1. Background and Justification

South Sudan has continued to experience protracted humanitarian crises since 2013, orchestrated by cyclic trends of disasters and conflict. The current wave of acute food insecurity, famine, malnutrition, and their related risk of epidemic-prone disease, is driven by climatic shocks (floods and dry spells), insecurity (caused by sub-national and localized violence), population displacements, persistent annual cereal deficits, diseases and pests, economic crisis and hyperinflation. The protracted emergencies currently graded at UN Level 3 have resulted in mass population displacement, worsening food insecurity, malnutrition, and heightened risk of disease outbreaks leaving an estimated 8.9 million people in need of urgent humanitarian assistance (HRP 2022). Access to essential services has been cut off increasing dependency on humanitarian assistance. Available data posits that the country has suffered from a triple shock of sub-national violence, food insecurity, and flooding that began in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 depleting local coping mechanisms, and it is projected that the trends will continue into the last quarter of 2022 as evidence by the current floods in most states of south Sudan. It is expected that the floods and insecurity will further decimate people’s livelihoods and social services mechanisms sending more people into displaced camps where the risk of disease outbreaks is higher.

Objectives of the WHO’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Programme.

Since the start of 2022, South Sudan has suffered simultaneous outbreaks of diseases, including cholera, hepatitis E, meningitis, anthrax, and measles in most of the high-risk counties, with COVID-19 and malaria affecting all 80 counties. The mission of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme is to help countries, and coordinate international action, to prevent, prepare for, detect, rapidly respond to, and recover from outbreaks and emergencies. The ongoing floods, acute food insecurity, and other humanitarian responses in the country are intended to ensure continuity of access to essential health and nutrition services, address the increased health needs, and prevent and respond to disease outbreaks in emergency locations in a fashionable and well-coordinated manner.

• Purpose of the Position:

To promote and uphold the humanitarian and public health principles by leading a coordinated and effective health sector response together with the national and international community, with specific attention to vulnerable and marginalized populations, through effectuating WHO’s commitment to work within the framework of the Interagency Standing Committee (IASC) and the cluster approach. The incumbent will be responsible for performing dedicated coordination, health needs assessment, strategy development, and resource mobilization, supporting the implementation, and monitoring the joint incident management system and advocacy function at the sub-national level.

2. Job Description

Organizational context

Reporting to the Health Cluster Coordinator and under the technical guidance of the WHO Country Office, the incumbent is expected to discharge WHO’s lead role in the health cluster and to impartially represent the interests of the members of the health cluster at the subnational level, including the provision of active support to working groups of the cluster which may be coordinated by other agencies. The sub-national Cluster Coordinator leads an interagency team in an environment that requires high standards of accountability and demonstrable leadership, coordination, negotiation and conflict resolution skills, and in which the principles of partnership, collaboration, and collective results are essential.

The sub-national health cluster coordinator plays a strong role in promoting agreed national and international standards in all areas of healthcare and strives for the best attainable health status for the populations served by the cluster. S/he identifies and engages with health sector stakeholders and utilizes existing coordination mechanisms, including national/state health authorities, national and international organizations and civil society; represents the health cluster in inter-cluster coordination mechanisms and oversee the representation of the health cluster in other relevant sectors/clusters such as WASH, logistics, nutrition, protection, at subnational level maintaining neutrality vis-a-vis all partners including WHO.

Summary of Assigned Duties:

During deployment, the duty station may change, and duties may be modified, based upon the technical needs of the Programme.

Needs assessment and gap analysis.

1. Manage, coordinate and be the overall lead within the health cluster or at inter-cluster level for rapid health needs assessments, as well as participatory assessments (multi cluster/sector initial rapid assessments and humanitarian needs overviews, post-event risk assessment post disaster/post conflict needs assessment) at assigned sub national level; be familiar with and ready to choose from existing tools to confirm that the health cluster covers all identified humanitarian health needs of the affected population.
2. Assist health cluster collecting information from all health partners on Who’s Where, since and until When, doing What (4Ws), and regularly feed the database managed by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA). Assist health cluster to provide consolidated feedback to all partners and the other clusters.

Strategic planning

3. Together with health cluster coordinator, contribute to the development, in cooperation with the health cluster members, of the health sector components of the coordinated assessments and humanitarian response and development plan (HRDP) as well as contingency planning for potential new events and other interagency planning, ensure proper linkages with the incident management system, disaster risk reduction, relief and recovery to complement national health sector preparedness/response plans.
4. Ensure full compliance with national and international norms and standards, oversee that cross-cutting issues are mainstreamed in the health cluster response and implementation plans, taking into account the need for local adaptation.

Coordination of the health cluster at sub national level

5. Ensure implementation of optimum sub-national health cluster coordination in assigned areas by facilitating provision of adequate technical and operational guidance to relevant authorities, and partners.

