Country Action Specialist, Africa Portfolio 1

Background Information – SUN Movement Secretariat

Since 2010, the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement has inspired a new way of working collaboratively to end malnutrition, in all its forms. With the governments of SUN Countries in the lead, it unites people—from civil society, the United Nations, donors, businesses and researchers—in a collective effort to improve nutrition. The SUN Strategy 2021–2025 (SUN 3.0) prioritises country leadership and focuses on supporting systemic change at the country level. It seeks to capture the ambition of SUN countries and guide the work of all actors at all levels aligning concerted action behind and responding to commonly agreed national priorities set out by governments in SUN countries. 

SUN 3.0 is committed to fundamental, non-negotiable aspects of effective nutrition action, including equity and the principle of leaving no one behind. For its third phase, the SUN Movement will drive forward gender equality and enshrine youth leadership across the Movement.  SUN 3.0 will strengthen partnerships to achieve greater impact on nutrition through food systems, health systems, social protection systems, actions by the private sector and humanitarian and development actors, and through education, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and climate change adaptation.

The SUN Movement Secretariat (SMS)plays a central role in enabling the multiple members and structures of the Movement to work together to advance progress on country-level priorities and the global positioning of nutrition.  

The SUN Movement Secretariat comprises approximately 35 personnel, based in Geneva and in various regions globally.  All parts of the Movement – member governments, the SUN Global Support System - the GSS, consisting of  four SUN networks (Civil Society, United Nations, Business, Donors) and the SUN Movement Secretariat, together with the SUN Movement Coordinator, work together to align and focus efforts on priorities within countries.

The SUN Movement Secretariat is hosted by UNOPS.

Role of the Country Action Specialist

The Country Action Specialist, Africa Portfolio 1 reports to the SMS Regional Representative for  the region. The SUN Country Action team is critical in supporting the SUN Movement to achieve the objectives set out in SUN 3.0, and provides the capacity to ensure SUN Countries are at the centre of everything the Movement does, empowering SUN Country Focal Points and/or Country Coordinators to act.  The team is currently organised into five (5) regions globally, including Africa Portfolio 1, Africa Portfolio 2, Asia, Latin America & the Caribbean, and Europe

The Country Action Specialist, Africa Portfolio 1 is based in Dakar, Senegal, and is part of a small team established to support the development of National Nutrition Plans, facilitate information sharing and knowledge exchange, and identify advocacy opportunities across the countries within the defined portfolio.  

The Country Action Specialist will work closely with national counterparts and other stakeholders, including representatives of the SUN Networks, to strengthen the institutional capacity for nutrition by identifying, creating and strengthening opportunities to accelerate progress in countries; identifying successful interventions and moving quickly to scale up results and ensuring effective peer learning and knowledge exchange across the Movement.  

The role supports the SMS Regional Representative to build and maintain effective understanding, communication and technical support across the broad national and international community of stakeholders to understand risks and challenges so that resources may be mobilised and technical assistance provided as necessary.

• Support SUN Countries to articulate their needs and expectations and seize opportunities to accelerate results at country level.

• Support Countries within the designated region to develop and document appropriate national nutrition policies, strategies, and action plans to scale-up nutrition interventions.

• Support Country Focal Points/or Country Coordinators and partners to cost scale-up and identify resource requirements.

• Track and analyse the challenges, opportunities and progress of the portfolio of SUN countries.

• Facilitate information-sharing of relevant evidence and successful practices from other partners and countries to inform strategic planning processes.

• Identify and facilitate linkages with other initiatives and processes to avoid duplication of activity.

• Support the SUN Country Focal Points and/or Country Coordinators to request technical assistance from the in-country multi-stakeholder team to finance, implement and monitor the country action plan.

• Support the Country Action Facilitator to facilitate requests through the global SUN networks or other global partners for technical assistance to support country action plans, when requests exceed locally available resources.

• Identify opportunities to enhance collaboration with network focal points locally to integrate for impact and take action as appropriate.

• Support process management and facilitation of multi-stakeholder coordination mechanisms among the various Networks in the Movement.

• Assist SUN countries in the preparation of and implementation of Joint Annual Assessment (JAA) and support the timely reporting on JAA and other MEAL exercises.

• Identify opportunities to strengthen existing resources and infrastructure in regions and make recommendations as appropriate.

• Support analysis and advise on appropriate institutional arrangements for multi-sectoral coordination on nutrition utilising SUN case studies and experience.

• Strengthen process management and coordination skills of national counterparts.

• Participate in discussion and engagement in an identified thematic area of work directly related to, and critical for advancing the engagement of SUN Countries in the region (e.g. gender, agriculture, food systems etc).

• Interact and follow up with SUN Countries to solicit case studies, lessons learned, success stories, and best practices for internal and external sharing.

• Contribute to the preparation of success stories and best MEAL practices for inclusion in internal and external communication products.

• Contribute to the development and introduction of innovation to ensure the Movement is continually incorporating best practice approaches.

• Monitor and analyse major developments in nutrition action of SUN countries in the designated region and work with the Facilitator to determine how the Movement might respond to such developments.

• Support the Facilitator and Global Technical Advisory Team to monitor and analyse opportunities for engagement of the Coordinator with high level representatives of SUN countries within the designated region, to encourage the implementation of a multi sector, multi stakeholder approach to nutrition.

• Support the Facilitator and Global Technical Advisory Team to identify, analyze and monitor political developments and emerging issues within the designated region in relation to key principles and core themes of the SUN Movement.

• Monitor national and regional political trends that might affect the SUN Movement and report to the Facilitator as appropriate.

• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in nutrition, public health, international development, public policy or  related field.
• A bachelor's degree with a combination of two additional years of relevant experience may be accepted  in lieu of the Master's degree

• A minimum of five (5) years of experience in international development, public health, nutrition or related field is required.

• Demonstrated professional work experience in an international setting, with at least three (3) years in a field setting is required.

• Experience working in the Africa Region is desirable.

1. Contract type :International Individual Contractor Agreement (IICA)
2. Contract level : ICS 10 / IICA 2
3. Contract duration :  Ongoing ICA – ‘Open-ended, subject to organizational requirements, availability of funds and satisfactory performance.

UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve sustainable development.

UNOPS areas of expertise cover infrastructure, procurement, project management, financial management and human resources.

Working with us

UNOPS offers short- and long-term work opportunities in diverse and challenging environments across the globe. We are looking for creative, results-focused professionals with skills in a range of disciplines.

Diversity

With over 4,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,000 personnel recruited on behalf of UNOPS partners spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a wide range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced, diverse workforce — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs, and continually strive to improve our gender balance through initiatives and policies that encourage recruitment of qualified female candidates.

Work life harmonization

UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands.

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• Work life harmonization - UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. This policy applies to UNOPS personnel on all contract types
• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• For retainer contracts, you must complete a few Mandatory Courses (around 4 hours) in your own time, before providing services to UNOPS.
• Dakar, Senegal is a UN Family  Duty Station
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.  

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns.
Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.