Emergency Nutrition Officer 12-416

Job Location:

Job Description:

International Medical Corps is a global, humanitarian, nonprofit organization dedicated to saving lives and relieving suffering through health care training and relief and development programs.

Established in 1984 by volunteer doctors and nurses, International Medical Corps is a private, voluntary, nonpolitical, nonsectarian organization. Its mission is to improve the quality of life through health interventions and related activities that build local capacity in underserved communities worldwide. By offering training and health care to local populations and medical assistance to people at highest risk, and with the flexibility for rapid response to emergencies. International Medical Corps rehabilitates devastated health care systems and helps bring them back to self-reliance.

Program Background

The influx of refugees into South Sudan since the start of 2012 has continued to rise dramatically as conflict and hunger in Sudan’s Blue Nile State drive record numbers across the border into South Sudan. The highest numbers have been recorded in Upper Nile State; latest UNHCR estimates indicate more than 110,000 refugees are in Maban County alone.

Jamam camp flooded on June 26, 2012 and UNHCR has started the relocation of the Jamam refugees to Gendrassa, a new camp near the Yusuf Batil camp. More than 4,000 refugees have been relocated thus far with a remaining estimated 26,000 left that need to be relocated to Gendrassa.

International Medical Corps has been in Maban County since late May 2012 and have provided emergency health and nutrition services to the refugees at the previous transit sites, Yusuf Batil and Jamam camp. International Medical Corps is now providing life-saving services in Gendrassa, where malaria cases continues to rise and there is an increased risk of cholera and other communicable disease outbreaks due to the worsening rainy season.

The purpose of the Emergency Nutrition Officer position on the International Medical Corps Emergency Response Team (ERT) is to assist International Medical Corps in delivering life-saving programs in disasters in a holistic and sustainable way, keeping in mind how the emergency response will set the ground for transitions and development programming. The ERNO will technically be supervised and supported by the Emergency Nutrition Coordinator and International Medical Corps’s the Nutrition and Food Security (NFS) Department Director or designee, based at headquarters.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Conduct initial nutrition sector-specific assessments and make technical recommendations for appropriate activities, both for initial disaster response phase and for longer-term disaster risk reduction and transition phase.
• At the field level, provide assessments of the nutrition situation as it relates to food security, WASH, and Health. Be able to assess health sector’s ability to respond to the nutritional needs of acutely malnourished children and make recommendations to the International Medical Corps ERT and to headquarters on how to best respond to those needs programmatically.
• Be able to determine the cause of the malnutrition in the emergency response and formulate appropriate responses that will address the cause.
• Be able to assess the immediate lifesaving nutrition interventions needed (such as CMAM) in addition to the prevention activities (ENA, IFE, etc) that need to be implemented at the same time.
• Actively represent International Medical Corps in nutrition sector discussions and activities, serve as an International Medical Corps nutrition sector resource person, and display technical and organizational leadership in sectoral activity commensurate with the role as a primary resource person for nutrition on the International Medical Corps Emergency Response Team.
• Coordinate International Medical Corps’s nutrition response and recovery activities across a wide range of actors within International Medical Corps, donors, host governments, UN and NGO partners to ensure consistency of programming.
• Actively participate and represent IMC in country-based nutrition Cluster meetings.
• Develop the nutrition program strategies, with support from NFS, for the specific disaster response
• Assist in development of, or provide technical review for, emergency response proposals to be submitted by International Medical Corps to ensure that proposed activities and programs align with best practice in the nutrition sector. As appropriate, apply new developments in the nutrition sector to International Medical Corps programming.
• If appropriate during the response, provide technical support to assist in the development of disaster risk reduction programs that mitigate the effects of disasters on populations and communities; identify disaster mitigation measures, where appropriate, that could be linked to disaster response activities.