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About Aga Khan Foundation

The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) brings together human, financial, and technical resources to address some of the challenges faced by the poorest and most marginalised communities. With an emphasis on women and girls, AKF invests in human potential, expanding opportunities and improving quality of life. AKF leads a range of integrated, innovative and gender-responsive interventions in Agriculture and Food Security, Civil Society, Climate Resilience, Early Childhood Development, Education, Health and Nutrition, and Work and Enterprise. Interventions are informed by evidence, data, local knowledge and extensive networks of community-led institutions.

About the Role

Working collaboratively with the Global Lead, Health and Nutrition, the Global Advisor, Nutrition will refine the Aga Khan Foundation’s nutrition strategy, provide technical assistance to field-based teams, and support programme design and resource mobilisation. The Global Advisor will nurture and sustain partnerships across sectors and within the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) for nutrition objectives, foster innovation, ensure programme quality and support a strong learning agenda.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Support the development, refinement, integration, and regionalisation of AKF’s nutrition strategy. 
• Ensure the nutrition strategy is expanded to encompass all direct and indirect healthcare sector nutrition interventions.
• Work in collaboration with programmes in other AKF themes and fields of work.
• Facilitate the development and implementation of country-specific nutrition strategies.
• Build capacity of country teams and enable them to take ownership of the strategic direction of the programmes.
• Identify opportunities to grow the nutrition portfolio. 
• Ensure the quality of AKF’s nutrition programme by providing regular support to field-based agriculture and health/nutrition teams, focusing on, but not limited to, the Central Asia Stunting Initiative and Nutrition initiatives under the rural support programmes. 
• Ensure technical goals are attained and programmatic commitments to donors and partners are met.
• Guarantee that country teams appropriately apply procedures, requirements, regulations, and policies. 
• Support programme design and resource mobilisation, including participation in regional and global donor discussions.
• Support country teams to foster partnerships, identifying new funding opportunities.
• Develop grant proposals alongside AKF’s field and donor offices, as well as with other AKDN agencies.
• Lead the development of global nutrition briefs, concept papers, and other communication materials on nutrition programmes and innovations.
• Represent AKF’s nutrition programme in high-level meetings and at the request of the Global Lead, Health and Nutrition or the Director of Programmes.
• Foster, sustain and strengthen linkages and partnerships for better nutrition outcomes amongst AKDN assets, institutions, and programmes.
• Facilitate the development of innovative approaches and solutions to address programme and country needs.
• Mentor and contribute to the performance of the nutrition programmes’ staff at country level. 
• Foster nutrition leadership at country level to identify opportunities to influence, shape and drive the national nutrition agenda and be catalysts for broader impact.
• Ensure country nutrition programmes comply with existing global and national benchmarks.
• Support timely and effective monitoring, evaluation, and reporting on programme activities.
• Contribute to developing a framework for nutrition performance measurement- including clear outcomes and indicators. 
• Work with country programmes to ensure these indicators are incorporated in all new programme designs. 
• Analyse relevant data on AKF target groups, co-leading pilots and HCD activities for structured learning.
• Advise on approaches to enhance AKF’s understanding of the effectiveness of our work and changes over time.   
• Support the Global Lead, Health and Nutrition, to foster, sustain and strengthen global and regional communities of practice.
• Support the Global Lead, Health and Nutrition, on building external partnerships for strategic, technical, and fundraising purposes. 

Skills and Experience

• Minimum of a Master’s degree in Public Nutrition or equivalent.
• At least seven years of experience working on nutrition programmes, including integrating nutrition interventions into the health sector.
• Experience integrating nutrition programmes into non-health sectors such as agriculture, livestock, food security, environment and climate resilience, education, ECD and livelihoods.
• At least seven years of field experience delivering nutrition programmes, focusing on gender and working with grassroots communities.
• Experience developing partnerships for nutrition programming with a wide range of stakeholders (donors, governments, and implementers).
• Solid understanding of trends and innovations in nutrition technical programmes, nutrition financing, and partnerships.
• Solid knowledge of value chains and food systems at regional, provincial and community levels.
• Proven experience in developing communication strategies/materials.
• Track record implementing behavioural change initiatives around nutritional habits and food diversification.
• Experience working with the private sector to address health and nutrition issues, particularly for rural communities, would be an asset. 

Travel

Ability to travel regularly to AKDN programme countries across Africa and Asia; this includes regular field travel to remote locations.