Latest Vacancies at Save the Children

Role Purpose

• As a member of the Extended Senior Management Team (ESMT), the Head of Health & Child Survival is responsible for leading the growth and management of the Nigeria country program’s health portfolio, as well as providing strategic leadership and ensuring program quality.
• S/he will anticipate appropriate opportunities for funding in-line with SCI’s strategy, and ensure effective partnerships with members and donor agencies, federal government agencies, and the private sector, towards achieving SCI Health & Child Survival program objectives.
• The Head of Health & Child Survival will lead the programming team in this sector with clear planning and priorities, and monitor and evaluate progress against those plans.

Key Areas Of Accountability
Strategic Leadership and Program Quality:

• Ensure a Nigeria Health Strategy is developed and regularly updated to guide SCI’s direction in the health sector, ensuring that this strategy is innovative and aligned with SCI’s strategies and policies;
• Ensure that all Save the Children activities relating to health and child survival are effectively and efficiently contributing to strategic objectives, and that results are achieved as per expected technical quality standards;
• Oversee, in collaboration with the health teams, periodic technical reviews and manage changes in program direction and focus in collaboration with partners, donors, and SCI technical experts;
• Ensure that SCI Nigeria health programs are developed within the framework of Integral Human Development (IHD) and complementary to/aligned with other programs, including government;
• Ensure effective gender-mainstreaming across the health program in both programming and management;
• In collaboration with the programming and project-specific teams, ensure development of high quality training materials, delivery of quality training, technical assistance, and administrative and financial support to all partner agencies, including the selection and coordination of consultants;
• Promote the use of quality improvement, data-informed decision making and evidence-based practices (or sound practices where evidence is limited) among health program staff and partners.

Growth and Representation:

• Coordinate planning, prepositioning, partnership negotiations, and proposal development processes for health opportunities in compliance with SCI’ best practices and guidance in collaboration with the Head of Unit- Business Development;
• Ensure high quality, logical project design in new proposals;
• Establish, maintain, and strengthen relationships with potential and existing donors;
• Draft, and/or finalize communication materials, as necessary, to be shared during donor and/or partner meetings to ensure visibility of SCI’s health programs in Nigeria;
• Maintain and strengthen partnership, collaboration and communication with the Federal Ministry of Health and Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Social Welfare Development, National Planning Commission, and other relevant government programs where appropriate;
• Maintain and strengthen partnership, collaboration, and communication with Members as related to health and child survival activities.
• Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) and Knowledge Management
• Promote effective knowledge management within the health program and across sectors;
• Collaborate with appropriate Regional and HQ Advisors to promote program quality and sharing of learning and identify relevant innovations;
• Work collaboratively across all sectors to ensure integration, complementarity, and learning;
• In collaboration with the programming team, provide guidance and oversight to partners and other collaborating agencies to ensure that lessons of sound practice are documented and disseminated;
• In collaboration with the head of MEAL, oversee the development and management of the CO’s monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) system for the health program;
• Ensure data is analysed to measure project performance and identify areas of improvement. Ensure that learning is incorporated into evolving program plans;
• Collaborate with Regional and Headquarters technical staff to identify and implement appropriate electronic data collection solutions to improve timeliness and quality of M&E and reporting.

Management and Administration:

• Promote coordination and cooperation between health programs and operations staff including working closely with the Director PDQ to ensure stewardship of resources and appropriate budget management of projects, collaboration in forecasting, and other business processes;
• Ensure accurate and timely management and reporting on financial and material resources as it relates to health programming;
• Ensure staff compliance with all SCI administrative and operational procedures and policies, as well as applicable donor regulations;
• Approve program expenditures, budget adjustments, and cost modification requests to donors per agency policies and procedures and donor regulations;
• Assist with the development of the Annual Programming Plan and provide overall leadership to the development of the health budgets.

Human Resource Management:

• Lead, manage, and supervise the health programming team staff directly or indirectly according to the CO structure;
• Conduct periodic reviews of staff performance in keeping with SCI’s performance management system and mentor staff to ensure high levels of motivation, commitment, capacity, and teamwork;
• Ensure and build high quality staff at all levels.

