Job Opportunities at Palladium Group

Project Overview and Role

• Nigeria Integrated Health Program is an integrated health program with an expanded effort with the Government of Nigeria (GON) to identify and support rapid scale-up of proven interventions through improvement of service delivery and strengthening of health systems.
• It will focus its support for service delivery in six intervention areas: family planning, malaria, routine immunization, nutrition, maternal/newborn health, and treatment of childhood pneumonia/diarrhea. It has a strong emphasis on monitoring, evaluation and learning.
• This program will work closely with state-level government officials to support established state-level Health and Development Plans, build capacity, and promote ownership of interventions, systems, and results. Specific interventions will need to be tailored to local contexts and will be fully developed at state and Local Government Area (LGA) levels. Through agreements with individual states, its potential breadth is the entire country with an emphasis on the north.

Responsibilities

• Leads the federal advocacy efforts with key stakeholders and facilitates adoption of the idea of an integrated approach to RNMCH services and country ownership in ensuring the decrease of maternal and under-five mortality
• Advocates and facilitates development of supporting policies and regulations as necessary and appropriate
• Provides expertise on gender and social inclusion to support policy development, adjustment, adoption, and implementation
• Coordinates advocacy efforts under the integrated approach with USG partnering projects to ensure value added of such efforts for quality of care, improvements to the national environment as well as questions of access, country ownership, and commitment both at the federal and state levels
• Advocates with federal, state, LGA, and community-level health institutions to raise awareness about their role in improving RMNCH health outcomes
• Promotes integrated approach to improving reproductive, maternal, and child health and to decreasing maternal and under-five mortality
• Advocates with federal and state governments and private sector for increased and sustained financing for family planning, reproductive, maternal, and child health programming
• Performs other related duties and responsibilities as assigned

Requirements

• A Bachelor's degree required and relevant experience in advocacy, policy analysis, gender, women’s  empowerment,  human rights is highly desirable
• Proven coalition building, evidence-based advocacy (not advocacy)
• Knowledge and understanding of the institutional, legal and policy frameworks at national and local level that impact on the status of women in Nigeria
• An influential communicator, with excellent written and verbal skills in both English and Hausa (required)
• Evidence of good analytical and problem solving skills
• Ability to network effectively, with the ability to develop a wide range of relevant contacts
• Comfortable  working within a multi-disciplinary team with the integrated approach to RNMCH+N service delivery

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Project Overview and Role

• Health Policy Plus (HP+) is a USAID-funded five-year $185 million project awarded to Palladium in August 2015. HP+ has a mandate across global, country, and subnational levels to strengthen and advance health policy priorities in HIV, family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH), and maternal health. It aims to improve the enabling environment for equitable and sustainable health services, supplies, and delivery systems through policy development and implementation, with an emphasis on voluntary, rights-based health programs, and by strengthening in-country partners’ capacity to navigate complex environments for effective policy design, implementation, and financing aligned to their priorities. HP+ provides technical assistance to governments, civil society, and the private sector to effectively engage in domestic resource mobilization (DRM), put in place sustainable financing and accountability mechanisms, and make progress toward global, national, and subnational health goals.
• HP+ has been engaged by the USAID Nigeria Office to conceptualize and design activities to improve sustainable financing for Human Immunodeficiency Virus / Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) and tuberculosis (TB) programs at the national level and in two USAID priority states – Lagos and Kano. These activities will span an initial period of 2 years, will continue efforts started by the Health Finance and Governance (HFG) project and complement current Strengthening Integrated Delivery of HIV and AIDS Services (SIDHAS) and Sustaining Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS) Plus projects’ activities. 

Responsibilities

• The Health Financing Consultant will be responsible for taking the primary lead on Domestic Resource Mobilization (DRM) and Public Financial Management (PFM) support for HP+ Nigeria activities on Sustainable Health Financing of HIV/AIDS and TB Programs. (S)he will work with the larger team on DRM and PFM at the national level and in Lagos and Kano States.
• The Health Financing Consultant will technically supervise and collaborate with the Program Coordinator at the national level, State Coordinators and PFM Consultants at state level to ensure delivery of outputs per project workplan.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead in conduct of intensive public expenditure reviews for HIV and TB financing at the national level with development of recommendations to improve budget expenditure efficiency.
• Provide technical support as necessary to support HIV and TB budget allocation and execution activities at the national level.
• Provide technical support to the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) to develop a DRM Strategy identifying sources of funds, including national and state sources across tax-based, insurance, private sector sources and projected external partner resources. As a sub-activity to the formulation of the Strategy, support NACA to develop language for inclusion of HIV testing and treatment services in the National Health Insurance Law.
• Provide technical assistance to NACA in design of strategies to ensure private sector participation and maximization of contributions, particularly for financing the AIDS Trust Fund.
• Participate in co-design and development of an outcome-based provider payment model for TB at the state level. 
• Participate in design, preparation and facilitation of workshops and roundtable engagements with stakeholders as necessary.

Requirements

• Master's Degree in Public Health, Economics, Statistics, or other related discipline.
• At least eight (8) years of relevant work experience in health financing policy, health financing reforms and capacity building. Demonstrated expertise in PFM and resource mobilization an advantage.
• Sound understanding of TB, HIV epidemic and programs in Nigeria. Significant experience in HIV/AIDS, TB programming; health insurance. 
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite (MS Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc).
• Ability to meet tight deadlines and attention to detail.
• Excellent interpersonal skills.
• Strong English writing, oral communication, and reporting skills.
• Flexibility, adaptability, and resourcefulness. Ability to take initiative and/or respond independently to situations.

Duration:

• A term of eight months with a scheduled to end in March 2020, possibility of renewal.