National Consultant - Endline Assessment of Dietary Diversity Project at the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF)

United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (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.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: National Consultant - Endline Assessment of Dietary Diversity Project

Job No: 554861
Location: Bichi, Sumaila, Gwarzo and Gabasawa Local Government Areas (LGAs) - Kano
Contract Type: Consultant
Level: Consultancy
Categories: Nutrition

For every child, Nutrition
How can you make a difference? 

• The first 1,000 days of life (from conception to 2 years) represents a ‘critical window of opportunity’ for the promotion of optimal growth, health and development. Most instances of stunting set in during the first thousand days with complementary feeding playing a significant role.
• Within Nigeria, Kano is the most populous State with a projected population of about 15.4 million people including 927,731 children aged 6-23 months.
• Despite the prevailing poor level of complementary feeding practice nationally, the 2018 NDHS revealed that the situation in Kano State is even lower than the national average, with only 20.4%, 35.9% and 9.9% children 6-23 months meeting MDD, MMF and MAD respectively.
• The consumption of iron-rich/fortified foods among children 6-23 months is 21.6% which is almost half of the national average.
• It is therefore not a surprise that stunting affects 56.9% in Kano (as against the national average of 36.8%) of underfive children which translate to about 1.7 million children affected in the State and more than one out of every ten stunted children, in Nigeria.
• Stunting reduction is a key result for UNICEF at country, regional and global levels. Nigeria is among priority countries for stunting reduction and in 2018, an action plan for Nigeria compact to improve dietary diversity for the country program cycle 2018-2022 was developed.
• The Dietary Diversity Project (DD) which was initially designed for two years, between 2018 to 2020, was later extended up till 2022, to facilitate integration of the complementary feeding toolkit (bowl and spoon) - a global innovation intended to intensifying the improvement of dietary volume, frequency, consistency and variety among children 6-23 months.
• One of the key identified priorities was to design and implement a proof of concept through a comprehensive modelling approach aimed at contributing to stunting reduction by improving access to nutritious, affordable and sustainable diets for young children 6-23 months in Kano State.
• Key strategic approaches for the Dietary Diversity (DD) Project include nutrition-sensitive agriculture, social and behaviour change, nutrition specific interventions and coordination.
• The purpose of this assignment is to support UNICEF and Kano State government to assess if the Dietary Diversity project met its intended objectives across three overarching results areas:

Result Area 1:

• By 2022, improve knowledge and practices on dietary diversity, age-appropriate complementary feeding practices and uptake of nutrition specific interventions in Bichi and Sumaila LGAs of Kano State.

Result Area 2:

• By 2022, increase availability, accessibility and use of local nutritious food for children 6-23 months in the intervention LGAs.

Result Area 3:

• By 2022, build capacity, increase awareness, strengthen coordination and generate knowledge for scale up, and sustain the DD comprehensive intervention.

Scope of Work

• The DD proof of concept is currently being implemented in two Local Government Areas ( Bichi and Sumaila) of Kano State while Gwarzo and Gabasawa was selected as the comparison LGAs.  With the end of the ongoing modelling, there is a need for an endline assessment of the project, which will specifically focus on the following objectives:

Objectives

• Develop research protocol with adequate scientific rigor, to address the information needs of the DD project, including why and how results are achieved or not achieved.
• The protocol is expected to provide answers to the following overarching questions, including others that may emerge during the process of contextualizing the assessment.
• To what extent did the project contribute to improved caregivers’ knowledge and practice of optimal complementary feeding as well as uptake of nutrition specific intervention, and what are the key drivers.
• To what extent did the project contribute to availability, accessibility and use of nutritious foods for young children 6-23 months.
• To what extent were awareness and coordination systems improved and sustained for project support and enabling environment.
• How has the project contributed to knowledge generation based on lessons learnt and best practices documented and used to support advocacy for scaling up to all LGAs within the Kano state as well as in other States in the country.
• What is the use and usefulness of this intervention to future projects.
• Finally quantify and qualify capacity building achievements and project support that was provided.
• Plan and execute data collection using scientific and appropriate methodologies.
• Analyze endline assessment data to generate needed information and knowledge and develop comprehensive report triangulating the baseline, midline and endline findings.
• Develop report and disseminate findings across key stakeholders.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have

• Education: Advanced University Degree in Health, Nutrition, Public Health, Epidemiology, Economics, Food security, Statistics or and related field of study
• Knowledge and experience in application of KAP and SMART methodology for nutrition surveys.
• Minimum of 7 years’ experience in Public health/Nutrition involving conducting implementation research.
• Experience in Monitoring and Evaluation and knowledge management
• Demonstrable knowledge and use of statistical software for data analysis including STATA, SPSS and ENA for SMART.
• Knowledge of multi-sectoral response and cross disciplinary experience in nutrition, health, food systems, agriculture is desired.
• Proven survey management and report writing skills (sample will be required).

Core Competencies:

• Communication
• Working with people
• Drive for results.

Language:

• Fluency in written and spoken English language.

Application Closing Date
11th September, 2022 (W. Central Africa Standard Time).