Senior Nutrition Specialist At Social Impact

Social Impact is a global development management consulting firm. We provide monitoring, evaluation, strategic planning, and capacity building services to advance development effectiveness. We work across all development sectors including democracy and governance, health and education, the environment, and economic growth.

Project Objective:

SI has been contracted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to conduct an impact evaluation to test the effectiveness of USAID Nurture, a multi-sectoral intervention to reduce stunting in children throughout Laos. The impact evaluation will contribute to the evidence base in determining whether the multi-sectoral approach to reduce stunting is successful within the Laos context and what changes may be needed to improve results. The purpose of this project is to provide data and feedback to help increase the effectiveness of Activity implementation, and it is designed to answer four evaluation questions, outlined below:

• What is the effectiveness of the USAID Nurture approach in improving the nutritional status of children under two in target areas?
• To what extent did each of the individual components of the USAID Nurture approach (maternal, IYCF, and WASH) contribute to the effectiveness of the overall approach?
• What is the current outlook for sustainability of each of the individual components of the USAID Nurture approach (maternal, IYCF, and WASH)?
• What were the key successes and challenges in implementation over the course of the USAID Nurture activity?

Period of Performance:

This is a part-time position, and we are looking to hire as soon as possible. Due to challenges posed by COVID-19, this will most likely be a remote position with no travel to Laos. Though SI is still working with the client and local partners to finalize our approach to endline data collection given COVID-19 constraints, we estimate the level of effort for this position to be about 25 days of work between October 2021 and February 2022.

Research Responsibilities:

The Senior Nutrition Specialist will be responsible for providing technical guidance on nutrition-related components of the evaluation endline deliverables. They will draft nutrition-related elements of the qualitative interview protocols and provide feedback on nutrition and WASH-related revisions to the quantitative survey (survey TBD based on COVID-19 situation in Laos). The Senior Nutrition Specialist will support analysis of and reporting on WASH and nutrition indicators to feed into final deliverables and help oversee preliminary data collection to provide guidance and oversight on measurement of key nutrition and WASH indicators. They are responsible for training moderators on proper execution of the final interview protocol and instrument use. They will contribute to in-field qualitative data collection and analysis by co-facilitating Key Informant Interviews with Implementing Partner staff, government partners, other donors, community leaders, beneficiaries and other stakeholders and ensuring data quality throughout.

Tasks:

• Participate in the development of research tools, data collection, analysis and reporting.
• Participate in evaluation methods training for local interpreters and planning sessions prior to fieldwork.
• Conduct qualitative data collection leading interviews and team coordination.
• Review and advise on interview schedule.
• Contribute to developing and drafting documents and reports.

Qualifications:

• At least Master’s Degree in relevant nutrition or public health field.
• Experience conducting evaluations in the nutrition field; particularly with qualitative methodologies.
• Familiarity with nutrition indicators, sanitation indicators, and anthropometric measurements.

Preferred Skills:

• Proficiency in Lao language.
• Experience working in Southeast Asia.
• Familiarity with the Laos government Asia regional, and U.S. Government’s initiatives/guidance on nutrition and WASH.