Senior Program Officer, Child Survival LTE at Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation

Your Role

• The primary purpose of the Senior Program Officer (SPO), Child Survival is to conceive, develop and manage a complex portfolio of grants and technical assistance at national and sub-national level to improve child health outcomes in Nigeria and West and Central Africa.
• This will be done specifically through supporting the “Resiliency through Azithromycin for Children” (REACH) program, in alignment with the foundation’s REACH strategy.
• The postholder will partner with teams across several divisions of the foundation, to deliver a “coordinated” one-foundation approach to ensure an accelerated scale up of REACH and optimal impact on health challenges on the continent. The SPO will work closely with government, private sector, and civil society partners to catalyze these efforts.
• The focus of the foundation’s work will involve development, testing and scale-up of high impact and cost-effective solutions in selected areas to generate results and influence scale across Nigeria and other similar contexts within the region and Africa.

This is a three-year limited-term position. The postholder will be based at the foundation’s Nigeria Country Office (NCO) in Abuja, and will report to the Deputy Director, Health, and Nutrition.

What You'll Do

The selected candidate will be responsible for the following tasks:

• Co-develop strategies and implementation plans that will lead to accelerated scale up of REACH and improvements in child survival in Nigeria and other selected countries in West and Central Africa.
• Oversee detailed targeting and micro-planning, interpreting data to localize the scale up strategy, partnering closely with government and others.
• Identify, negotiate, implement and monitor complex, performance-based contracts/grants to accelerate increase in child health outcomes. Specifically, this position will identify activities to support adoption of new innovations/interventions into clinical practice. This includes landscaping and identifying appropriate partners, undertaking operational research, macro- and micro-planning, training in workflow, surveillance and monitor overall execution of investments.
• Manage partnerships and grantee relationships to ensure learning and impact, for example, by conducting site visits, convening meetings of key partners, monitoring and evaluating components of grants.
• Work closely with the Nigerian federal and state governments and other West and Central African governments and implementing agencies, to develop operational research and implementation frameworks for new and emerging interventions for child survival, such as periodic azithromycin distribution to reduce child mortality in high mortality settings.
• Manage grants and relationships at the country level to support early rollout of such strategies including the development of a local evidence base for appropriate policy development and scale-up.
• Serve as a senior technical resource on new and emerging interventions for child survival, connecting international research and scientific expertise with national child survival and mortality reduction policy and priorities.
• Liaise with Seattle-based Research and Product Development Teams to ensure research and product development strategies within Nigeria are tailored to the local context.
• Engage a broad range of partners and decision-makers working on delivery of clinical services for child survival, either in primary health clinical care settings or through mass delivery platforms such as neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), supplementary immunization activities (SIAs), Child Health Weeks, etc. Within this coalition, work collectively to seek opportunities to optimize clinical services at the “last mile”, with an emphasis on making such services more accessible, effective, cost-effective, of higher quality, and client-centered. Support testing and evaluation of such opportunities through grants, contracts and technical collaboration.
• Facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration of partners across states and countries.
• Contribute to writing background documents, briefs, articles, and presentations, including relevant literature reviews, landscape and data analyses; organize and prepare for high-level foundation leadership trips.
• Represent the foundation to key selected government health leaders, platforms, and working groups on REACH at state, national and regional levels – this would include delving into issues from the policy level to the facility and community (i.e. demand generation) levels. Potentially taking responsibility for coordinating all foundation health and development activities in one or more states.
• Play a liaison and advisory role with different Seattle-based Global Health, Gender Equality and Global Development teams, the NCO and the Africa Regional Office on investments aimed to optimize equitable coverage, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness for specific clinical services and tools.
• Collaborate with foundation colleagues in related program areas to take advantage of cross-sector grant making opportunities.
• Any other activities to support the foundation’s strategy on REACH.

Your Experience

• The ideal candidate will hold an advanced degree in medicine, public health, health economics, public policy or similar fields (e.g. MSPH, MHA, MPH, MD, PhD) with 8+ years of proven experience in public health service delivery management in African settings.
• 5+ years of experience in a low-income country context, or equivalent experience, in managing clinical service delivery programs at scale including introduction of new treatment, use of diagnostics and other decision tools to improve quality, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of care.
• Previous experience may include work in academia, government, management consulting, other foundations, pharmaceutical or research institutions, with a preference for regional African experience.
• Experience providing advice to governments, donors, implementing agencies, and other national-level partners in developing countries.
• Experience in implementation of child health interventions through mass-delivery platforms such as SIAs, mass drug administration for malaria and/or NTDs, Child Health Weeks, etc. Experience with both public and private sectors is a plus.
• An in-depth understanding of the Nigerian health system and ideally other (West) African health systems, as well as economic, social, and political factors that influence health outcomes.
• In-depth experience in broader public health with a strong development orientation backed with excellent management capabilities.
• Experience of integration across disease areas and/or integrating health and “non-health” interventions is a plus.
• Experience in managing complex delivery of health programs, with evidence of achievement of significant results whether directly or indirectly influenced.
• Ability to collaborate and build partnerships and work collaboratively with others to meet shared/joint objectives, both internally and externally. Ability to orchestrate effective decisions across a broad range of issues and partners, assess progress, analyze gaps, and make necessary changes.
• Strategic approach, including the ability to scan future possibilities and translating them into strategies, concrete theories of change and actions. Ability to think/act like an investor and a creative and generative thinker. Innovative and open-minded approach; ability to question and challenge colleagues including managers and partners in a constructive manner.
• Ability to manage complexity and ambiguity effectively, including making sense of complex, high quantity and sometimes contradictory information to effectively solve problems – especially in managing relations. Demonstrated ability to work with flexibility, efficiency, and diplomacy in a complex, fast-paced environment both in Nigeria and in headquarter (Seattle).
• Ability to communicate effectively, including developing and delivering communications that convey complex situations in a clear and concise manner with a broad and diverse audience.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills. Fluency in English is required. French is an asset.

Other Attributes

• Comfortable in a wide range of cultural, geographic and operational situations, demonstrating culturally sensitive behaviour with a diverse range of people.
• Ability to travel up to 40% domestically and internationally.