Nutrition Governance Lead

Nutrition Governance Lead

No. of Vacancy: 1
Department: Nutrition Governance

Location: Katmandu with frequent travel to project area

Level / Grade: N

Guided by the remarkable legacy of its co-founder, Helen Keller, Helen Keller Intl partners with communities striving to overcome long-standing cycles of poverty. By delivering the essential building blocks of good health, sound nutrition, and clear vision, we help millions of people create lasting change in their own lives. Working in 20 countries – across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the United States – and together with a global community of supporters, we are ensuring every person has the opportunity – as Helen did – to reach their true potential.

USAID Integrated Nutrition’s primary goal is to improve the nutrition status of women, adolescents, and children in Nepal’s underserved and marginalized communities. The activity will tackle the direct and underlying determinants of malnutrition in Nepal while strengthening the national and local enabling environment to implement multisectoral nutrition programs through four synergistic intermediate results. Achievement of the purpose will be measured by improvements in indicators of nutrition status among women of reproductive age, adolescents, and children.

Position Overview:

The Nutrition Governance Lead is expected to advance governance within nutrition programs, ensure policy coherence, maintain close coordination with national level stakeholders and current nutrition program and projects. This position is also responsible in crafting governance strategy, developing implementation guide, providing structured technical support to federal, provincial and local teams for capacity enhancement, including government nutrition architects and MSNP secretariate at the federal, province and local as required.

Additionally, responsibilities involve providing guidance in evidence-based planning and monitoring, documenting best practices and insights, and sharing data and lessons across different levels and maintain coordination, networking, representation, and communication at all levels. This position will coordinate with other program teams for the implementation of effective, inclusive, accountable, and sustainable local nutrition programming in their focus on nutrition governance. This position will also be responsible for ensuring the policy and planning coherence and support in annual creation at federal level and provide technical assistance to the provincial team regularly, and for support provincial team in overseeing partner non-governmental organizations (PNGOs) performance and capacity needs in governance.

This position is expected to consistently coordinate with other development partners at federal levels to maximize synergy on implementation and outcomes and is also responsible for ensuring Gender and Inclusive Development (GID) principles are appropriately integrated into the delivery of USAID Integrated Nutrition.

Functional Relationships:

Under the direct supervision and the technical guidance from Deputy Chief of Party- and in close coordination with Policy and Governance Advisor, other IR leads and senior officials of Finance and Operations, the Governance Lead is primarily responsible for high-quality project implementation and management, coordination, networking, representation, and communication skills.

The Governance Lead will uphold Helen Keller’s values and commit to conducting its affairs at the highest standards of ethics, integrity, honesty, fairness, and professionalism, and ensure Helen Keller’s best practices are upheld, including adherence to the code of conduct, policies and procedures, and financial accountability.

Direct Line Supervision: Deputy Chief of Party (DCoP- Program)

Inter-Line Supervision: Policy and Governance Advisor

Collaboration with: Other IR lead, Director of Program Operation

Internal: All Staffs
External: USAID, Governmental and non-governmental agencies at the federal levels, program partners, and stakeholders

Description

Specific Roles and Responsibilities:

Policy Analysis and Development:

• Liaise with government agencies to review and analyze existing health and nutrition policies and the current nutrition workforce.
• Assess opportunities and gaps, and propose policy reforms in Health and Nutrition Governance, Agriculture, and Food Security.
• Provide support in developing new nutrition-related policies at local, provincial, and national levels as required.

Planning and Management:

• Develop detailed program plans, including budgets and implementation strategies, in collaboration with the IR leads/Operations and other program teams.
• Support and facilitate co-creation.
• Conduct annual reviews and workshops at various government levels.
• Liaise with and provide timely support to provincial and local program teams to ensure the successful implementation of
• Multisectoral Governance activities.

Program Implementation:

• Maintain relationships with sectoral ministries, departments, or organizations to create an enabling environment for evidence-based planning, effective implementation, progress monitoring, and resource tracking for nutrition programs.

Capacity Building:

• Work closely with the federal-level Nutrition and Food Security Secretariat to conduct training and capacity-building sessions for various stakeholders.
• These stakeholders include provincial and local government leaders/officials, the Nutrition Committee, Technical Working Groups/Committees at all levels, health service professionals, and community workers on nutrition governance.

Stakeholder Engagement:

• Engage with a diverse range of stakeholders, including government agencies, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), academia, and international organizations, to build partnerships and support Multisector Nutrition initiatives.

Advocacy and Championing:

• Support the development of an advocacy strategy and facilitate advocacy for nutrition priorities within governmental agendas and policies.
• This can be achieved through lobbying, drafting advocacy materials, and participating in public campaigns.

Monitoring and Evaluation:

• Support the Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL) team in designing and implementing systems for monitoring and evaluating the impact of nutrition policies and programs.
• Assist in developing a monitoring and evaluation system that aligns with the MSNP III monitoring framework, ensuring that governance indicators are covered in the Baseline Survey, Monitoring, Mid-term Evaluation, and Final Evaluation.

Coordination, Collaboration, and Networking:

• Collaborate with government stakeholders such as the National Planning Commission (NPC), Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration, and other concerned sector ministries and departments to ensure the effective implementation of multisectoral governance activities.
• Build and maintain professional networks with other USAID projects, UN agencies, civil society organizations, professional associations such as MUAN and NARMIN, researchers, policymakers, and advocacy groups.

Documentation & Knowledge Management:

• Ensure proper documentation and dissemination of learnings and best practices. Prepare and submit progress reports periodically.
• Support NFSSC in developing nutrition profiles, which includes synthesizing evidence, writing reports, and disseminating findings.

Required Qualifications and Competencies:

• Master’s degree in social science, management, education (Health), or Rural Development with a minimum of 5-7 years of progressively responsible experience in a related field with UN agencies, I/NGOs, especially in the governance sector.
• Proven ability to:
• Work effectively with a broad range of diverse groups as evidenced by excellent listening and communication skills, balanced and reasoned approaches to problems, ability to inspire trust and confidence, and flexibility and openness to differing points of view.
• Make decisions in a dynamic environment, with an appreciation for how future needs may affect those decisions: a willingness to iterate a strategy and approach, with the ability to recognize the need to course-correct, as necessary.
• Strong knowledge of Nepal’s governance and health systems, policies and processes.
• Proven Skills good coordination and networking with governments and like minded organizations at all levels
• Excellent coordination and communication skills with various stakeholders, including implementers, government officials, and other collaborators. Confident and diplomatic skills in dealing with high-level government authorities.
• Excellent English language skills, both in written and spoken forms, complemented by strong communication and negotiation abilities
• Excellent interpersonal and facilitation skills.
• Excellent time management, personal organization, capacity building, team building, management, and coordination skills. An ability to delegate responsibilities effectively and coach and mentor staff.
• Demonstrated organizational and planning skills.
• Highly computer literate with proficiency with software relevant to the job duties.
• Demonstrable respect for all persons regardless of religion, ethnicity, class or gender, with a high comfort level working in a diverse environment with a demonstrated commitment to high professional ethical standards.
• Personal commitment to Helen Keller’s mission and goals and the values embodied by our namesake and co-founder: courage, integrity, rigor, and compassion.

Source: Kantipur Dainik, 26 October, 2024