The primary purpose of the Senior Program Officer (SPO), is to conceive, develop and lead a complex portfolio of grants and technical assistance at national and sub-national levels to improve child health outcomes in selected West African countries – Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. This will be done specifically through supporting the “Resiliency through Azithromycin for Children” (REACH) program, in alignment with the foundation’s REACH strategy.
Responsibilities:
Co-develop strategies and implementation plans that will lead to accelerated scale-up of REACH and improvements in child health in selected countries in West Africa.
Oversee detailed micro-planning, interpreting data to localize the scale-up strategy, partnering closely with government and other stakeholders.
Identify, negotiate, implement, and supervise complex, performance-based contracts/grants to accelerate the increase in child health outcomes. Specifically, this position will identify activities to support the adoption of innovations/interventions into clinical practice. This includes landscaping and identifying appropriate partners, undertaking operational research, macro- and micro-planning, training in workflow, surveillance and supervising the overall execution of investments.
Manage partnerships and grantee relationships to ensure learning and impact, for example, by conducting site visits, convening meetings of key collaborators, and supervising and evaluating components of grants.
Collaborate with the country governments in West African governments and implementing agencies to develop operational research and implementation frameworks for new and emerging interventions for child health, such as periodic azithromycin distribution to reduce child mortality in high-mortality settings
Manage grants and partner relationships at the country level to support early rollout of such strategies including the development of a local evidence base for appropriate policy development and scale-up.
Serve as a senior technical resource on new and emerging interventions for child health, connecting international research and scientific expertise with national child health and mortality reduction policy and priorities
Liaise with Seattle-based research and product development teams to ensure research and product development strategies in the selected countries are tailored to the local context.
Engage a broad range of partners and decision-makers working on the delivery of clinical services for child health, either in primary health clinical care settings or through mass delivery platforms such as neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), supplementary immunization activities (SIAs), Child Health Weeks, etc.
Facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration of partners across states and countries.
Contribute to writing background documents, briefs, articles, and presentations, including relevant literature reviews, landscape, and data analyses; organize and prepare for high-level foundation leadership trips.
Represent the foundation to key selected government health leaders, platforms, and working groups on REACH at state, national, and regional levels – this would include delving into issues from the policy level to the facility and community (i.e. demand generation) levels. Take ownership of coordinating all foundation health and development activities in one or more states.
Play a liaison and advisory role with different Seattle-based Global Health, Gender Equality, and Global Development teams, the West and Central Africa office, and the Africa Regional Office on investments aimed to optimize equitable coverage, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness for specific clinical services and tools.
Collaborate with foundation colleagues in related program areas to take advantage of cross-sector grant-making opportunities.
Requirements:
The ideal candidate will have a minimum of 10 years of relevant experience with an advanced degree in medicine, public health, health economics, public policy, or similar fields (e.g. MSPH, MHA, MPH, MD, PhD)
Proven experience in a low-income country context, or equivalent experience, in managing clinical service delivery programs at scale including the introduction of new treatments, use of diagnostics, and other decision tools to improve quality, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of care. Experience providing advice to government, donors, implementing agency, and other national-level partners in developing countries.
Experience with the implementation of child health interventions through mass-delivery platforms such as supplementary immunization activities, mass drug administration for malaria and/or neglected tropical diseases, Child Health Weeks, etc.
The candidate should have an in-depth understanding of the region’s health systems, as well as economic, social, and political factors that influence health outcomes.
In-depth experience in broader public health with a strong development orientation backed by excellent management capabilities.
Experience in integration across disease areas and/or integrating health and “non-health” interventions is a plus.
Experience in handling complex delivery of health programs, with evidence of achievement of significant results whether directly or indirectly influenced.
Experience with building partnerships and working collaboratively to meet shared/joint objectives, both internally and externally. Ability to orchestrate effective decisions across a broad range of issues and partners, assess progress, analyze gaps, and make vital changes.
Ability to think/act like an investor and a creative and generative problem solver. Innovative and open-minded approach; ability to question and challenge colleagues including managers and partners constructively.
