CARE Ethiopia Program

 CARE started working in Ethiopia in 1984 in response to severe drought and famine that devastated the population and claimed the lives of nearly one million people. Since then, the organization’s activities have expanded to address the root causes of poverty and vulnerability.

In 2008, CARE Ethiopia’s office moved from a project-based approach to a more focused and strategic program-based approach. Over the eight years since that transition, CARE Ethiopia has implemented a series of programs with successful outcomes, while simultaneously impacting the policies and practices of government, serving as a thought leader amongst NGOs, and bringing transformative change to rural communities. These broader and deeper impacts go beyond the direct impacts of its programs and are a result of CARE Ethiopia’s overall country strategy, which enables CARE to design for scale.

CARE Ethiopia works in various sectors but has particularly targeted the following: Food Security and Resilience; WASH+; Nutrition; Dignified Work; Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and Humanitarian Response as cross-cutting (focusing on the above sectors).

I.  JOB SUMMARY:

 The Nutrition Advisor reports directly to the Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP) of Livelihoods for Resilience. S/he provides technical support on program planning and implementation as per the workplan and builds the capacity of frontline staff implementing nutrition work for Livelihoods for Resilience and associated projects/initiatives. In consultation with immediate supervisor and in close collaboration with other advisors in the Consortium Coordination Unit (CCU), the Nutrition Advisor leads monitoring and periodic reporting of assigned elements of the nutrition component in line with CARE Ethiopia’s vision, goals, and program principles, standards, approaches and long-range strategic plan. Special focus will be promotion of nutrition-sensitive activities—particularly perma-gardens and other homestead gardens, and poultry production for consumption and income, including the implementation of a poultry voucher—as well as social and behavior change communications (SBCC).

 II. RESPONSIBILITIES AND TASKS

 Job Responsibility #1: Strategy development, implementation, and capacity building for the project’s nutrition strategy (30% time)

·Work with colleagues from CARE CCU, SNV, and implementing partners to design capacity building interventions and training methodologies for nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive agriculture

·Jointly develop annual work plans, incorporating learning from past years, to ensure effective implementation through project implementing partners

·Provide capacity building/training to CARE and implementing partner staff and oversee implementation to ensure that VESA members understand the importance of nutrition and how to improve nutritional outcomes for their families

·Provide training of trainers on VESA manual nutrition discussion sessions, infant and young child feeding (IYCF), nutrition sensitive agriculture (NSA) and adolescent nutrition

·Follow up with implementing partners on access to (and market-based supply of) vegetable seeds, fruit seedlings, poultry, other inputs for nutritious food production, and hand tools to target households, working closely with value chain colleagues to ensure sustainability

·Ensure that poultry “package” complies with local government guidelines and meets the minimum nutritional requirements

·Identify technical staffing needs for nutrition and develop TORs and JD as required

·Identify training needs and capacity building, ensuring adherence to guidelines and MOUs

·Devise strategies for Livelihoods for Resilience households with pregnant and lactating women and children under two to be linked to existing government mother support groups (CHDA, CBN, mother to mother support groups, etc.)

·Assist project staff to develop nutrition education to improve dietary practices, transform traditional attitudes to bring about behavioral change and contribute to improved nutrition and household income

·Train health care providers, DAs and model women, VESA leaders on the use and post-harvest storage of vegetables and other high nutrient foods

·Conduct regular field visits to observe the implementation of nutrition activities and provide formal and informal feedback to program staff for improved performance

·Actively participate in the development of tools for behavior change communication (BCC) materials and approaches for nutrition/WASH 

Job Responsibility #2: Close guidance and follow-up of poultry voucher interventions (30% time)

·Closely guide and train project implementers in the implementation of the market-based poultry voucher

·Follow up with implementing partners and stakeholders on the implementation of the poultry voucher, including guidance on procurement, voucher distribution, MOUs with private sector, and other activities

·Update learning checklists and ensure that partners are applying them effectively

·Collect and analyze learning data

 Job Responsibility #3:  Monitoring, evaluation and collaboration, learning and adaptation (20% time)

