Senior Scientist – Community Nutritionist / Public Health Specialist

ICRISAT seeks applications for the global position of Senior Scientist – Community Nutritionist / Public Health Specialist to support Nutrition Dietary Behaviour & Smart Foods under the Global Research Program Enabling Systems  Transformation. The position will be based in West and Central Africa hub in one of its country offices viz: Accra (Ghana), Bamako (Mali), Dakar (Senegal), Kano (Nigeria) or Niamey (Niger).  The incumbent will report directly to the Director – Enabling Systems for Transformation and administratively to ICRISAT’s Country Representative for the designated country.

ICRISAT is a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world. Covering 6.5 million square kilometers of land in 55 countries, the semi- arid or dryland tropics has over 2 billion people and 644 millions of these are the poorest of the poor. ICRISAT and its partners help empower these disadvantaged populations to overcome poverty, hunger and a degraded environment through better agricultural production systems.

ICRISAT is headquartered at Patancheru near Hyderabad, India, with two regional hubs and eight country offices in sub-Saharan Africa. ICRISAT envisions prosperous, food-secure and resilient dryland tropics. Its mission is to reduce poverty, hunger, malnutrition and environmental degradation in the dryland tropics. ICRISAT conducts research on its mandated crops of chickpea, pigeonpea, groundnut, sorghum, pearl millet and finger millet in the arid and semi-arid tropics. The Institute focuses its work on drylands and on protecting the environment. Tropical dryland areas are usually seen as resource-poor and perennially beset by shocks such as drought, thereby trapping dryland communities in poverty and hunger and making them dependent on external aid. Please visit – www.icrisat.org

For the position:

The ideal candidate should be an expert with considerable experience in community nutrition / public health and with a passion to leverage the potential of grain legumes, dryland cereals and oil seed crops and other opportunity crop to promote Nutri-sensitive “Food Systems Transformation” towards improving the quality of people’s diets/dietary diversity and health. The candidate should be willing to contribute to R&D efforts across all global locations of ICRISAT. The candidate will contribute to the design of innovative and multi-sectoral interventions that lead to quantifiable nutritional outcomes

Responsibilities:

• Bring a community nutrition/public health lens to the nutri-sensitive “Food Systems Transformation” approach applied by ICRISAT in project development, planning, and implementation.

• Provide support on technical issues related to health (i.e., malnutrition, anemia, lifestyle diseases, etc.), nutrition, dietary behavior, agri-food environments towards promoting nutri-sensitive Food Systems and value chains, globally.

• Design and undertake dietary and nutrition assessments using mixed methods to support development of nutrition-specific/sensitive agricultural interventions for improving household diet quality and nutrition especially for women and children.

• Conduct research on issues associated with increasing consumption of grain legumes and dryland cereals, food and nutrition, dietary quality and dietary diversity.

• Implement community-based initiatives to increase awareness on linkages between agriculture, 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.

• Contribute to development and implementation of monitoring/nutritional assessment (i.e., baseline, midline, endline anthropometry studies) and evaluation plans, sampling and study design, and analytical protocols for nutrition-specific/sensitive agricultural interventions.

• Closely collaborate with project partners to set up a behavior change communication (BCC) team in planning, implementing, and monitoring of nutrition activities and interventions.

• Contribute to research and develop standards and guidelines for food safety and hygiene to ensure safety and hygiene across: production, transportation, storage and handling of raw materials and cooked/processed products, from the human health aspect.

• Develop, maintain and strengthen partnerships for research and development in agriculture, food and nutrition, postharvest and gender and youth programming aspects, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.

• Contribute to the development of survey materials, focus group discussions (FGDs), training materials, tools, and facilitate capacity building on nutrition and improving household dietary diversity and resilience.

• Contribute to ICRISAT’s knowledge sharing and capacity strengthening activities with respect to ICRISAT’s ”Nutrition, Dietary Behavior and Smart Food” cluster initiatives, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.

• Assist the Global Research Program Director – Enabling Systems Transformation, Regional Director, Africa, and Institute’s Leadership Team to mobilize new financial resources through externally funded nutrition related projects to sustain the Institute’s activities globally.

• Facilitate other ICRISAT scientists, project partners as well as donors and development partner visits to project sites.

• Build technical capacity in local communities to assist target project districts in developing an approach to guide the implementation of nutrition interventions.

• Mentor NARS, NGO scaling partner staff, and student interns in relevant areas of community nutrition research.

• Assist in writing high-quality peer reviewed articles and publish in high impact factor publications.

• Develop productive partnerships to further ICRISAT’s Nutrition, Dietary Diversity and Smart Food cluster” and its 3 Global Research Programs and actively participate in regional and international nutrition and health research communities and networks.

• Perform other related duties as assigned by the Cluster Leader for “Nutrition, Dietary Diversity and Smart Food” and immediate functional Supervisor.

Required skills:

• A PhD in community nutrition, public health, nutritional epidemiology, or a related discipline from a recognized institution with a minimum of eight (8) years working experience in international agricultural R&D being desirable.

• At least eight (8) years of working experience in international agricultural or nutrition research with practical hands-on experience in community/public health interventions.

• Experience in developing and implementing projects addressing malnutrition and anemia (especially among women and children in vulnerable communities) and lifestyle diseases through food/nutrition-based approaches.

• Experience in ‘linking agriculture to nutrition and health’ is a distinct advantage.
• Experience in an international and multidisciplinary/cultural environment would be  an asset.
• Proven ability in using nutrition R&D tools and study designs to generate evidence for public health nutrition research and apply evidence-based nutrition interventions.
• Proven experience in quantitative and qualitative data collection, computation, and statistical analysis, preferably with a research and development organization implementing integrated agriculture-nutrition-health-related projects.
• Knowledge and proven experience in undertaking anthropometric studies in children under 5 years old, as per WHO recommendations: organizing  of an anthropometric survey, field work procedures, data processing, quality assessment, analysis, and reporting, will be an added advantage.
• A good track record in achieving impact and producing high-quality technical reports/publications.
• Experience in networking with multiple project partners in the field of nutrition and health.
• Fluency in spoken and written English, along with a very good working knowledge of French, is required.
• A self-starter and ability to plan and work independently with the minimal supervision.
• Demonstrated strategic thinking and time management skills.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to work as a member of an interdisciplinary team in a multicultural environment and interact effectively with project partners and service providers.

General:

This is a contractual position for a period of 36 months.

How to apply:

Applicants should apply on or before 15 November 2024 with their latest Resume, and the names and contact information of three references that are knowledgeable about their professional qualifications and work experience. All applications will be acknowledged; however, only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

ICRISAT is an equal opportunity employer