Mobile Implementing Officer (MIO) W/M – Food security and nutrition

Médecins Sans Frontières, an international medical humanitarian association founded in 1971, provides medical assistance to populations whose lives are threatened: mainly by armed conflict, but also by epidemics, pandemics, natural disasters and exclusion from healthcare. The French section is present in some thirty countries.

To support our field teams, we are looking for a:

Mobile Implementing Officer (MIO) W/M – Food security and nutrition

Mission:

• Food insecurity and malnutrition are major public health issues. For several years now, we have been facing a worsening global situation and increasing needs in terms of both volume and quality.
• In 2023, 28 OCP projects were involved in the management of malnutrition, either as outpatients (16 projects, 193,000 admissions) or inpatients (20 projects, 43,000 admissions).

Main purpose:

• Participates in defining, planning & monitoring the OCP nutritional activities.
• Organizes/developpes the implementation implementing accordingly.
• Strengthens MSF strategy and hands-on implementation through direct medico-operational support to projects combating acute malnutrition

Reports to:

• Under the supervision of the OCP nutrition referent
• Functional link with cell managers /coordinators / field operations / medical department, in a spirit of co-construction and guided by a realistic and concrete approach to field issues.

Role:

Analysis & strategical support

• Assesses food security and nutrition situation in context with high level of malnutrition. This include the assessment of the various pilars of food security.
• Identifies priorities in food security, evaluate the effectiveness of the existing nutrition and food security response. This includes the mapping of the nutrition intervention and the assessment of the medical quality of the activities.
• Supports decisions and strategies of intervention in nutrition that will guide the proper implementation required.

Implement deployment of the nutritional activities defined by medops strategy

• Provides concrete field assistance to projects to implement opening in outpatient and inpatient activities, including specific needs identified: this can include, not exhaustive: Mapping of nutrition actors, implementation of Family-oedema-MUAC, reinforcement of the inpatient-outpatient continuum, implementation of a primary or secondary prevention component, management of kwashiorkor patients, early detection of malnutrition, management of non-responders, early detection of comorbidities such as tuberculosis and HIV, revision/implementation of admissions criteria & ambulatory protocol, management of infants and pregnant and lactating women suffering of malnutrition, improvement of statistical data collection, reorganization of patient ATFC circuits, struggle against aid diversion of nutritional inputs etc..
• Works closely operations at relevant levels, including cells, coordination and field, and with the relevant medical department stakeholders, notably Infectious and Tropical Diseases, Vaccination and Epidemic Response, health promotion and community engagement, pediatrics, nursing, maternal health. Involves in developing a decentralized care model and promoting integrated care approaches.
• Ensures a patient-centered approach, including needs analysis and strategy definition proposals.
• Participation as per needs in links with external actors, including unicef, WFP, other nutrition stakeholders

Profile:

Education/Experience

• Nurse or Doctor experienced in nutrition
• Experience 2 years with MSF or in a Humanitarian Medical Organization.
• At least 12 months’ experience on a project with a child malnutrition component.
• To have an MSF experience is an asset.
• MSF experience including work with outpatient and inpatient nutrition/pediatrics activities. Person-centered approach essential.

Competencies & skills

• Knowledge of food insecurity environment, capacity to detect, describe and define adequate actions. Knowledge of acute malnutrition environment, capacity to understand the ins and outs of humanitarian response and tailor the analysis to the specific project’s problematics.
• Strong knowledge and experience of acute malnutrition in highly food insecure areas, marasmus and kwashiorkor, from screening to management, from the organizationnal point of view and from medical-paramedical point of view. Capacity to identify rapidly the medical strength and constraints of a potential or an existing nutritional program, ambulatory and inpatients.
• Capacity to deploy, implement, support and monitor nutritional activities. Capacity to developpe and implement actions that promote the best response to the needs of the population. Capacity to make complex plans and how to implement them.
• Strategical vision combining long term perspectives to the constraints of the urgent needs. Detection of long-term opportunities and consideration of their impact. Ability to formulate it and challenges the strategies of the organization, and to synthetize complex problematics.
• Person-centered approach: Capacity to orientate work by considering perspectives from community members, patients, caregivers, staff, and other stakeholders.
• Planification and organization: Capacity to plan and prioritize its own action plan and providing support to ensure that everyone in the team is able to do so. Planification of actions to be carried out with a medium-long term perspective, taking other team members into consideration. Organization of work according to the constraints. Involving the team in discussions on planning to increase efficiency.
• Pro-activity and reactivity. Utilizing existing tools that are proved to be efficient before coming up with new tools.
• Team work and cooperation: Capacity to Build team spirit within the organization, to act by example, to adapt to levels of responsibility, to coach team members, to provide a reference model for the team, and ability to remove obstacles. Ability to work not only with other specialists, but also as part of a team with field and head office staff, to mobilize people by transmitting a convincing future vision, promoting motivation and commitment towards future objectives.
• Innovation: Capacity to look for innovative solutions, promoting participatory spaces and tools to enhance creative thinking.
• Negociation: Ability to seek for mutual benefit, to identify resistance and adaptability.
• Results and quality orientation: Ability to challenge objectives and management indicators.
• Capacity to understand and adapt the strategies to the security context.
• Capacity to Strenghen networking, interaction between MSF and its environment and to facilitate a sustainable network.
• Good command of Excel, Word and Praxis. Basic knowledge of DHIS, ability to adapt to specific statistic and epidemiological tools.

Languages

• Mandatory level C1: English level C1
• C1 level essential, one of the 2 following languages: Hausa or French
• Fluency in other languages is an asset.

Specificities of the position:

• 12-month fixed-term contract – Full-time.
• Position: 75% of the time is spent in the field on projects and 25% based in a country with MSF representation, with the possibility to work according to CET time zone and ability to travel to the field.
• Field contract, according to MSF field salary scale, based on seniority and experience
• Payment of accommodation, travel and per diem during visits and stays at headquarters.

Position to be filled: May 2025