Health Consultant at Nina Jojer Limited

Job Summary

• Nigeria continues to face a complex landscape of multiple concurrent public health emergencies, including recurrent outbreaks of Lassa fever, cholera, cerebrospinal meningitis (CSM), diphtheria, measles, mpox, and other epidemic- prone diseases, alongside climate-related emergencies such as floods and displacement crises.
• These overlapping emergencies are placing severe pressure on fragile health systems, disrupting essential services, and disproportionately affecting children, women, and other vulnerable populations. 
• Sustained transmission in several high-burden states, rising case fatality rates for some priority diseases, persistent nosocomial transmission, and uneven preparedness capacities require strengthened national coordination, real-time epidemiological intelligence, rapid risk analysis, multisectoral planning, and field-level operational support. UNICEF’s continued support to the Government of Nigeria through emergency coordination platforms, RCCE, IPC, continuity of essential services, supply prepositioning, and health systems resilience must remain timely, strategic, and evidence-driven.
• A National Public Health Emergency Consultant, working under the direct supervision of the Health Specialist, Public Health Emergency, is therefore required to provide dedicated technical and operational support for preparedness, response, recovery, and resilience actions across the multiple emergencies currently affecting Nigeria.

Job Details
Main Responsibilities and Tasks:

• Support national coordination of multiple public health emergency responses, including active engagement with NCDC-led EOCs, State PHEOCs, inter-agency coordination platforms, and cross-border preparedness mechanisms.
• Provide technical leadership for risk assessment, emergency preparedness, contingency planning, Incident Action Plans (IAPs), hotspot mapping, and state-specific response strategies for priority outbreaks, vaccine-preventable diseases, and climate-related crises.
• Lead the development and regular updating of situation reports, epidemiological summaries, risk assessments, dashboards, and operational briefs to inform UNICEF leadership and partner decision-making.
• Support integrated multisectoral emergency preparedness and response planning across UNICEF sections, government counterparts, and development partners, ensuring continuity of essential health, PHC, and immunization services in affected populations.
• Strengthen surveillance systems, early warning mechanisms, analytics, and data visualization dashboards for real-time outbreak monitoring and rapid risk-informed action.
• Support forecasting, procurement, prepositioning, tracking, and monitoring of critical emergency supplies, alongside review and update of SOPs, contingency plans, preparedness packages, and PHC resilience plans.
• Support field missions, rapid assessments, after-action reviews, lessons learned documentation, donor reporting, and resource mobilization efforts for ongoing public health emergencies in Nigeria.
• Support the management of the National PHE Community of Practice Platform.

Deliverables

• Weekly national public health emergency situation reports covering all major outbreaks and climate-related health emergencies.
• Monthly updated national multi-hazard risk assessment and hotspot analysis for priority states.
• Monthly Incident Action Plan updates for active outbreaks (Lassa fever, cholera, CSM, diphtheria, measles, mpox and health related emergencies).
• Quarterly integrated emergency response performance reports, including UNICEF contributions and gap analysis.
• Emergency preparedness and response dashboards updated monthly with key
  epidemiological and operational indicators.
• At least one national after-action review or lessons learned report during the consultancy period

Requirements
Education:

• Advanced university degree (Master’s or equivalent) in Epidemiology, Public health, Global Health, Emergency Management, or related social sciences field.

Language:

• Fluency in English (written and spoken) with excellent analytical and report- writing skills.

Work Experience:

• Minimum 5 years of progressively responsible professional experience in public health emergency preparedness and response, outbreak coordination, surveillance, or humanitarian health programming.
• Demonstrated experience supporting responses to multiple disease outbreaks in Nigeria, especially Lassa fever, cholera, measles, CSM, diphtheria, or mpox.
• Strong experience in national and subnational coordination, EOC/PHEOC systems, partner engagement, and multisectoral planning.
• Proven skills in data analysis, epidemiological interpretation, dashboard development, and operational reporting.
• Experience working with government institutions, UNICEF, WHO, NCDC, or development partners is highly desirable.
• Willingness to travel frequently to high-burden states at short notice

Competencies:

• Strategic and analytical thinking
• Emergency coordination and surge support
• Strong writing and presentation skills
• Stakeholder engagement and diplomacy
• Results-based management
• Ability to work under pressure across multiple emergencies
• Excellent teamwork and cross-sector collaboration.