The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to our mission of saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries. We work at the invitation of governments to support them and the private sector to create and sustain high-quality health systems.

CHAI was founded in 2002 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic with the goal of dramatically reducing the price of life-saving drugs and increasing access to these medicines in the countries with the highest burden of the disease. Over the following two decades, CHAI has expanded its focus. Today, along with HIV, we work in conjunction with our partners to prevent and treat infectious diseases such as COVID-19, malaria, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Our work has also expanded into cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and other non-communicable diseases, and we work to accelerate the rollout of lifesaving vaccines, reduce maternal and child mortality, combat chronic malnutrition, and increase access to assistive technology. We are investing in horizontal approaches to strengthen health systems through programs in human resources for health, digital health, and health financing. With each new and innovative program, our strategy is grounded in maximizing sustainable impact at scale, ensuring that governments lead the solutions, that programs are designed to scale nationally, and learnings are shared globally.

At CHAI, our people are our greatest asset, and none of this work would be possible without their talent, time, dedication and passion for our mission and values. We are a highly diverse team of enthusiastic individuals across 40 countries with a broad range of skillsets and life experiences. CHAI is deeply grounded in the countries we work in, with the majority of our staff based in program countries.

In India, CHAI works in partnership with its India registered affiliate William J Clinton Foundation (WJCF) under the guidance of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) at the Central and States’ levels on an array of high priority initiatives aimed at improving health outcomes. Currently, WJCF supports government partners across projects to expand access to quality care and treatment for HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, tuberculosis, COVID-19, common cancers, sexual and reproductive health, immunization, and essential medicines.

Learn more about our exciting work: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org

Programme Overview:

India’s Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) is one of the largest public immunization programmes in the world. It caters to 27 million infants and 30 million pregnant women. The programme provides access to vaccines against 11 Vaccine Preventable Diseases (VPDs) at the national level and against one VPD at the sub-national level.

Under the strong leadership of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) and state governments, the immunization ecosystem has demonstrated a proactive commitment to achieving universal immunization coverage in the country in recent years. This includes health system strengthening to increase coverage, introduction of new vaccines, rolling out of digital data systems, digitization of vaccine cold chain and inventory management, and health worker capacity building. MoHFW plans to scale up a digitized beneficiary management system (UWIN) for Routine Immunization, introduce new vaccines in the UIP, and reduce Zero-dose children.

Based on the NFHS-5 data, the number of Zero-Dose children (those who missed pentavalent 1 vaccine after birth) in India stands at around 1.6 million. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan contribute the largest share of zero-dose children in the country. Building a top Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030), India aims to reduce the number of Zero-Dose children by 30% by 2026.

Project Background:

 

WJCF’s immunization program supports the MoHFW’s UIP at the national level and in the focus states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh. The programme also supports the state governments on broader operational aspects such as planning, capacity building and systems improvements for immunization service delivery.

In Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, the programme provides catalytic support for achieving and sustaining 90% FIC. The programme focuses on setting up effective program management & review mechanisms, identifying pressing challenges as well as best practices in RI, enhancing impact of well performing interventions, developing & deploying effective solutions to pressing challenges and undertaking multi-year planning for long term immunization systems strengthening. WJCF plans to increase its focus on two aspects to drive immunization coverage: one, strengthening of review quality and decision making through improved data analytics and capacity building, two, zero dose learning through hypothesis testing and iterative solutioning.

In Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, the programme also provides support to strengthen urban immunization systems and improve urban coverage in select cities in collaboration with the MoHFW and the state governments. Guided by the MoHFW’s City Embrace Model, the programme focuses on solving for systemic & hyperlocal challenges by conceptualizing & implementing contextual solutions.

Position Summary

We are looking for a dedicated, experienced, and versatile Gender Consultant to guide us in integrating a gender perspective into the overall Zero Dose Strategy and Implementation plan. The Gender Consultant is expected to lead and support initiatives for gender analysis, gender mainstreaming in intervention design, and deployment of bottom-up participatory approaches with a gender lens. This role involves collaborating with multidisciplinary teams including behaviour science, monitoring & evaluation, research, and state teams to ensure that project interventions are gender-sensitive and intentional.

The ideal candidate must possess expertise in gender and health, along with experience in strategizing and implementing gender and health interventions within a public health framework. Additionally, they should demonstrate proficiency in critically analysing both quantitative and qualitative data and exhibit excellent verbal and written communication skills. The candidate should have a strong command of developing and utilizing gender mainstreaming tools and methods. They should be capable of working independently and flexibly, and we highly value qualities such as resourcefulness, responsibility, tenacity, independence, energy, and work ethic.

This consultant will be engaged for a duration of 180 days across 18-24 months.

• Provide guidance and expertise to the program team on recognizing gender issues and disparities and Support and guide the project team on integrating gender sensitive, appropriate strategies in the design and implementation of the intervention to promote inclusivity in zero dose learning.
• Consistently applying a gender lens, guiding the team at each stage of the project, helping identify drivers, facilitating a thorough root cause analysis, aiding in the ideation, conceptualization & design of interventions and learning from the ongoing processes, to proactively course-correct through a gender perspective, ensuring the overall project to be gender transformative.
• Conduct desk research to draw hypotheses on the quantum of gender disparities, and how and why gender is impacting immunization outcomes and lead gender integration and inclusion of gender and equity-related indicators in qualitative and quantitative research and intervention plans.
• Support the team in analysing data through a gender lens. Identify intersectionality between gender and other socio-economic factors like gender and caste, gender, and income, etc. to identify the most vulnerable and marginalized population from immunization and overall health perspective.
• Lead gender mainstreaming in intervention design on zero-dose learning and management and governance improvement through gender analysis.
• Develop gender mainstreaming tools for the team and support the field team in utilizing the tools.
• Provide guidance and support to the team for the gender-based data collection.
• Facilitate capacity building of internal team and project staff on gender sensitivity and mainstreaming.
• Support sensitization and capacity building of program managers and health workers about the inequities in the zero-dose challenge and empower them with the necessary tools to deal with gender inequities and the impact of gender on immunization coverage and services.
• Develop a monitoring framework for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of gender mainstreaming activities and capacitate the project team to provide regular reports on the same at periodic intervals as specified.
• Advise on the development and incorporation of gender sensitive indicators including data collection and reporting mechanisms for regular data sets on Immunization Program.
• Support documentation of gender-informed approaches, interventions, and their impact for project reports, publications, etc and help in the dissemination of the same to various stakeholders.
• Perform other duties assigned by the program leadership.

• Degree in Gender Studies, public health, social sciences, or related field.
• Minimum of 5+ years of relevant experience in designing, managing, and implementing health programs with a strong gender focus.
• Proven experience in integrating considerations into health-related projects.
• Excellent knowledge of gender issues, particularly in the context of health and development.
• Expertise in gender analysis tools and methodologies.
• Strong analytical (qualitative and quantitative) skills and communication (written and verbal) skills.
• Entrepreneurial mindset, including the ability to self-motivate while working in a high-pressure, limited structure, and multicultural environment.
• Capability to drive an independent workstream in the context of a broader team project, and an ability to break down and solve problems through quantitative thinking and analysis.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
• Willingness to travel if required even to remote places in India.
• The consultant is expected to work remotely with need-based travel to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi.

Preferred

• Experience of working on gender and equity-related aspects of immunization or public health in low and middle-income countries.
• Experience in multilateral organizations, donor agencies, or international development agencies.
• Experience in qualitative and quantitative research and publication on public health and immunization challenges with a focus on gender.