Senior Adviser, Community Mobilization - Reproductive Maternal Neonal and Child Health at Save The Children

Save the Children seeks a Senior Adviser, Community Mobilization 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 Senior Adviser, in close collaboration with the project team, state and LGA MOH and other relevant ministry staff, will provide technical leadership and coordination to community mobilization activities in project states to improve provider-client interaction, RMNCH behaviors, care-seeking, and strengthen community led initiatives to improve health.

Responsibilities:

• Work collaboratively as a member of the RMNCH team to facilitate the revision/development of state strategies and methodologies for targeted, focused, and culturally and contextually tailored RMNCH and nutrition community mobilization and advocacy initiatives and contribute to social and behavior change communication (SBCC) approaches and strategies.
• Develop implementation plan and annual and quarterly work plans in collaboration with the Technical Director and RMNCH team.
• Facilitate the development or revision of state and LGA strategies and annual and quarterly implementation plans in collaboration with relevant state and LGA MOH and RMNCH project staff.
• Assist in the assessment of existing state and LGA community mobilization and SBCC structures to identify needs and provide appropriate technical support including targeted training and follow-up.
• Lead and support partners and state and LGA counterparts to strengthen community capacity and communication channels for improved RMNCH behaviors and service demand in communities.
• Work with partners and state and LGA MOH and the project team to monitor and evaluate the progress and impact of community mobilization activities.
• Mentor partner, state and LGA MOH and other ministries staff as appropriate.
• Guide the analysis, synthesis, lessons learned, and reporting of community mobilization outputs and results in close collaboration with the state, LGA and project M&E team, and incorporation into quality improvement processes and other ongoing project tasks.
• Co-lead with state MOH counterpart periodic reviews of community mobilization components of the project
• Liaise with relevant FMOH, Primary Health Care Development Agency (PHCDA), and other relevant ministries focal persons and participate in selected national forum and technical working groups.

Qualifications:

• Advanced degree in public health, health development, or social sciences.
• At least 10 years of experience in planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of community mobilization and SBCC programs.
• Prior experience working with Nigeria’s public health system.
• Prior experience working with USAID funded projects highly preferred.
• Demonstrated 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.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills; ability to work effectively with a diverse team.
• Strong training, mentoring, coaching and interpersonal skills, including supportive supervision.
• Computer literacy in the following: MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook.
• Fluency in English required; fluency in Hausa preferred.
• Willingness to travel extensively, and potentially live in northern Nigeria.