Technical Director - Reproductive Maternal Newborn and Child Health at Save The Children

Save the Children seeks a Technical Director for an upcoming USAID-funded health program in Nigeria. The program will focus on reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) and nutrition and will be implemented at least initially in northern Nigeria. The Technical Director, in close collaboration with the Chief of Party and Deputy Chief of Party, will provide overall technical leadership to the program. This is a senior leadership position and the successful candidate will serve on the project senior management team.

Responsibilities:

• Provide technical leadership for all RMNCH and nutrition activities in project states, working with state and Local Government Area (LGA) MOH leadership to ensure high quality, evidence‐based approaches and effective implementation to increase access to, use, and quality of services at the facility and community levels.
• Lead and contribute to the development of project work plans/implementation plans.
• Support the development and strengthening and implementation of state and LGA RMNCH and nutrition strategic and annual plans.
• Facilitate linkages and foster collaboration and coordination with key stakeholders, including relevant national, state, and local government authorities, NGO partners and civil society organizations involved in RMNCH, and communities.
• Ensure compliance with programmatic targets and deliverables and together with the State Health Commissioners co-lead regular reviews of program progress against objectives.
• Contribute to the development of evidence‐based training materials and standards, supportive supervision materials and approaches, job aids, and other systems and tools.
• Conduct regular field visits in collaboration with key national, state, and LGA MOH stakeholders and facilitate follow up on recommendations.
• Liaise with relevant MOH departments at national level and work together with state and LGA stakeholders to assess progress, challenges, and to identify practical solutions.
• Assist with coordinating technical and program input from short term technical assistance providers and/or consultants as needed.
• Oversee monitoring and evaluation of program activities in collaboration with project, state and LGA M&E staff.
• Liaise with relevant FMOH and Primary Health Care Development Agency (PHCDA) focal persons and participate in selected national forum and technical working groups.
• Assist the COP and DCOP with development of and finalization of all reports.
• Ensure appropriate training and capacity building of all program staff at field level; mentor and supervise project staff.
• Regularly engage in meetings with other NGOs to ensure a culture of learning across agencies as well as to strengthen networking efforts.

Qualifications:

• Clinical background in medicine or nursing and a Master’s Degree in public health or a related field.
• At least 10 years of experience in public health, with at least seven in a senior management position.
• Expertise in multiple technical areas highly desired, including family planning and reproductive health, maternal health, newborn health, child health, malaria, and nutrition.
• Proven senior expertise in developing and implementing effective partnerships with partners, local government entities, other NGOs, and USAID.
• Knowledge and proven experience in strategy development, staff oversight, program administration, contractual compliance, and financial management of large health programs.
• Prior experience working with Nigeria’s public health system.
• Prior experience working with USAID funded projects.
• Demonstrated leadership, management, coordination, teamwork, and planning skills, with proven ability to liaise effectively with and collaborate with a range of key stakeholders, including national and local officials, public, private and civil society partners, and communities.
• Strong training, mentoring, coaching and interpersonal skills.
• Computer literacy in the following: MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook.
• Fluency in English required and fluency in Hausa preferred.
• Willingness to travel extensively, and potentially live in northern Nigeria.