UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, an opportunity

Ethiopia is situated in the Horn of Africa and is the second most populous country on the continent with an estimated population of 115 million. It borders six African countries: Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan, and covers 1,104,300 square kilometers. Approximately 85 percent of the population lives in rural areas. Ethiopia represents a melting pot of ancient cultures with Middle Eastern and African cultures evident in the religious, ethnic, and language composition of its people.

Over the past two years, children and their families across Ethiopia faced multiple and complex emergencies, such as the conflict in the northern Ethiopia and the drought, which resulted in millions of people in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. UNICEF has programmes in Child Protection, WASH, Health, Nutrition, Social Policy, and Education and serves over 15 million children in Ethiopia. Join UNICEF Ethiopia to contribute to improving the lives of children and women.

How can you make a difference?

The sub-national nutrition cluster coordinator will provide field-level coordination of the nutrition in emergency response in the Tigray region. Key duties and tasks will include:

Coordination functions

• Ensure coordination of the nutrition response by cluster members and stakeholders, including interaction with government, NGO partners, and UN agencies by providing a coordination platform that ensures services delivery is driven by the Humanitarian Response Plan and strategic priorities.
• Co-chair the Nutrition sub-cluster meetings and ensure minutes are prepared and shared as appropriate and actions followed.
• Support and ensure the exchange of information, experience, identify new strategies and courses of action to accelerate/improve service delivery.
• Coordinate the prevention, preparedness and contingency planning actions.
• Identify and address response and/or response gaps and eliminate duplication of services delivery.
• Develop nutrition response plans, and nutrition response strategies jointly with Regional Government and Nutrition Cluster members, and set response priorities.
• Ensure adherence to humanitarian standards and principles, national and regional gudeilines, and foster adoption of new nutrition response protocols.
• Monitor nutrition services provided by the nutrition cluster partners and collate weekly nutrition interventions to share with the national nutrition cluster IM (ENCU) and UNICEF Nutrition programme IM.
• Enhance the links and coordination at the field level between nutrition, health, WASH, food assistance and Education, Child Protection/GBV subnational clusters and play an active role in the OCHA-led Intercluster Coordination Group (ICCG).
• Provide regular and active follow-up on actions coming out of coordination meetings.
• Build sub-national capacities in preparedness and contingency planning.
• Ensure AAP is considered throughout the humanitarian project cycle.
• Maintain update-to-date mapping of partners implementing nutrition interventions in the region.
• Share regular updates on interventions and discuss their performance, appropriateness, challenges.

Information management

• Develop, update and share 4W (who, what, where, when) maps for effective resource management and to avoid duplication.
• Collect, analyze and disseminate information on the nutrition situation & response to the nutrition cluster members and to other stakeholders within and without the region.
• Monitor and report on nutrition response activities and achievements against targets in collaboration with OCHA and Regional ENCU.
• Monitor any food diversion and report on it.
• Archive and make available reports of assessments, evaluations and any other document relevant to NIE in the country.

Nutrition assessment

• Support the implementation of inter-agency and multi-sectoral assessments and nutrition-related assessment in collaboration with Regional ENCU.
• Encourage joint review of all nutrition assessment results and reports prior to broader circulation.
• Coordinate with partners to conduct regular screening in their catchment areas and provide weekly screening updates through the ENCU.
• Support government efforts to re-establish reporting system the nutrition programme.

Advocacy

• Advocate for and promote appropriate interventions inaccessible areas of identified need.
• Identify concerns and contribute to key advocacy messages to ICCG, national Nutrition Cluster.
• Advocate for innovative strategies of providing nutrition services in insecure areas.
• Advocate for appropriate inter-sectoral strategies to address underlying causes of malnutrition.
• Encourage nutrition-sensitive programming primarily with WASH, health and food assistance, agriculture and livelihoods clusters.
• Advocate with WHO and the Health cluster to update functionality mapping and collaborate for reopening of health centres.
• Ensure Nutrition cluster inputs are well articulated in all SITREPS prepared by OCHA.
• Ensure Protection principles and Accountability to Affected Population principles are mainstreamed throughout the emergency nutrition response cycle.
• Support UNICEF Nutrition Emergency Response in Tigray.
• Spend 30% of the time support the planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting of UNICEF Tigray response plan.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Public Health, Nutrition and/or Medical Sciences. A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree. 
• A minimum of five (5) years of progressively responsible professional work experience in humanitarian situations in the field of nutrition in emergencies
• Experience in nutrition programming coordination during emergencies (CMAM, IYCF, and cluster coordination).
• Fluency in English (verbal and written). Good knowledge of another UN language or the local language is an asset.
• Communication – Ability to effectively express complex technical concepts, both verbally and in writing; effectively presenting thoughts and ideas clearly, concise, and readily understood. Listen to and acknowledges others’ perspectives and views.
• Team Leadership – Energizes, inspires and develops others by creating a shared vision, demonstrating model performance and professionalism, and recognizing and rewarding results. Cooperates and works effectively with others in the pursuit of common goals respecting different gender, culture, opinions, values, perspectives, ideas, skills, expertise, knowledge, and experiences
• Flexibility – Works effectively on multiple assignments simultaneously in an emergency setting and adapts to changing demands and circumstances; adaptable and ready to travel with little or short notice.
• Managing stress – Performs effectively in unstable, uncertain, or potentially dangerous environments while maintaining physical and mental health.
• Added advantage: work experience in Ethiopia.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values.

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are:

Core competencies

• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (1)
• Works Collaboratively with others (1)
• Builds and Maintains Partnerships (1)
• Innovates and Embraces Change (1)
• Thinks and Acts Strategically (1)
•  Drive to achieve impactful results (1)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (1)

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

UNICEF’s active commitment towards diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. For this position, eligible and suitable female candidates are encouraged to apply.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments are also subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.