Food Security, Agriculture and Nutrition Advisor
Helen Keller International
Location: Washington, DC
Last Date: October 1, 2010

Established in 1915 with Helen Keller as a founding trustee, Helen Keller International (HKI) works to save the sight and lives of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. Headquartered in New York City, HKI offers programs in 21 countries in Africa and Asia as well as in the United States. The organization combats the causes and consequences of blindness and malnutrition by establishing programs based on evidence and research. Each year, their programs directly benefit millions of people, and children are a primary concern. HKI programs address malnutrition, cataract, trachoma, onchocerciasis, refractive error and diabetic retinopathy. HKI has nearly 600 staff and an annual budget of over $45 million.

Scope of the Position:
The HKI Advisor in Food Security, Agriculture and Nutrition (FSAN) works under the guidance of the Senior Vice President (SVP), Programs, with input from other senior staff including the Vice Presidents, Regional Directors for Africa and Asia Pacific and relevant HKI technical advisors at both the Headquarters and regional levels, to support and develop HKI’s nutrition work in food security and agriculture, including activities related to the agency’s current innovative programs in Enhanced Homestead Food Production (EHFP) and Orange-fleshed Sweetpotato (OFSP). Specifically, the FSAN Advisor has primary responsibility for following up the recommendations of the Agency’s Global EHFP Meeting held in May 2010 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in order to position HKI to respond to nutrition and food security needs in the countries where we work and on the global stage. The recommendations emanating from that meeting have been incorporated into the following responsibilities.

The FSAN Advisor provides the technical support and leadership to expand and strengthen HKI’s program portfolio in food security and agriculture in order to address the agency’s nutritional objectives as stated in the 2010-2015 Strategic Plan. This will include further refining the technical content of current homestead food production (EHFP) and orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) programs through evidenced-based innovations that extend our reach and impact, as well as fostering viable new partnerships with other development partners that provide complementary inputs to current HKI programming especially in the area of gender, livelihood, horticulture, small animal husbandry, markets and overall value chain, and climate change, for example. Of specific focus is positioning the Agency to respond efficiently and cost-effectively to the new US Government’s Feed the Future Initiative as well as to engage HKI actively in other global initiatives such as the United Nation’s High Level Task Force on the Food Security Crisis, the Food and Agriculture’s Committee on Food Security and European governments interest, including the Irish Government, on food security, agriculture and nutrition.

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