Organization: UNV – United Nations Volunteers
Location: Kenya
Grade: Volunteer – National Specialist – Locally recruited Volunteer
Occupational Groups:
Public Health and Health Service
Legal – Broad
Closing Date: 2024-09-11
Details
Mission and objectives
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Our goal is to achieve food security for all and make sure that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives. With over 194 member states, FAO works in over 130 countries worldwide. We believe that everyone can play a part in ending hunger. Join us in creating a #ZeroHunger world.
Context
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is a specialized agency of United Nations that channel international efforts to defeat hunger and promote agriculture to achieve food security for all. The One Health being a holistic approach, FAO is collaborating within the Quadripartite team (UNEP, FAO, WHO, WOAH) to promote global health security by addressing health threats that emerge at the human-animal-environment interface including zoonotic diseases, AMR and food security through a One Health approach. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment. Its mandate is to coordinate the development of environmental policy consensus by keeping the global environment under review and bringing emerging issues to the attention of governments and the international community for action. In March 2022, UNEP formally joined the Quadripartite One Health Alliance, formerly known as the Tripartite Collaboration for One Health, alongside the FAO, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH). UNEP specifically aims to strengthen the environmental dimensions of human and animal health and contribute to the joint objectives of the expanded One Health Alliance and the implementation plan for the One Health Joint Plan of Action, which was developed by the four partner organizations. UNEP and FAO are collaborating with Kenya government on a project to supporting and addressing the interconnexion between water, food systems and environment in Kenya. This cooperation project between UNEP and FAO has 2 main components: 1) Support food systems field through learning by doing at country level and extrapolating the lesson to other Africa countries, and 2) sub-national level demonstration of the nexus between water resource management, food systems, environment, and outbreaks. The project is based on One – Health approach as a model that brings together human, animal, crop, and environment to address pressing health issues that cannot be singularly addressed. The UN Volunteer will be hosted by the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) and will undertake tasks to support the environment sector to engage in the One Health space: Upon agreements on the deliverables, the UN Volunteer will directly report to Dr John Mumbo, Directorate of Environmental Compliance in the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), Kenya. Overall, the incumbent will be co-supervised by Charles Bebay, Regional Manager of ECTAD in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and by Levis Kavagi, the Regional Coordinator of the Healthy and Productive Ecosystems Sub-Programme, Africa Office, United Nations Environment Programme.
Task description
The UN Volunteer will be hosted by the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) and will undertake the following tasks in supporting the environment sector to engage in the One Health space: A: Support the environment sector 1.Providing liaison services and technical support to the relevant host government entity. 2.Supporting the host government entity to coordinate One Health ensuring strategic policy frameworks exist and are combined with effective oversight, coalition-building, provision of appropriate regulations and incentives, attention to system design, and accountability. etc. B: Stakeholder coordination and management 1.Prepare a consultative (involving stakeholders) and implement an approved annual workflow program. 2.Undertaking stakeholder analyses, prepare engagement plans, and maintain active up to date database of all stakeholders at various levels of government including tracking their inputs and follow up actions, etc. 3.Assess and ascertain the understanding, barriers, challenges etc. of One Health governance by the stakeholders who include National Government Ministries, Departments, Agencies/Parastatals, County Governments, Grassroot Communities, NGOs amongst others. 4.Preparing technical inputs (e.g. policy briefs, reports) to facilitate stakeholder engagement on and mainstreaming of the of One Health governance in relation to environmental dimensions. 5.Providing liaison services on One Health between the environment and other sectors. 6.Organizing and facilitating meetings, trainings, workshops, seminars etc. including preparing meeting/workshop documents and presentations, maintaining records of the meetings, and ensuring follow up to action points agreed on during the meetings, etc. C: Knowledge management 7.Collecting and analyzing data on environmental dimensions of One Health governance. 8.Conducting desk studies, surveys, and limited field research on environmental dimensions of One Health governance. 9.Develop and maintain a basic database of projects, partners, policies, minutes of meetings etc. 10.Keep track of requests from and inputs to partners and other stakeholders, and prepare responses as appropriate, etc. D: Programme development 11.Assist in preparing concept notes, project proposals, programme documents, etc. for resource mobilization. 12.Assist in the preparation of legal briefs/advice and in the review of legal documents, instruments, or other material on One Health governance. 13.Any other duties as assigned from time to time. Furthermore, UN Volunteers are required to: •Strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the concept of volunteerism by reading relevant UNV and external publications and take active part in UNV activities (for instance in events that mark International Volunteer Day). •Be acquainted with and build on traditional and/or local forms of volunteerism in the host country. •Reflect on the type and quality of voluntary action that they are undertaking, including participation in ongoing reflection activities. •Contribute articles/write-ups on field experiences and submit them for UNV publications/websites, newsletters, press releases, etc. •Assist with the UNV Buddy Programme for newly arrived UN Volunteers. •Promote or advise local groups in the use of online volunteering or encourage relevant local individuals and organizations to use the UNV Online Volunteering service whenever technically possible.