CONSULTANCY ON MAMI AND IYCF-E SUPPORT TO MOZAMBIQUE

BACKGROUND

The GNC Technical Alliance

The Global Nutrition Cluster Technical Alliance (GNC Technical Alliance or Alliance) is an initiative for the mutual benefit of the nutrition community, and affected populations, to improve the quality of nutrition in emergency preparedness, response, and recovery. The GNC Technical Alliance Partners are made up of the GNC partners and other individuals, organizations, initiatives, and academia at global, regional and national levels that hold nutrition technical expertise across the humanitarian and development spheres.

The Alliance’s Technical Support Team (TST) provides on-demand technical support for nutrition in emergencies both remotely and in-country.
The Mozambique Nutrition Sector have requested the support of the TST to provide in-person support to strengthen Management of At-risk Mothers and Infants (MAMI) and Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies (IYCF-E) in Cabo Delgado Province.
The support will be heavily MAMI focused with an additional aspect of IYCF-E strengthening with the development of a regional IYCF-E TWG.
The work is expected to take place between March and June 2023.

OBJECTIVE

The main objective of this role is to strengthen the nutrition response in Northern provinces of Cabo Delgado (CD) and Nampula, with a focus on strengthening nutritional support to infants less than 6 months and their mothers.

SERVICE DESCRIPTION

Specific objectives of this work includes:

• To map existing capacity and services within the response to support small and nutritionally at-risk infants less than 6-months and their mothers, inclusive of feeding support for infants and/or caregivers with disability, and create an action plan with clear recommendations on how to address capacity gaps and limitations to improve identification of and provide quality care to small and nutritionally at-risk infants less than 6-months

• To provide capacity building according to the action plan, as relevant e.g. focused training session(s) and/or on-the-job training on supporting breastfeeding, re-lactation, wet nursing, supporting breastmilk substitute (BMS)-dependent infants, early initiation, MAMI training, orientation etc

• To identify a partner to pilot the MAMI Care Pathway in the CD response and contextualise the MAMI Care Pathway, provide capacity building as required.

• To support the establishment of a regional IYCF-E TWG, within CD subnational nutrition cluster coordination, including identification of an NGO to co-lead the TWG and provision of technical guidance and coaching during the deployment.

Key activities:

1. Review the current landscape for infants under 6-months and their mothers in the northern provinces of Cabo Delgado and Nampula, looking at:

– Assess existing technical capacity to support small and nutritionally at-risk infants less than 6-months and their mothers.
– Map existing services (availability, coverage, and quality) for infants u6m and their mothers.

1. In collaboration with the Cluster, through a workshop, devise an action plan for strengthening the support for small and nutritionally at-risk infants u6m and their mothers, including:
2. Support lead NGO and any other identified nutrition partner(s), in collaboration with the Cluster, to pilot the MAMI Care pathway integration into existing H&N interventions.
3. Support the development of an IYCF-E TWG in northern Mozambique including creating a repository for existing key IYCF-E documents and developing a TWG ToR and action plan.
4. Review existing IYCF guidance and action plans to identify areas to include or develop, where there are none, recommendations, and guidance for IYCF-E.

TIMELINE

Duration of 8 weeks from 20th March – 12th May 2023.

REQUIRED PROFILE
QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

● Master’s degree in Economic, Social Science, Nutrition, Public Health, or related field.

● At least 5 years work experience in IYCF-E and/or MAMI programme.

● Knowledge and demonstrated experience on nutrition and public health in emergencies with a specific experience on monitoring and evaluation and capacity assessment.

● Demonstrated experience in capacity building, including conducting learning needs assessment, capacity assessment and capacity building strategies.

● Ability to analyze diverse information and develop recommendations for an appropriate response to emergencies.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, ABILITIES AND OTHER ATTRIBUTES

● Strong skills in coordination and the ability to work effectively with a range of stakeholders, including nutrition clusters, partners and the Ministry of Health.

● Highly developed writing skills – both at a programmatic level (assessment reports, proposals) and a policy level (policy papers, guidance notes).

● Strong communications skills (both written and verbal) at a level appropriate for high- level external representation presentations).

● Working knowledge of Portuguese or Spanish is ESSENTIAL.

Candidates with previous work experience in the country, or familiarity with the context, will be given a preference.

DUTY STATION/LOCATION:

The consultant will be based in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique with some home based, remote support before and after the in-country support.

SUPERVISORS
The consultant will be supervised by both the TST Coordination Unit (based at AAH Canada) and the in-country requester (UNICEF).

CONTRACT MODALITY
Fixed term deliverable-based contract.
Applications are open to individuals, teams of people or organizations.