MSF Academy Director (m/f/x) – Brussels – MSF Academy for Healthcare

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international humanitarian aid organization that provides assistance in more than 80 countries to populations in distress, to victims of natural or manmade disasters and to victims of armed conflicts, without discrimination and irrespective of origin, religion, creed or political affiliation.

CONTEXT

The MSF Academy for Healthcare is an intersectional training initiative that focuses on strengthening the skills and competencies of healthcare workers in MSF projects, with the will to have a long-term impact on the quality of care in the countries where MSF intervenes.
The Academy field teams are present in Central African Republic, South Sudan, Mali, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Yemen, and soon in Burkina Faso. Emphasis is placed on MSF’s locally hired staff, especially in the countries with the largest gaps in human resources for health (HRH) capacity (e.g. nursing staff in MSF-supported hospitals). Beyond MSF projects, the Academy also liaises with health authorities for joint recognition of its learning programmes and support to governmental programmes. Currently the Academy is running multiple programs such as the “The Outpatient care initiative”, a “Post-Graduate Diploma in Infectious Diseases” (PG DIP ID), the “Post-Graduate Diploma in Medical Humanitarian Leadership”, or “Antimicrobial resistance” (AMR)
The Academy has a growing portfolio of projects addressing specific learning objectives for different categories of healthcare staff in MSF. All these projects, chosen in line with overall MSF operational and medical priorities, are increasing in scope and complexity. The Academy has a growing “global team”, composed of the director, deputy director, resource manager and 3 project managers as well as a strong technical team comprising medical experts and learning science experts to support our projects, and a group of distance-learning clinical mentors. In the countries where a training program is implemented, strong country teams are present. The global team counts 26 staff, and the field-based teams have 70 staff. The budget of the MSF Academy amounts to about 5.7 M euro for 2024. Our objective is to maintain a uniform educational approach in all our projects: competency-based learning; on-the-job training with the presence of strong tutors or clinical mentors; while striving to achieve appropriate accreditations for all trainings, often in collaboration with partner teaching institutes. By the end of 2023, a total of 1417 learners had enrolled one of the MSF Academy’s courses and 608 had graduated.
From 2024 onwards, the MSF Academy is recognised as a collective investment for the MSF movement and is funded through the IPPC (International Project and Portfolio Committee) mechanism. In parallel, the MSF Academy is in contact with fundraisers in MSF offices to present it as a potential earmarked project for major donors and foundations with the objective of having a significant proportion (over 50%) of the MSF Academy covered by earmarked funds.
As the MSF Academy Director, your objective is to ensure that MSF Academy is able to produce strong results for MSF and its learners. This you can achieve through a long-term, dynamic strategy that aligns with MSF’s needs, pertinent and well-implemented programs meeting quality criteria, a functional team, effective monitoring and evaluation, positive collaboration with MSF stakeholders, strategic partnerships with external entities, and sound resource and budget management, including attracting donor funds for over half of the budget and fostering internal collaboration for collective investment projects within the movement.

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

Overall management of the MSF Academy, alongside the Deputy director
• Ensure the overall management of the MSF Academy while delegating a part of the responsibilities to the deputy director. This delegation of tasks between director and deputy director can be dynamic.
• Ensure the proper functioning of the Programme Board (composed of 7 members, including a director of every operational centre) in coordination with the PB president (setting the agenda, planning meetings, setting the Terms of Reference, onboarding new members)
• Engage regularly with Medical Directors (DirMed) (2 meetings per year) and Medical Operations (MedOp) (ad hoc). The directors lead and guide the decision-making process on new programme priorities, which must be validated by the DirMed MSF Academy Director (m/f/x) – Brussels – MSF Academy for Healthcare
• Coordinate and interact with MSF L&D actors as the MSF Academy plays a leading role in re-designing the learning landscape in MSF
• Establish strategic interaction with peripheral offices of MSF that are considered strategic for the Academy (now: Beirut, Nairobi, Dakar and Abidjan)
• Create, negotiate and develop partnerships with key external actors for its programmes (universities, governmental services)
• The line management of the individual team members is shared between director and deputy.
Specific programme management and supervision activities
• Be directly in charge of the management of:
o The Post Graduate Diploma in Infectious Diseases
o The OPD learning programme
o The upstart of the Diploma course in Paediatrics (French-speaking)
These direct project management responsibilities can change over time as the management approach in the global team of the MSF Academy evolves.
• Provide close strategic overview and support for several programmes (managed by Project Managers):
o The Post Graduate Diploma in Medical Humanitarian Leadership
o The AMR learning programme
• Remain available to guide or lead assessments in preparation of new initiatives and to lead the start of new activities and programmes
• Ensure strategic support to the Intersectional Surgical Training Programme (ISTP)
Internal Networking management
• Participate actively in several platforms, working groups or governance bodies that concern medical learning in MSF in view of improving the quality of learning in the organisation and positioning the MSF Academy
• Ensure a functional link with operations department throughout the movement to improve the quality of the implementation of medical learning in the field and to contribute to a stronger learning culture in the organisation
• Ensure a strong link with the principal stakeholders in the medical departments of all the Operational Centers to integrate learning activities in the efforts to improve quality of care

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