6. Establish, maintain and strengthen appropriate sub-national intra-cluster and inter-cluster coordination mechanisms in health and health related Emergency Preparedness and Response (ERP) at field levels through working groups, partnerships.
7. Facilitate health partner coordination and involvement in health and other related sector assessments (e.g. nutrition, WASH), planning, information, interventions, monitoring and quality assurance, and regularly report on health services delivered to the affected population.
8. Ensure adequate health services coverage for the catchment population by carrying out regular capacity and resource mapping of health assets and services in conjunction with WHO programme sections, UN sister agencies, partners, and relevant authorities. Work in collaboration with health facility (HF) partners to ensure quality and coverage of services delivery.
9. Identify urgent technical gaps and training needs in relation to technical standards and protocols for the delivery of key health services to ensure their adoption and uniform application by all health cluster partners; identify opportunities for capacity building in collaboration with partners.
10. Ensure appropriate links among humanitarian actions and longer-term health sector plans, incorporating the concept of “building back better” and specific risk reduction measures.
11. Convene and facilitate consultative and results-oriented meetings in line with the principles of partnership. Organize and conduct joint support missions to field operations.
12. Contribute to the development of a functional Information Management strategy and mechanism for the health cluster to facilitate information sharing as well as monitoring and reporting; cobtirbute to health cluster’s regular updates, technical reports, bulletins and briefings on the health status of the affected people, response activities, resources mobilization, achievements, challenges and the remedial actions when necessary.
13. Support national (health system) capacity building in emergency preparedness and response in accordance with the IASC emergency response preparedness (ERP) approach and other related guidance.

Resources mobilization and funds allocation

14. Participate and contributes to health cluster’s development of resource mobilization efforts, Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and other pooled fund proposals and other funding documents, as required.

Monitoring and evaluation

15. Assist health cluster to develop, adapt and implement an indicators’ monitoring framework to ensure adequate implementation of the health cluster plans; empower partners’ active involvement in joint monitoring of individual and common plans of action for health interventions. Promote peer exchange of experiences and lessons learned within the cluster partnership.
16. Represent health cluster in field and conduct field visits in close collaboration with health cluster, authorities, partners and coordination mechanism at sub national level.

Advocacy

17. Identify core advocacy concerns for the Health Cluster through a consultative process: develop joint cluster/ inter-cluster initiatives to ensure regular and consistent advocacy is conveyed to the Emergency Operation Centres (EOC) as well as to the national level Health Cluster RC/HC and humanitarian country team. Advocate for collective action, collective results, and collective accountability.
18. Represent the health cluster in inter-cluster coordination mechanisms in Gedeo and West Guji, contribute to jointly identifying critical issues that require multisectoral responses, and plan the relevant synergistic interventions with the other clusters concerned.
19. Advocate for priorities in the health sector, including protection for health workers and health facilities and the highest possible integration of the health-related activities in the humanitarian agenda.

20. Perform any other cluster related incident-specific duties, as required by the functional supervisor.

Recruitment Profile Competencies: Generic

Describe the core, management or leadership competencies required – See WHO competency model – list in order of priority, commencing with the most important ones.

1. Building and promoting partnerships across the organization and beyond
2. Teamwork
3. Respecting and promoting individual and cultural differences.
4. Creating an empowering and motivating environment
5. Communication

Functional Knowledge and Skills

• • Describe the essential knowledge and the skills specific to the position.

• Demonstrated knowledge of the rapid response operations and their implementation in emergencies as related to public health, complemented by demonstrated ability to identify and manage difficult situations, to lead and direct multidisciplinary and multinational staff.
• In-depth knowledge of emergency relief policies and practices within the UN, other UN specialized agencies, donor agencies, national and international NGOs.
• Sound knowledge and experience about disaster prevention and preparedness programmes and the incident management system.
• Excellent negotiation skills and ability to convene stakeholders and facilitate a policy process among UN, NGOs, national health authorities and donors.

Education Qualifications

Essential

An advanced university degree (master’s level or above) in public health, medicine, international health, management or social sciences or related field.

Desirable

Specialized training in emergency management, international aid, humanitarian principles, health system recovery, and health cluster coordination.

Experience

Essential

At least seven years of relevant experience at national and international level, in developing and promoting collaborative partnerships in emergency and humanitarian relief operations, including experience in managing and coordinating health programs in chronic and acute, sudden‑onset emergencies.

Desirable

Relevant work experience in WHO, other UN agencies, health cluster partners, relevant nongovernmental or humanitarian organizations.

3. Use of Language Skills

Excellent knowledge of English. Working knowledge of another WHO official language would be an asset.

Other Skills (e.g. IT)

Knowledge of Microsoft Office software applications. Excellent presentation skills.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• This vacancy notice may be used to fill other similar positions at the same grade level
• Only candidates under serious consideration will be contacted.
• A written test may be used as a form of screening.
• In the event that your candidature is retained for an interview, you will be required to provide, in advance, a scanned copy of the degree(s)/diploma(s)/certificate(s) required for this position. WHO only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU)/United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed through the link: http://www.whed.net/. Some professional certificates may not appear in the WHED and will require individual review.
• Any appointment/extension of appointment is subject to WHO Staff Regulations, Staff Rules and Manual.
• Staff members in other duty stations are encouraged to apply.
• For information on WHO’s operations please visit: http://www.who.int.
• WHO is committed to workforce diversity.
• WHO’s workforce adheres to the WHO Values Charter and is committed to put the WHO Values into practice.
• WHO has a smoke-free environment and does not recruit smokers or users of any form of tobacco.
• This is a National Professional Officer position. Therefore, only applications from nationals of the country where the duty station is located will be accepted. Applicants who are not nationals of this country will not be considered.