Nutrition Researcher

at  World Food Programme

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

16 September 2024-23:59-GMT+01:00 Central European Time (Rome)
WFP celebrates and embraces diversity. It is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all its employees and encourages qualified candidates to apply irrespective of race, colour, national origin, ethnic or social background, genetic information, gender, gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, religion or belief, HIV status or disability.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

Education:

• Masters degree or higher in Nutrition, Public Health or a related field (with a major in Nutrition)

Experience:

• 5-8 years working experience in a related position or field, including PhD programmes and other academic positions.
• Leading research activities or analyses with diverse stakeholders and data inputs, including research design, data collection and analysis and write up.
• Leading analysis of primary and secondary data, including food nutrient availability, intake, status, and related health data.
• Presenting analysis findings to diverse audiences in a context-relevant format.
• Development of methods to model data from Household Consumption and Expenditure Surveys to estimate food or nutrient intake or diet access at the individual level and validate these models

Knowledge & Skills:

• Sound understanding and contribution to the global landscape for micronutrient data
• Knowledge about evidence needs for the design of nutrition policy and programmes, including micronutrients, dietary assessment and food security.
• Advanced proficiency in the analysis of quantitative data using R statistical software
• Experience with version control systems (Git) and relevant collaboration tools (issue trackers, shared repositories, etc.)
• Communication, analytical and problem-solving skills, with a strong solution and action orientation.
• Flexibility, sound interpersonal skills and cross-cultural sensitivity.

Languages:

• Advanced professional level of written and spoken English
• Professional knowledge of French an asset.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is one of the leading global institutions helping to measure and alleviate malnutrition. WFP supports national food and health systems across more than 80 countries as they strive to provide access, safely and systematically, to healthy, nutritious diets and reduce micronutrient deficiencies in women, children and the population at large. A key part of this work is the generation of data on food and nutrition security and status, dietary diversity and access to nutritious foods and nutritious diets, including food costs and expenditure, and using these data to highlight where there are risks of insufficiencies, by target group, geography or vulnerability, reflected as hunger (insufficient dietary energy and coping strategies), unaffordability of nutrient-adequate diets, inadequate dietary diversity, risk of inadequate micronutrient intake and likelihood of micronutrient deficiencies.
When households, and specific household members, are unable to meet their dietary micronutrient needs due to physical, financial or sociological barriers, it becomes necessary to consider additional pathways that can safeguard against micronutrient malnutrition. Large-Scale Food Fortification (LSFF) is a powerful, cost-effective intervention for improving micronutrient intake that can be adapted to many food vehicles and contexts and delivered through different platforms, including both conventional commercial markets and food assistance, including school meals and social protection programs. WFP has long been involved in efforts to expand the scope and impact of LSFF.
Advocacy and decision making about LSFF and other micronutrient intervention programmes and policy, especially about whether, where, what, how and for whom to advocate for and implement such initiatives, require evidence. This includes information on micronutrient deficiencies and dietary intake for different populations, the likelihood that current diets are able to meet the recommended requirements for key vitamins and minerals and current intake of fortifiable foods among specific sub-groups of the population. They also require information about the extent to which different LSFF programmes, programme delivery scenarios, and other micronutrient interventions could assist in filling nutrient intake gaps for key populations. Such evidence is imperative to inform decisions across the LSFF ecosystem, including policy formulation, setting standards and determining whether LSFF is having an impact, in general, and with particular emphasis on those who are most vulnerable, with a focus on gender. However, due to cost, time needed and complexity of primary data collection on vitamin and mineral deficiency (VMD) and dietary intake, there are still many gaps in data needed to quantify the problem, e.g., magnitude and distribution of micronutrient malnutrition and nutrient inadequacy, as well as food consumption patterns within a population, required for proper program design and exploration of new cost-effective vehicles and entry points for fortification. Further, existing data or methods of obtaining data are limited in their ability to describe dimensions of intake inadequacy related to vulnerability in terms of gender, age, geography, biological status and illness.
The WFP specialises in uses innovative data approaches to support governments make informed decisions about the design and effective implementation of food security and nutrition policy and programs, including the integration of nutrition objectives across food systems - to achieve maximum impact. WFP’s
HungerMapLive
is widely-used to inform humanitarian programming and food security situation monitoring. HungerMapLive displays real-time information on food insecurity, nutrition and various relevant drivers using primary data collected using remote monitoring, estimates generated using machine learning-based predictive analytics and publicly available secondary data pulled automatically through APIs. The use of innovative methods to use existing data to estimate or predict the risk of dietary vitamin and mineral deficiencies and the potential of different programs, including LSFF, to fill nutrient gaps can support programme and policy decision-makers from national governments and other stakeholders. This activity brings together the analytical and government technical assistance expertise of the Nutrition and Food Quality Service, and data collection and visualisation experience from the HungerMapLive Team.
About the Team
WFP’s Modelling and Mapping risk of Inadequate Micronutrient Intake (MIMI) approach generates and increases access to modeled data on risk of inadequate micronutrient intake at national and sub-national levels, which is critical to advocate for and inform the design and roll-out of large-scale food fortification as well as other micronutrient interventions and complementary programs.
Specifically, MIMI works with academic and policy partners to develop innovative methods for modelling the risk of inadequate dietary micronutrient intake and the extent to which large scale food fortification (LSFF) (of different commodities and fortified according to different specifications) could reduce risk, to inform policy decision-making and advocacy. MIMI’s estimated and predictive analytical models use secondary data on food supply, food consumption and expenditure, socioeconomic status and climate, among others, and allow exploration of nutritional vulnerability by geography, gender and socioeconomic characteristics. To date, methods have been validated against dietary consumption and micronutrient status data in three countries. The outputs have been developed into inputs to display on interactive sub-national maps, with the support of WFP’s Hunger MapLive Team. Importantly, the team are engaging with stakeholders in each of the focus geographies to support and document the application, validation and uptake of modelled evidence to inform policy and advocacy and document the process. The initiative overall has benefited from WFP in-country presence and partnerships with the relevant academic and civil society partners, among other stakeholders, to promote transparency, provide a forum for discussion, maximise stakeholder involvement at the global-level, incorporate the views of potential end users at the country level and build community acceptance.
Between 2024 and 2026, MIMI will expand evidence generation and stakeholder engagement activities to an additional eight countries and explore the potential of integrating WFP’s real-time data monitoring into the modelling and analysis. The advertised position reflects work to be undertaken under this new phase.

PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:

The Senior Researcher will be responsible for the MIMI workstream on estimating inadequate micronutrient intake and modelling fortification scenarios using HCES data to answer relevant policy questions. Under the supervision of the Project Lead, this position will be responsible for the development and application of analytical methods, large data analyses and visualisation and presenting analytical results to diverse stakeholders at the global- and country-level. The incumbent will supervise and guide 2-3 analysts contributing to this workstream and the work of collaborating academic partners and/or external consultants (as relevant). The successful candidate will bring experience in international nutrition research and a solid understanding of the global nutrition data landscape and how it can be leveraged or enhanced to support policy and programme decision-making for fortification and micronutrient interventions.

ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Lead the MIMI workstream on estimating inadequate micronutrient intake and modelling micronutrient intervention scenarios using HCES data for multiple countries
• Supervise a small team of nutrition analysts contributing to the workstreams on estimation of inadequate micronutrient intake scenario modelling and data management infrastructure and documentation
• Lead field missions to WFP country offices to understand policy questions, present analytical methods and findings to and participate in technical-level discussions with WFP staff, government policy and analytical partners and other project stakeholders.
• Oversee work to clean, process and analyse household food consumption and food composition data from 3 countries to estimate food and micronutrient consumption and risk of inadequacy
• Lead on work to compare and test the validity of composite indices for the risk of overall inadequate micronutrient intake
• Design and lead on work to model the potential contribution of fortification and other nutrition intervention scenarios to reducing the risk of micronutrient inadequacy.
• Plan and supervise the delivery of a capacity strengthening workshops for government partners and other national stakeholders in participating countries on the analysis of household consumption and expenditure survey data to estimate the risk of inadequate micronutrient intake and model the potential contribution of fortification scenarios.
• Support the display of data from the project on an interactive, sub-national dashboard, with the RAM HungerMapLive team.
• Coordinate dissemination and policy implementation activities to in-country stakeholders, based on the data outputs and dashboard, led by WFP Country Offices.
• Lead on the writing and submission of relevant academic manuscripts to peer-reviewed journals.
• Develop, strengthen and foster relationships with key academic partners to the project
• Presentation relevant methods and results from the project at relevant global meetings and academic conferences.