Country Director at Results for Development (R4D)

Overview
Practice Areas and Current Program Scope of Work:

• R4D is creating the new role of Country Director to be a strategic leader in delivering results through R4D’s current program of work and, over time, developing new programs that support R4D’s goal to strengthen health, education and nutrition systems in Nigeria.  
• R4D’s organizational matrix is based on sector-specific practices in Health, Education and Nutrition and a series of cross-cutting practices including Accountability and Citizen Engagement, Collaborative Learning, Evaluation and Adaptive Learning, Market Shaping, and Scaling Innovations. R4D’s current program of work in Nigeria focuses on health care financing with emerging new programs focused on market shaping within the health sector, improving nutrition financing and nutrition data for decision-making, and accountability and citizen engagement approaches in the extractives industry.
• Health Care Financing.  In 2014, the Government of Nigeria committed to reforming health care financing and service delivery by enacting the Nigeria National Health Act. The Act officially recognized Nigerians’ right to health and established a Basic Health Care Provision Fund to make financial resources available for primary health care (PHC) services. These reforms have the potential to greatly strengthen Nigeria’s PHC system and improve population health. Federal and state governments in Nigeria are currently working to implement systems for channeling these new health care funds for service delivery and financing and setting up state-level demand side financing mechanisms.
• To support these reforms, R4D, in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID, has been engaged for several years working with public actors and a consortium of development partners to provide a technical assistance program to foster more equitable and sustainable health care financing to improve the health of all Nigerians. R4D is supporting change agents at both the federal and state-levels:
• The federal work engages key stakeholders in joint policy dialogue, generating evidence to inform health financing design options, and disseminating that evidence and practical implementation tools to states.
• For the state-specific work, R4D is working closely with the state governments of Kaduna and Niger to analyze their unique health systems contexts, design tailored demand-side financing programs, and support the implementation of those programs.
• R4D is also supporting evidence translation and monitoring, evaluation, and adaptive learning between the federal and state levels and collaborative learning among states through the Nigeria Joint Learning Network.

Additional Areas of R4D Support in Nigeria

• Nutrition: R4D’s Nutrition team works at the global and country level to help change agents finance and meet ambitious nutrition targets. In Nigeria, R4D’s current support includes working through the Data for Decisions to Expand Nutrition Transformation (DataDENT) project to support the Nigeria Governor’s forum with state level scorecards to track nutrition progress, as well as beginning new work with government and partners to track financial resources for nutrition coming from all sources in all nutrition-relevant sectors.
• Accountability and Citizen Engagement:  R4D’s Accountability and Citizen Engagement (ACE) team empowers citizens and civil society to hold governments, institutions and service delivery providers accountable. The current engagement in Nigeria comes through the Leveraging transparency to reduce corruption program (LTRC), a research program focusing on the prevention of corruption and reduction of corruption risks in the extractive sector worldwide.
• Accountability and Citizen Engagement:  R4D’s Accountability and Citizen Engagement (ACE) team empowers citizens and civil society to hold governments, institutions and service delivery providers accountable. The current engagement in Nigeria comes through the Leveraging transparency to reduce corruption program (LTRC), a research program focusing on the prevention of corruption and reduction of corruption risks in the extractive sector worldwide.

Opportunity

• R4D is seeking a Country Director (CD) for its Abuja, Nigeria office to serve as the strategic leader in overseeing R4D’s current portfolio of work in Nigeria on health systems and health financing and, longer-term, continuously build and develop these and new programs that support R4D’s goal to strengthen health, education and nutrition systems in Nigeria.
• The CD will play a key leadership role in co-creating, along with domestic in-country stakeholders, a holistic strategy for strengthening health, education and nutrition systems in Nigeria leveraging R4D’s technical strengths.
• The Country Director will work with change agents both in and outside of the Nigerian government to identify points of entry where R4D’s expertise and networks can generate lasting systemic change; build coalitions of domestic stakeholders aligned behind those strategies and entry points, lead business development efforts to mobilize resources to finance those strategies and programs.
• The CD will interact with a diverse set of local, national and global stakeholders, oversee the execution of high quality analytical and strategic work, manage the R4D Nigeria-based team and local partnerships, and will participate in key decisions and recommendations affecting the overall organization.
• In the short- and medium-term, the CD’s primary responsibility will be to lead R4D’s existing health financing program, as described above, providing programmatic oversight and technical input, ensuring R4D’s work is executed with excellence and with impactful results.
• This position is based in Abuja, Nigeria and will report to the Managing Director.

Responsibilities

• Responsibilities of the Country Director will include, but will not be limited to:
• Lead the strategic development and planning of R4D’s Nigeria country strategy and portfolio of programs, including identifying creative ways to expand current work leveraging R4D’s strengths and unique value proposition
• Actively cultivate and manage relationships with key funders and partners including the Nigerian government, NGOs, bilateral and multilateral donor agencies and foundations (i.e.: Gates Foundation, World Bank, USAID), and other private sector actors
• Oversee federal and state health financing technical assistance programs, ensuring effective execution of all programmatic work-streams within R4D and the larger consortium of partners
• Serve as a technical resource on health systems, health financing, and health policy
• Oversee and manage Nigeria-based R4D staff and project teams
• Mentor and coach R4D team members by providing direction, input, and feedback
• Lead new project conceptualization and current projects’ operationalization, including overseeing the development of work plans, the production of high quality analytical and technical deliverables on time and on budget, and hiring of new staff as needed
• Oversee, manage, and continuously improve all day-to-day aspects of R4D’s program in Nigeria, including ensuring compliance with Nigerian laws and R4D policies & procedures, managing program budget and ensuring sound fiscal management

Qualifications

• Significant program leadership and management experience, expertise in global health and/or nutrition, strong communication, presentation and facilitation skills, and an ability to think strategically and entrepreneurially about R4D programs and portfolio development are required.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and an approachable management style are essential to the success of the individual in this role along with the ability to work collaboratively, build-relationships, understand the perspectives of all stakeholders, problem solve, and create/foster relationships and forge compromises.
• Experience working closely with the Nigerian government and major international and local development partners is essential, and experience working with the FMOH and its parastatal agencies (e.g., National Primary Health Care Development Agency or National Health Insurance Scheme) is particularly relevant.

Ideal candidates will also possess:

• 15+ years of experience with an emphasis on health systems strengthening (HSS), including health financing and health policy; experience in nutrition, governance and accountability and/or other relevant human development areas also highly desired
• MA (or PhD) in Business Management/Administration, Public Health, Health Economics, Finance, Public Policy, Public Administration, or related advanced degree
• Relevant experience leading or directly supporting large-scale government-led reform, including designing operations and successfully implementing complex programs with multiple partners and work streams
• Relevant experience collaborating with local partners and facilitating organizational design and institutional capacity development
• Strong strategic thinking skills and an entrepreneurial approach
• Demonstrated track record of successfully creating and fostering partnerships and generating new business and thought leadership opportunities
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with experience leading the development of analytical products and ensuring high quality of all deliverables
• Exceptional facilitation, written and verbal communication skills; ability to prepare compelling presentations, written reports, and effectively present work/findings in international and country-level forums
• Ability to effectively set priorities and handle competing time and resource demands for self and others, with an ability to adapt and manage change processes
• High level of proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly PowerPoint, Word, and Excel
• Willingness to travel approximately 25% internationally and domestically, per project needs