Qualifications and Experience

• Preferred candidates MUST have a minimum Master's Degree or Doctorate in International Development or a relevant technical area such as Public Health, Medicine, or related field.
• Minimum ten years of international development experience managing and implementing complex programs in developing countries.
• Demonstrated capacity and experience with institutional strengthening of local civil society and government agencies.
• Experience leading business development, including proposal development, project design, and coordination, positioning with strong negotiation skills.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English. Knowledge of key donor regulations.
• Proven leadership and inter-personal skills and ability to build and motivate diverse and talented teams.
• Proven experience in building and maintaining institutional linkages and relationships required.
• Demonstrated commitment to improving gender equality and gender responsiveness in programming and operations.
• Cultural sensitivity, patience and flexibility.
• Demonstrated personal accountability and driven to serve others.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office products.
• Ability to travel nationally and internationally and representing SCI as required.

Skills & Abilities:

• The ideal candidate possesses excellent planning, research, and analytical skills, attention to detail and the ability to work cost‐effectively and efficiently;
• Strong written and oral communication and presentation skills;
• Proven leadership ability and collaborative approach to finding solutions;
• Achieving quality work, and delivering outcomes and materials on time in a changing, fast‐paced, deadline‐driven environment.

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Background
Save the Children Nigeria is implementing a DFID funded project – North East Nigeria Transition to Development (NENTAD) in borno state. The NENTAD project is a consortium project with UNICEF and Plan International. Save the Children is implementing the project in 3 LGEAs of Jere, Konduga and MMC targeting 6900 children in the focal communities and LGAs. The project is working in the 6 formal school system in the selected communities in the first year and will be extended to additional one school in the second year which starts in May to be able to meet up with the target population. Already we are working with key government state actors such as the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) and the respective Local Government Education Authorities (LGEAs).

During the project year, the project aimed at supporting in building capacity of teachers and the School based Management Committees (SBMCs), support focal schools with volunteers to teach core subjects, provide teachers and learners’ kit and construction of Temporary Learning Structures or the renovation of damaged classrooms.

In order to achieve our objectives, we need to recruit volunteer teachers in our selected schools to teach core subjects. Visit and interaction with the both the pupils and teachers shows that pupils in even primary 5 &6 cannot speak or write in English or solve simple arithmetic. It is more worrisome as even the teachers cannot confidently express themselves in English. In order to resolve this challenge, we therefore deem it necessary to engage the services of volunteers that will support the schools and pupils to learn these core subjects during the duration of the project.

The objective of recruiting the volunteer teachers is to bridge the gap inherent in the schools in the area of literacy and numeracy. It is noted that pupils in primary 4-6 and even JSS 1-3 cannot read and write in English or solve simple arithmetic. The national policy stipulates that children should be taught in the language of the environment or their mother tongue in the first 3 years of schooling. But it is disheartening to note that most of the children in upper class cannot speak or write in English. In view of this, the volunteer teachers will:

• Teach the students at least 2-3 times a week
• Prepare scheme of work for each topic
• Support and guide the pupils to comprehend the subject study
• Keep records of pupils performance
• Give the pupils classwork and other exercise that will guide them understand the subject

In this course of the consultancy, Save the Children shall cover for the following:

• Train the selected teachers in child safeguarding and protection, positive disciple etc

Methodology
To ensure that we get capable volunteers that will met our objectives, we will employ and consider the following:

• Make the advert both offline and online
• The volunteer teachers will undergo test to determine their competency

Deliverables
Deliverables should include the following:

• The NENTAD team will work with the MEAL to carry out baseline study of pupils learning outcomes
• Volunteers should be able to attend classes 2-3 times per week
• Prepare lesson notes ahead of each topic
• Show evidence of pupils’ performance in classes.
• Prepare and submit monthly brief/ report to be submitted to the Project manager
  

Consultant Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications:

• Volunteers should have at least NCE certificate, B.Sc
• Volunteers should be able to communicate in hausa or Kanuri
• Ability to communicate fluently in English
• Commitment to and understanding of Save the Children’s aims, values and principles.