Health & Nutrition Specialist (Primary Health Care & Nutrition), NOC, FT, #138592, Bridgetown, Barbados, Multi-Country Office for the Caribbean

Organisation: UNICEF
Location: Barbados, Multi-Country Office for the Caribbean
Deadline: 11 November 2026

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Job no: 596063

Contract type: Fixed Term Appointment

Duty Station: Bridgetown

Level: NO-3

Location: Barbados

Categories: Health, Nutrition, Health and Nutrition

UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do for as long as we are needed. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling.

UNICEF is a place where careers are built: we offer our staff diverse opportunities for professional and personal development that will help them reinforce a sense of purpose while serving children and communities across the world. We welcome everyone who wants to belong and grow in a diverse and passionate culture, coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

For every child, the right to sustenance

UNICEF’s Caribbean Multi-Country Office (MCO) serves twelve English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. As part of UNICEF's Future Focus Initiative, the Caribbean MCO brings together policy influence, technical expertise and strategic partnerships to advance results for children across the region through one integrated programme, one management structure and a shared pool of resources. The Multi-Country Programme 2027-2031 focuses on three shared outcomes: equitable access to primary health care, learning and skills; protection of children from all forms of violence; and child poverty reduction and resilience strengthening.

Children across the Caribbean face interconnected challenges including learning losses, mental health concerns, violence, child poverty and increasing exposure to climate-related disasters. Despite many countries being classified as upper-middle or high income, significant inequalities persist, particularly for vulnerable children, adolescents, indigenous communities and those living in remote areas. Small island developing states also face fiscal constraints and heightened vulnerability to economic and climate shocks, requiring stronger regional cooperation and system-based solutions.

The Caribbean MCO’s management strategy is governed by four principles that together translate the new business model into concrete ways of working:

• Impact-driven : technical expertise is organized in shared multi-country working groups rather than replicated in each country, with enabling functions aligned around UNICEF’s strongest comparative advantages.

• Effective and agile : parallel country ecosystems are replaced by harmonized systems and flexible cross-country staffing, keeping management lean and decisions close to implementation.

• Grounded : regional scale is balanced with national depth through country-specific workplans, Heads of Office in each duty station, and matrix management that anchors authority and accountability at country level.

• People-centered : structural and managerial choices are guided by staff wellbeing, transparency and inclusion, with clear role definitions, meaningful consultation, and continuous investment in learning and development.

The operational expression of this model is the working group model. Rather than replicating similar roles across four separate country offices, technical and operational expertise is organized into 16 thematic and functional working groups, each distributed across different duty stations and each serving the full 12-country MCO — not just its host location. Roles are designed around three organizing principles: shared regional service , meaning every specialist contributes to the wider MCO; complementary expertise , meaning team capabilities reinforce each other rather than repeating the same profile in multiple places; and agile presence , meaning the workforce can be rapidly deployed across countries through travel, surge support or remote modalities in line with evolving needs and priorities. This working group model is the foundation of a fundamentally new way of working for UNICEF in the Caribbean: depth replaces duplication, and shared capacity replaces fragmented country-by-country coverage

The Health & Nutrition Specialist (Primary Health Care & Nutrition) is part of the Equitable and resilient services for primary health care, learning and skills working group. This group leads the implementation of the CPD outcome on equitable and resilient services that boost children’s nutrition, mental health, learning and skills, by strengthening health and education systems to deliver integrated PHC, nutrition, MHPSS and quality basic and secondary education for all children and adolescents. Its function is to translate this priority into integrated policy packages, service delivery models and scalable solutions across the subregion, ensuring that equity, inclusion and climate-resilience are embedded in the expansion of health and education services and that socio-emotional learning and future-ready skills are systematically advanced in all 12 countries.

The team is led by the Assistant Representative for Equitable and Resilient Services for Primary Health, Learning and Skills in Belize and includes seven NOC Specialists. The specialist profiles have been defined directly against the CPD outputs under this outcome, so that each post is anchored in a specific strand of work (early learning, foundational learning, policy and public finance, PHC/MHPSS, PHC/nutrition and Early Childhood Development), while together they form a complementary skills mix that covers the full range of expertise required to achieve the intended results. The working group is comprised of the following: Education Specialist (Early Learning) in Belize, Education Specialist (ECD) in Suriname, Education Specialist (Foundational Learning & Skills) in Guyana, Education Specialist (Policy & Budget) in Barbados, Health Specialist (Primary Health Care & Mental Health) in Suriname, Health Specialist (Policy & Budget) in Jamaica, and Health Specialist (Primary Health Care & Nutrition) in Barbados.

How can you make a difference ?

The Health & Nutrition Specialist (Primary Health Care & Nutrition), reports to the Assistant Representative for Equitable and Resilient Services for Primary Health, Learning and Skills, P4, located in Belize, in close day-to day coordination with the in-country lead in Barbados.

The Health & Nutrition Specialist (Primary Health Care & Nutrition) provides specialized technical expertise in primary health care strengthening and nutrition programming, supporting UNICEF Caribbean's contribution to children's health outcomes across all 12 MCO countries. The role brings substantive technical depth in health system analysis, nutrition surveillance, and the integration of nutrition-sensitive interventions within primary care platforms.

Based in Barbados, the position will strengthen implementation support, policy engagement and partnership development where needs are greatest, while maintaining close access to neighboring countries across the northeastern Caribbean.

The key functions and accountabilities are:

• Situation Analysis and Strategic Planning on primary health care and nutrition

• Technical Leadership for Primary Health Care and Nutrition Programmes

• Programme Planning, Coordination and Delivery of Results

• Monitoring, Evaluation and Nutrition Surveillance

• Capacity Development and Technical Assistance

• Programme Resource Management and Accountability

• Partnerships, Advocacy and Knowledge Management

• Emergency Preparedness and Humanitarian Response

This position belongs to the Equitable and Resilient Services for Primary Health, Learning and Skills working group. If you would like to know more about this position, please review the complete Job Description here: NOC Health and Nutrition Specialist (Primary Health Care & Nutrition) Barbados.pdf

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

Minimum requirements:

Education: Advanced university degree in Public Health and Nutrition, Child Development, Water Sanitation, Public Administration, Social Policy, Social Development, Community Development, or other relevant disciplines.

Work Experience: Minimum of five years of progressively responsible professional experience at national and/or international levels supporting primary health care systems strengthening and nutrition programming, including policy development, service delivery improvement and health systems analysis is required.

Technical Knowledge and Skills :

Specific Technical Knowledge Required (for the job):

• Knowledge of the health and nutrition technical areas of UNICEF programmes (e.g., PMTCT, HIV/AIDS, malaria, WASH, EPI)

• Knowledge of theories, principles and methods in the selective fields of the following: Public Health & Nutrition, International Health & Nutrition, Public Health & Nutrition Policy and Management, Child-Neonatal and Maternal Health & Nutrition Care, Family and Community Health & Nutrition, Health & Nutrition System Management, Public Health & Nutrition Preparedness, Health & Nutrition Emergency Preparedness, Nutritional Epidemiology, Nutrition Research, Health & Nutrition Education, Health & Nutrition Promotion and Disease Prevention, Educational Interventions in Health & Nutritional Care.

• Knowledge of the global commitment on aid effectiveness, including the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, the Accra Agenda for Action as well as knowledge of the Global Programme Partnerships (GPPs).

Common Technical Knowledge Required: