What is the GNC Mentoring Programme?
The GNC Mentoring Programme is one of the GNC’s main capacity strengthening activities, aligned with the GNC Strategy 2022-25. This strategy aims to support 80 countries facing ongoing or potential humanitarian emergencies by 2025, helping them enhance or develop their national and subnational programmatic and coordination capacities for an adequate nutrition response.
These capacity strengthening activities are grounded in the GNC’s Capacity Development Framework, which is structured across four levels of knowledge and skills: introductory (level 1), general (level 2), advanced (level 3), and master (level 4). The GNC Mentoring Programme focuses on advanced-level career development, offering on-the-job support to achieve timely and effective nutrition responses in humanitarian contexts.
This initiative is designed to foster professional growth within the nutrition cluster community through structured, objective-driven mentoring relationships between experienced mentors and mentees. These relationships focus on building competencies and soft skills in three key areas: Coordination, Information Management, and Nutrition in Humanitarian Contexts.
Objectives of the GNC Mentoring Programme
Tailored Support: The programme offers personalised, real-time mentoring to anyone involved in nutrition cluster emergency response, including local NGO staff, Nutrition Cluster Coordinators and Information Management Officers at national and sub-national level, governmental counterparts, and UNICEF and nutrition cluster partner teams.
Confidence Building: Its goal is to enhance mentees' confidence in navigating the challenges that come with their role.
Knowledge Sharing: The mentorship format facilitates the exchange of best practices, experiences, and approaches in cluster coordination, information management, nutrition in emergency programmes, and humanitarian leadership.
The Key Components of the GNC Mentoring Programme
1. Mentor and Mentee Requirements
Mentors must have 5+ years of experience and a strong background in their mentoring focus area. For further details on specialisations and the application process, please refer to the Mentors Factsheet – applications are accepted year-round!
Mentees need at least 4 months of on-the-job experience in their targeted areas and should demonstrate a strong commitment to learning. To learn more about becoming a mentee, check out the Mentees Factsheet – Local and National Actors (LNAs) are encouraged to apply!
2. Programme Structure
The mentoring programme runs annually and includes a 3-5 month mentoring phase within a structured 7-step process, from mentor/mentee selection to post-mentoring evaluations.
3. Mentoring Process
Mentors and mentees hold regular online sessions through the GNC Mentoring Programme Platform on Agora. In the first meeting, they establish mentoring agreements that define goals and commitments.
The programme offers ongoing support and conducts feedback evaluations regularly to ensure effective mentoring relationships.
At the end of each cycle, participants complete a post-mentoring review to assess the insights and skills gained.
Six months or more after the program, mentees complete a skills application survey to measure the long-term impact on their work and contributions to the nutrition community.
How to Get Involved with the GNC Mentoring Programme
Interested in Becoming a Mentor?
You can apply anytime by completing the GNC Mentoring Programme Application for Mentors. We're always looking for experienced, motivated individuals to join our mentoring team! Successful applicants first complete a training and an orientation at their own pace and, in some cases, shadow an experienced mentor.
As a qualified mentor, you'll help mentees navigate challenges, provide constructive feedback, support their skill development, and foster a safe, open environment for discussions. Watch Professor David Clutterbuck explain more about the role in this video.
For more details about the programme and its benefits, check out the GNC Mentoring Programme Factsheet for Mentors.
Interested in Becoming a Mentee?
As a mentee, you'll gain confidence in tackling challenges, learn from your mentor’s guidance and expertise, and enhance leadership, management, and technical skills. The programme also helps you improve work performance and build meaningful professional relationships. Plus, you'll receive a certificate upon successful completion.
Keep an eye on our newsletter and social media channels (LinkedIn and X) for updates on the next programme launch, which typically occurs at the beginning of each year.
For details about the programme and its intended audience, please check out the GNC Mentoring Programme Factsheet for Mentees.
Have any questions? Feel free to contact us at gnc@unicef.org.
Useful links
“The mentoring programme provided me with firsthand experience towards showing compassion and understanding towards my Mentees as a mentor. Our everyday work tends to hinder how best to deliver mentorship; with key issues being workload, lack of time to dedicate to the mentoring programme, ad-hoc work schedules superseding agreed time slots and meetings. With all these limitations, mentees and me as a mentor were able to navigate positively towards and it enabled us to meet our overall goals and objectives towards the mentorship programme.”
– Isaac Macha, Mentor (Kenya)
“During the mentoring I was nutrition Technical Specialist, however I’m now senior Nutrition Technical specialist – upgraded one step”
– Mentee (Somalia)
“Le programme de mentorat du GNC m'a permis de développer des nouvelles compétences de leadership, de résolution de problèmes et approfondis mes connaissances sur la coordination du cluster en finalisant plusieurs modules de formation proposé dans Agora. Mon travail au quotidien a été donc amélioré. De plus, mon réseau professionnel a été élargie.”
– Mentee (Burkina Faso)
“I am particularly grateful for the guidance, encouragement, and abundant knowledge provided by my mentor, Rachel Lozano, during the mentoring period. Her support has been invaluable in helping me grow professionally.”
– Mentee (Somalia)