Senior Program Officer, Child Health

Senior Program Officer, Child Health

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Abuja, Niger

Your Role

The Senior Program Officer, Child Health’s primary purpose 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 Nigeria. This will be done specifically by supporting the “Resiliency through Azithromycin for Children” (REACH) program, which is in alignment with the foundation’s REACH strategy. The SPO will partner with teams across several divisions of the foundation, to deliver a “coordinated” one-foundation approach to ensure an accelerated scale-up of REACH and optimal impact on health challenges on the continent. The SPO will work closely with governments, the private sector, and civil society partners to catalyze these efforts. The focus of the foundation’s work will involve the development, testing, and scale-up of high-impact and cost-effective solutions in selected areas to drive results and influence scale nationally in Nigeria.

This role reports to the Deputy Director of Health Systems, Africa and the position will be based in Abuja, Nigeria.

What You’ll Do

• Co-develop strategies and implementation plans that will lead to accelerated scale-up of REACH and improvements in child survival in Nigeria.
• Oversee detailed targeting and micro-planning, interpreting data to localize the scale-up strategy, partnering closely with government and other collaborators.
• Identify, negotiate, implement, and monitor 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 monitoring 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, supervising and evaluating components of grants.
• Work closely with the Nigerian federal and state governments and implementing agencies to develop operational research and implementation frameworks for new and emerging interventions for child survival, such as periodic azithromycin distribution to reduce child mortality in high-mortality settings
• Manage grants and stakeholder 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 survival and mortality reduction policy and priorities.
• Liaise with Seattle-based research and product development teams to ensure research and product development strategies within Nigeria are tailored to the local context.
• Engage a broad range of collaborators and decision-makers working on the delivery of clinical services for child survival, 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. Within this coalition, work collectively to see opportunities to optimize clinical services at the “last mile”, with an emphasis on making such services more accessible, effective, cost-effective, of higher quality, and client-centered. Support testing and evaluation of such opportunities through grants, contracts, and technical collaboration.
• 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.
• Any other activities to support the foundation’s strategy on REACH.
• 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. Potentially taking ownership for 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 Nigeria County 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.

Your Experience

The foundation is seeking an expert in public health service delivery management in African settings.

The ideal candidate should have:

• The ideal candidate will have a minimum of 10 years of proven 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 agencies, and other national-level partners in developing countries.
• In 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.
• Previous experience may include work in academia, government, management consulting, other foundations, pharmaceutical, or research institutions, with a preference for regional African experience.
• The candidate should have an in-depth understanding of the Nigerian health system, 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 managing complex delivery of health programs, with evidence of achievement of significant results whether directly or indirectly influenced.
• Collaborates: Building partnerships and working collaboratively with others to meet shared/joint objectives, both internally and externally. Ability to orchestrate effective decisions across a broad range of issues and collaborators, assess progress, analyze gaps, and make necessary changes.
• Strategic Approach: Seeing ahead to future possibilities and translating them into strategies, concrete theories of change, and actions. 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.
• Manages complexity and ambiguity effectively: Making sense of complex, high quantity, and sometimes contradictory information to effectively solve problems – especially in managing relations. Demonstrated ability to work with flexibility, efficiency, and diplomacy in a complex, fast-paced environment both in Nigeria and the headquarter in Seattle.
• Communicates effectively: Developing and delivering communications that convey complex situations clearly and concisely with a broad and diverse audience.
• Demonstrable experience with effective interactions between country-level and headquarter offices is critical.
• Being resilient: Rebounding from setbacks and adversity when facing difficult situations both internally and externally. Self-motivated and self-managing.

Other Attributes

• Comfortable in a wide range of cultural, geographic, and operational situations, demonstrating culturally sensitive behavior with a diverse range of people.
• Ability to travel up to 40% domestically and internationally.
• Regional African public health service delivery experience is mandatory
• The ability to communicate in FRENCH is an added advantage.
• Excellent interpersonal communication skills, ability to convey complex issues clearly and simply, and listen attentively.

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