projects or analyses with diverse stakeholders and data inputs including research design data collection and analysis and write up.

Analysing primary and secondary data including food and nutrient availability intake status and related health data.

Presenting analysis findings to diverse audiences in a context-relevant format.

Modelling data from Household Consumption and Expenditure Surveys to estimate food or nutrient intake or diet access at the individual level

Training government counterparts and supervising team members to analyse household consumption data and model estimated risk of inadequate micronutrient intake

4-6 years working experience

Knowledge

& Skills: Knowledge about data for use in nutrition programmes including micronutrients dietary assessment and food security.

Proficient in the analysis of quantitative data using statistical software such as R or STATA.

Analytical and problem-solving s kills with a strong solution and action orientation.

Flexibility sound interpersonal skills and cross-cultural sensitivity.

Experience with diet modelling including Cost of the Diet and Optifood an advantage.

Languages: Advanced professional level of written and spoken English

Professional knowledge of a second UN language an asset.

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