Short-Term Consultancy to Support the “Good Examples” Community of

Practice
TERMS OF REFERENCE

BACKGROUND: This consultancy is to support an international Community of Practice (COP) focused

on documenting best practices and lessons learned from national school meal programmes in high-,
middle-, and low-income countries: the “Good Examples” COP. This COP is part of a network of such
practice communities coordinated by the Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition.

The Research Consortium is the research initiative of the School Meals Coalition, established at the
request of the 80+ member states to provide policymakers with access to independent, robust,
compelling, and actionable evidence on school health and nutrition, thus enabling them to develop
well-informed national programmes following the COVID-19 pandemic. With a small Secretariat based
at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Research Consortium operates as a global
network of networks to promote quality research and provide guidance on effective policymaking on
school health and nutrition programming.

The Research Consortium currently operates through six global academic Communities of Practice
(COPs), comprising world-leading experts based in research institutions all over the world. The
organization of the COPs is in response to the specific research requests that have emerged from the
80 member states. The Communities of Practice lead on: (i) identifying which school-based health
interventions have the strongest evidence; (ii) determining the value-for-money of school health
interventions and their impact on education outcomes; (iii) documenting good practices from national
school meal programmes across income levels; (iv) achieving consensus on the nutrition indicators to
collect for school-age children and adolescents; (v) identifying climate-smart approaches to national
school meals programmes and their underlying food systems; and (vi) establishing a platform for early
career researchers.

The Good Examples Communities of Practice engages in-country academics to develop independent
case studies on national school meals programmes. The purpose is to describe and disseminate
national experiences of implementing school meal programmes to share the best practices and to
identify levers which can support countries in developing or strengthening their own national
programmes. Case studies are published as working papers on the Research Consortium website, and
case study writers may choose to organize a launch event to share the findings from the analysis. To
date, case studies from Canada and the four devolved nations from the United Kingdom have
completed their analyses, with Finland, France, Japan, and the USA anticipated to publish their case
study shortly, and more than 10 countries that are now beginning their analyses1.

CONSULTANCY ROLE: The purpose of the consultancy is to:

i. Support the coordination of the Good Examples COP’s programme of work over a 6-month
period.
ii. Coordinate the quality assurance of the growing body of completed case studies.

1
Completed case studies can be found on the publications page of the Research Consortium’s website.

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 iii. Identify suitable platforms to cross-post the case studies for wider readership.

The main responsibilities include:

• Organize reoccurring meetings, circulate the agenda and feedback, and summarize key points
from the meetings;
• Support the organization and execution of COP webinars and other dissemination activities
(i.e., launch events in select countries; preparation for the School Meals Coalition Ministerial
Meeting, etc.). This will include the drafting of interest generation communications;
• Support the development of funding applications to enable the development of additional
case studies, especially in low- and lower-middle-income countries;
• Be the interlocutor between the Good Examples COP and the RCSHN Secretariat, including
supporting the COP chairs, when requested, to follow-up on expressions of interest from
countries;
• Coordinate the quality assurance process for each case study, including emailing thought
leaders for their review; formatting case studies for publication, etc.; and
• Other tasks as assigned.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

1. Post graduate degree in nutrition, public health, economics or related field

2. Four years of professional experience with health, nutrition, agriculture programmes, and/or
climate change
3. Experience in supporting knowledge networks and partnerships
4. Demonstrated experience with external-facing report writing
5. Experience in working with universities and/or UN agencies
6. Ability to work in a remote and/or hybrid structure and balance tasks amidst other competing
priorities

Contract Length, Duration, and Reporting Structure

The consultant will be overseen by the Good Example COP Chairs, Sylvie Avallone (l’Institut Agro), Heli
Kuusipalo (THL-Finland) and Celine Giner (OECD) but will be managed by Linda Schultz (LSHTM) and
Prof Donald Bundy (LSHTM). This role can be done fully remote or in a hybrid structure.

We anticipate a level of effort of 1 day per week2 on average over a six-month period (June-November
2023). However, the level of effort is anticipated to vary across weeks, in accordance with countries
progress with developing their case studies and related activities.

How to apply

Please email your CV and a short statement of your interest in this consultancy to
Samantha.Owen@lshtm.ac.uk.

2
Spread over a full working week rather than concentrated into one day.