Senior Malaria Specialist at Malaria Consortium

Department: Technical
Length of Contract: Five years
Role type: National
Grade: 11
Hours: 40
Travel involved: Up to 40%
Child safeguarding level: TBC

Country and Project Background
Malaria is highly endemic in Nigeria and it remains one of the leading causes of childhood and maternal morbidity and mortality in the country. Nigeria is deeply committed to making progress towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and it recognizes the fact that, without firm efforts to control malaria, achievement of the targets related to child mortality, maternal mortality, and reducing the burden of communicable disease will not be possible.

Malaria therefore constitutes a significant development challenge for Nigeria. Interventions for reducing malaria burden in the country are documented in the national malaria strategic plan with Government taking the lead in its implementation with the support of all the RBM partners.
The DFID funded and Malaria Consortium led malaria programme, SUNMAP, provided technical assistance and other support to the Nigeria National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP) covering the period 2008 to 2016.

The anticipated follow on project, SUNMAP2 has been designed to strengthen the management and technical capacity of NMEP, State Malaria Elimination Programme (SMEP) and their stakeholders to drive the implementation of the National Malaria Strategic Plan, 2014 to 2020 and achieve its ambitious targets. This will include short term technical assistance and technical assistance embedded in NMEP in key areas of programme management, evidence generation and use, and capacity building across all project outputs and ultimately reducing Nigeria’s malaria burden and strengthening the Government of Nigeria’s health systems capacity to ensure long term programme and impact sustainability.

Job Purpose

• The Senior Malaria Specialist will provide technical leadership on all aspects of malaria control to the project and working closely with the project team to implement evidence-based approaches to achieve the projects outcomes
• The position holder will serve as a resource for up-to-date technical information on malaria control and elimination including providing technical support to NMEP, SMEP and other key stakeholders
• He/She will supervise a team of four specialists and support them to implement work plans in a coherent and harmonised manner.

Qualifications and Experience

• Postgraduate Degree in Epidemiology or Public Health with a focus on malaria control/elimination
• At least 8 years working in technical role with an excellent understanding of malaria control/elimination approaches
• Significant experience in intervention design and implementation of large-scale malaria control projects
• Familiarity with the challenges and opportunities of malaria control Sub Saharan Africa (SSA)
• Experience in setting up standards of technical quality as well as internal quality assurance mechanisms
• Experience with value-for-money measurements
• Familiarity with the Nigerian health system.

Salary
Competitive