Director of Nutrition

Director of Nutrition, Ethiopia ACDI/VOCA is seeking a Director of Nutrition for an anticipated agriculture program in Ethiopia funded by USAID. This activity will increase access to healthy diets, particularly for women and children, by improving the competitiveness, inclusiveness, and resilience of the food and agriculture system. The Director of Nutrition will provide thought leadership on the development of tools, resources, and models to facilitate the integration of nutrition into agriculture and market systems development interventions. S/he will also lead the development of nutrition-sensitive interventions, supporting them to design, implement, and monitor nutrition-sensitive activities across the entirety of the program. The program is anticipated to start in early 2022 and this position is envisioned to be based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Responsibilities

• Provide leadership and direction to ensure integration of high quality and responsive approaches across the entirety of the program to increase availability, affordability, and access to and consumption of safe, nutritious foods, particularly for women, youth and other vulnerable groups.
• Oversee the implementation of field research to identify key opportunities for increasing food availability, affordability, accessibility, for the consumption of safe, nutritious food.
• Co-create the design and implementation of interventions that increase household production, access to, purchase, and consumption of nutrient-rich foods, particularly for women, youth, and other vulnerable groups.
• Design and conduct participatory training and workshops on nutrition-sensitive agriculture and/or food systems for program participants, including households, private sectors actors, and government.
• Implement collaboration, learning, and adaptation (CLA) best practices to inform, adapt, and scale-up nutrition and food systems interventions.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree in nutrition, public health, or relevant field.
• Minimum 5 years of relevant experience integrating nutrition into agriculture and/or market systems development projects and knowledge of nutrition-sensitive agriculture and food systems concepts.
• Experience working with food systems actors, including rural producers, farmers’ associations, agribusinesses, private sector agricultural production, private sector food processors, and/or governments preferred.
• Strong leadership and interpersonal skills, in order to be able to build nutrition into all program components and facilitate increased capacity of all staff members in nutrition.
• Understanding of gender- and youth-integrated agriculture concepts and ability to integrate gender into nutrition-sensitive approaches.
• Strong analytical skills, including ability to gather and analyze a variety of information pertaining to issues and to develop appropriate recommendations for action.
• Excellent written communication skills required, with a demonstrated ability to write reports in a clear, concise, and well-organized manner.
• Experience working in Ethiopia preferred.
• Fluency in English required, Amharic preferred.

Ethiopian nationals are strongly encouraged to apply