Using the social ecological model to behaviour change and human centered designing approach to understanding behaviours, the formative study will seek to understand but not limited to the following:

• Assess the community and family perspectives towards maternal and child health and nutrition including understanding who is responsible for maternal and child health and nutrition and the role of the extended family in maternal and child health and nutrition.
• Identify barriers to uptake of optimal nutrition and health behaviours among women of childbearing age including what are the challenges that women face that hinder them from practicing and sustaining optimal maternal and child health and nutrition practices.
• Describe the perceptions, women’s agency and social norms related to maternal and children’s diets including understanding the social norms around diets for pregnant women, community norms on nutrient dense foods and access to diversified foods for pregnant women.
• Describe how, when and where women access prenatal supplements including an understanding on which supplements are available, accessibility, usability and challenges with where the women access the supplements.
• Understand enablers and barriers to compliance of IFA tablets.
• Determine the process and enabling factors, attitudes, influences and agency that women follow to decide whether to attend ANC and use a prenatal supplement.
• Understand how women manage the side effects associated with IFA and community perceptions of IFA over time.
• Understand the existing quality of nutrition counselling, who provides the counselling and how it facilitates/deters women’s agency for the adoption of desired maternal and child nutrition and health practices.
• Provide recommendations on designing at scale gender responsive maternal and child nutrition social and behaviour change programme addressing acceptance, hesitancy leading to the empowerment of adolescent and women in decision making.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

Academic qualification:

• Advanced University Degree in Nutrition, Public Health, Health Sciences, Social sciences including anthropology, global/international health and nutrition.

Work experience:

• Minimum of 10 years of documented work experience in conducting quantitative and qualitative social and behavioural research with a focus on maternal and child nutrition and hygiene, including experience in conducting anthropology and barrier analysis studies.
• Demonstrated recent work experience in formative, operational research, data management and analyses. and forumaling recommendations for social and behavioural change.
• Substantive knowledge on maternal, neonatal, child health and nutrition (MNCHN), early child development and WASH-nutrition linkages.
• Solid understanding of social behaviour change and issues in Malawi.
• Competent in using statistical packages for quantitative and qualitative analyses.
• Relevant experience in a UN system agency or organization is considered as an asset.
• Familiarity with UNICEF nutrition programmes and frameworks is considered an asset.

Technical skills, knowledge and strength areas:

• Knowledge of qualitative and quantitative research methods, including their appropriate applications and limitations
• Ability to design studies that effectively address research questions and proficiency in selecting appropriate sampling methods and calculating sample sizes to ensure representative and unbiased results.
• Ability to conduct participant observation and other ethnographic methods to gather contextual data
• Ability to work effectively in a diverse and multi-cultural team to achieve goals.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, and excellent presentation skills. Proven experience in producing high-quality documents ready for external dissemination.
• Good facilitating, negotiating, communication and advocacy skills

Languages: 

• Excellent analytical and writing capacity in English.