Senior Policy Advisor, Food System Transformation

About the Role

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) is seeking a Senior Policy Advisor, Food System Transformation to provide leadership and technical support to our Project team in Tanzania. This role will be offered on a fixed term contract basis up to 3.5 years, subject to availability of funding. You will be based in GAIN’s Tanzania office in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Reporting to the Country Director, the Senior Policy Advisor will be part of GAIN Tanzania Senior Management Team and will be responsible for ensuring the post-UNFSS interventions led by GAIN and by its different partners are coordinated so that overall project and policy milestones and goals are met. You will be expected to provide functional oversight, thematic leadership and technical support to project staff as required.

The inclusion of nutritious and safe foods as a major theme is well aligned with GAIN’s strategy to make nutritious foods more affordable and healthier diets for all more accessible. The FSS is therefore a major opportunity to advance our strategy and merits a special effort to link and align many aspects of our programmes, learning and influencing. Country level participation, through the influencing work led by the Country Director and the Senior Policy Advisor, Food System transformation working with programme team, is the key to its success.

Key Responsibilities include:

• Tracking and mapping national progress on the Food Systems Summit, and the N4G Summit commitments
• Acting as a technical and organizational resource to facilitate and support national post food systems dialogue/s and other planning mechanisms to progress coordinated implementation of the country’s food system transformation pathway commitments made at the Summits
• Leading on internal communication to educate and inform fellow GAIN colleagues on the national food system transformation commitments and aligning GAIN staff members to contribute
• Integrating and aligning the Food Systems Summit policy and advocacy work into GAIN’s national business plan
• Leading on external engagements with key stakeholders in government, private sector, UN, donors and civil society including academia, media, and other development practitioners; improving support for GAIN’s mission and increase resources allocated to nutrition in Tanzania
• Creating and delivering a series of dialogue and learning opportunities for key decision makers from government and business to identify and include nutrition accelerating actions in their decision-making processes
• Working in close collaboration with the communication associate, support the development of GAIN policy related impact stories and articles, publications including working papers
• Providing technical and managerial guidance to program and field teams that guarantees adherence to national and local government guidance and protocols
• Identifying technical working groups, task forces and other opportunities for GAIN to assert its nutrition thought leadership role and contributions and to expand its external engagements
• Acting as a member of the GAIN Tanzania Senior Management Team, contributing to overall country team management to support the delivery of the country office business plan
• Contributing to and in some cases leading proposal development and resource mobilization efforts to build the country office project portfolio and expand the scope of our work in Tanzania

About You

The ideal candidate will have significant professional experience of policy development and planning work within a government, INGO or private sector setting that involves public private engagement and extensive working experience of engaging in the food and nutrition policy making process in Tanzania at a senior level. Candidates’ with experience in resource mobilization, business development or non-profit organization development sector is highly desirable.

You will possess strong stakeholder management and advocacy experience with the capacity to work closely with national stakeholders to advocate for and progress nutritional outcomes and proven track record in influencing government, donors and other high level ministerial stakeholders.

The ideal candidate will have excellent understanding of food systems transformation approaches with the ability to leverage this understanding to accelerate positive nutrition improvements and familiar with some of GAIN’s advocacy tools including Food Systems Dashboard, Enabling Business to Advance Nutrition Index (EBANI), Access to Nutrition Index (ATNI), etc.

The postholder should have strong leadership skills as well as excellent communication skills with excellent command of written and spoken English and Swahili and able to work effectively in a cross-cultural team environment. You should be highly flexible and be able to travel within and outside of Tanzania.

A Bachelor’s degree in public health or nutrition, business or public administration, agricultural economics, public policy or related field is required and a diploma or equivalent certification in project management or business administration is highly desirable, preferably in PRINCE2 (Foundation and/or Practitioner), Scrum Master, Agile PM.

About our Offer

The starting salary on offer for this role is from USD 47,585 – USD 54,353 per annum (gross salary), depending on experience.

GAIN has a fair and competitive salary structure that allows for annual progression subject to good performance. In addition, GAIN offers a total of 37 days holiday per year (including annual leave, public holidays and additional office closure days), an attractive pension scheme and competitive insurance cover including health, travel and life assurance.

We are committed to the health of our staff, especially in these challenging times, and have developed a programme of wellbeing that includes flexible working, additional leave allowances, wellbeing days, mindfulness coaching and access to independent and confidential counselling.

GAIN also has a strong commitment to professional development. We will support you to grow in your career through both formal and informal training, and are committed to providing opportunities through internal recruitment, secondments and promotion. All of this is delivered in a supportive and collaborative environment.

About GAIN

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) is a Swiss-based foundation launched at the United Nations in 2002 to tackle the human suffering caused by malnutrition. Due to COVID19, conflict in Ukraine and climate change, malnutrition and hunger have worsened significantly since 2019, reversing a decade of progress. There is growing recognition that our food systems need to change if we are to reverse these trends.

GAIN’s Strategy aims to transform food systems to make healthier diets from sustainable food systems accessible to all people and especially those whose are most vulnerable to shocks. By 2027, we aim to improve the access of 1.5 billion people to nutritionally enhanced staple foods, improve the access of 25 million people to healthier diets, and support positive food system change in 10 countries. This is bold and complex, and the only way to achieve this is to work together with partners including governments, businesses, and civil society at the country and global level. These goals, and the ways of achieving them, build on our twenty-year legacy of transforming people’s lives with improved nutrition through concerted action and effective policy change.

Our Working Culture and Environment

We provide a flexible working environment that includes a combination of home and office working opportunities through our global hybrid working policy. This encourages our staff to have a healthy work-life balance and increases staff motivation, enriches employee wellbeing, and improves performance and productivity.

All of our positions are based in one or more of GAIN’s designated offices as stated on our job advertisements. Successful candidates will be based in one of GAIN’s country offices and must have the existing right to live and work within a reasonably commutable distance of the relevant city / cities in which the role is advertised. Please note, that GAIN does not sponsor working visas and relocations.

GAIN reserves the right to withdraw an offer of employment for candidates who are considered to ineligible under the above conditions during or after the recruitment process.

Applicants must be currently based and have the existing right to live and work in the Dar es Salaam, Tanzania region to be eligible to apply for this position.

This advert closes on 7th December 2023. Early applications are encouraged. GAIN reserves the right o close this advert early should we receive suitable candidates ahead of the closing date.

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition is committed to equality of opportunity and creating an inclusive environment where diversity is valued. We are keen to reflect the diversity of our society at every level within our organisation and therefore welcome applications from talented and committed people from all backgrounds, representing the diverse societies we operate in.