·Develop and refine nutrition and nutrition sensitive indicators to measure progress in knowledge of the nutritional value of foods and the magnitude of behavioral and practical changes

·Analyze past experiences to systematize and incorporate lessons learned into the work planning process

·Prepare high-quality quarterly progress reports of performance of nutrition activities and submit these to the Learning, Design and Measurement Manager for compilation

·Promote lessons and best practices drawn from Livelihoods for Resilience’s nutrition work with external partners

·Communicate regularly with Growth Through Nutrition and other nutrition programs to learn and share learning from Livelihoods for Resilience

·Participate in/co-host nutrition leveraging workshops in various regions

·Work closely with Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) teams to monitor performance against set indicators and document best practices.

·Play a liaising role with the governments at federal and regional levels for the issues related to nutrition, WASH, SBCC and health in general

·In consultation with the DCOP, represent the Livelihoods for Resilience Activity in technical coordination meetings and forums, as needed (Nutrition-sensitive Agriculture Technical Working Groups, SUN Technical Working Groups, Home Garden Network Steering Committee etc.), and nutrition/WASH clusters as appropriate 

Job Responsibility #4: Supervision and management of Perma-garden Specialist (10% time)

·Supervise and oversee Perma-garden Specialist as s/he provides technical assistance on the project’s perma-garden activities 

·Support planning and oversight of the perma-garden activity

· Review reports (implementation reports and field trip reports) of the Perma-garden Specialist

·Provide technical backup along with close coaching and mentoring support, to enable the Perma-garden Specialist to perform his/her work effectively

·Conduct performance review and appraisal of supervisee(s) according to CARE’s policy, ensuring that gender equality and diversity values are upheld in the recruitment, orientation, performance assessment and management of staff 

Job Responsibility #5:  Gender Equity and Diversity (5% time)

·Design, promote, and or implement training curricula and capacity building activities that take into account the needs of women in terms of training topics, methodologies, timing, location, and other aspects, as well as child care

·Ensure that gender considerations—and particularly women’s access to information, services, finance, and markets, as well as other aspects of women’s empowerment—are incorporated into all nutrition activities

·Promote gender equality within teams, communities and households

• Ensure that reports make explicit reference to approaches used to address unequal gender relations and ensure that data are disaggregated by gender
• Ensure that pregnant and lactating women who are members of VESAs know their rights and soft conditionalities as temporary direct support

QUALIFICATIONS (KNOW HOW) 

A)EDUCATION/TRAINING 

Required:

·BSc degree in nutrition, public health, agriculture, food science or related. 

Desired:

·MSc degree in related fields               

B)EXPERIENCE 

6 years of work experience working on nutrition, health, agriculture, food security and livelihoods.

C) Technical Skills 

Required:

§  Strong knowledge of nutrition social behavior change communication approaches, nutrition-sensitive agriculture, and principles of infant and young child feeding and maternal nutrition

§  Sound understanding of sustainable, market-based approaches

§  Highly developed computer skills (Word processing)

§  Excellent written and verbal communication in English

§  Firm commitment to teamwork, gender equality, participatory approaches, and sustainable development 

Desired:

·         Training on value chain analysis

·         Experience in value chain development projects

·         Training planning and delivery skills 

D)     COMPETENCIES 

Respect, accountability, courage, excellence, adaptability, stress tolerance, innovation, building partnership, communicating with impact, coaching, facilitating change, developing teams, information monitoring, planning and organizing, leading through vision and value. 

V. CONTACTS/KEY RELATIONSHIPS 

The Nutrition Advisor is expected to establish and maintain good relations with partners, counterpart governmental stakeholders and NGOs. S/he will also closely work with the CARE and SNV staff, Implementing Partner Area Coordinators, Program/Project Managers and other related staff. 

VI. WORKING CONDITIONS AND LEVEL OF TRAVEL REQUIRED

This position is based in Addis Ababa with 40% travel to field offices of consortium partners and project areas (SNNPR, Tigray, and Amhara), and elsewhere as work demands.