Social Behaviour Change (sbc) Consultant

Organizational Context

The World Food Programme (WFP) is the largest humanitarian organization, saving lives and building peace through food assistance. In Türkiye, WFP has supported refugees and strengthened national social protection systems for over a decade. Partnering with the government, WFP delivers assistance and builds capacity, focusing on refugee response, emergency preparedness, and technical aid for social protection, food literacy, and waste reduction.

Job Purpose

The Social Behaviour Change (SBC) Consultant will play a pivotal role in enhancing nutrition outcomes and promoting healthier food practices among Syrian refugees and vulnerable Turkish families. Despite cash-based transfers improving food security, challenges persist due to low food literacy, limited dietary diversity, and significant household food waste. This role addresses the critical gap where financial assistance alone is insufficient to drive positive behavioural change. The consultant will design and operationalize evidence-based, culturally appropriate SBC programming, focusing on developing two comprehensive strategies. One strategy will target Syrian refugees to strengthen food literacy and nutrition choices within WFP's cash-based transfer programmes. The second will focus on vulnerable Turkish families, aiming to reduce household food waste and improve food literacy, integrating these approaches into national social safety nets. This involves conducting thorough behavioural analysis, developing context-specific models, and ensuring alignment with national priorities for sustainable institutionalization through government-led systems. The ultimate goal is to translate humanitarian assistance into improved dietary diversity, appropriate infant and young child feeding, and reduced food waste, fostering long-term health and well-being.

Responsibilities

The consultant's primary responsibility is to design and operationalize Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) programming to improve nutritional outcomes for Syrian refugees and vulnerable Turkish families in Türkiye. This involves developing two distinct, evidence-based, and contextually appropriate SBC strategies, each accompanied by a one-year costed implementation plan. For Syrian refugees, the consultant will create an SBC strategy focused on enhancing nutrition outcomes within WFP-supported cash-based transfer programs. This includes strengthening food literacy and nutrition-related choices, tailoring interventions for both camp and off-camp settings with cultural sensitivity, and ensuring alignment with national nutrition, health, and social protection strategies for scalability through government systems. For vulnerable Turkish families, the consultant will develop an SBC strategy targeting household food waste reduction and food literacy among social assistance beneficiaries. This strategy must embed SBC approaches within national service delivery platforms, cohere with Türkiye’s Food Literacy Strategy, and prioritize interventions that can be institutionalized and sustained by government systems. Cross-cutting principles for both strategies emphasize grounding interventions in behavioural insights, reinforcing dignity, inclusion, and sustainability, and ensuring clear pathways for institutionalization. The scope of work includes conducting a rapid situational and behavioural analysis through desk reviews, stakeholder consultations, and community-level engagements to identify barriers, motivators, and social norms. This analysis will inform the development of detailed strategies, including behavioural objectives, theories of change, key messages, and delivery approaches. Finally, the consultant will prepare operational implementation plans outlining roles, budgets, integration points with existing systems, community feedback mechanisms, and a monitoring, evaluation, and learning framework.

Work Experience

Requires at least 5 years of postgraduate professional experience in designing and implementing behavior change interventions for nutrition or public health. Proven experience is also needed in linking Social and Behavior Change (SBC) approaches to nutrition outcomes or cash-based social protection programs.

Skills

Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) strategies, Behavioural analysis, Food literacy, Nutrition outcomes, Household food waste reduction, Interpersonal communication, Community-based methods, Digital/mobile platforms, Mass communication, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) framework, Stakeholder consultations, Cultural sensitivity, Gender sensitivity, Inclusion, Sustainability, Institutionalization

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