Latest Jobs at Palladium Group

Project Overview and Role

• Palladium is searching for a Team Leader for an upcoming DFID proposal LINKS – Powering Economic Growth in Northern Nigeria. LINKS will support development of a vibrant and diversified economy in the key northern Nigerian states, with these collectively acting as a powerful engine of northern economic growth. Benefits will be both for the states themselves, while also creating real market opportunities for the wider north, counterbalancing the wealth and investment that is currently primarily found in Lagos and the South.
• The programme will focus on the development of high potential pro-poor value chains, selected during a detailed project preparation study, supporting them to become productive, competitive and attractive for investment at every level.
• The Team Leader acts as the central point of leadership for the programme. The Team Leader shall be responsible for representing the programme with a range of external organisations and individuals, including regularly reporting DFID, maintaining strong working relationships with relevant local entities, other programmes, as well as with corporate Palladium staff.

Responsibilities

• Developing strong working relationships with the programme’s contact points in DFID and leading on reporting to them, through both formal and informal channels.
• Maintain relations and represent the programme with the wider DFID country office as needed.
• Develop strong working relationships with the leadership of other development programmes, in particular DFID’s local government and sectoral programming portfolios, and exploit complementarities and synergies between LINKS and them where possible.
• Develop strong working relationships and a regular dialogue on programme progress and challenges with relevant Palladium staff, including the Project Director, Operational and Technical Managers, and ensure LINKS compliance with established Palladium systems and processes.
• Maintain a strong working relationships with the Technical Director and reach a consensus on LINKS overarching, as well as component specific, technical approach and direction
• Represent the programme with an external audience as needed, including with communities of practice and other DFID offices.
• Manages relationships with the host country government, counterpart agencies, project partners and stakeholders and business partners.
• Ensure good staff management practices including staff planning, recruitment, on-boarding, appraisal and development

Project Management:

• Provide guidance, oversight and quality assurance for all project activities, outputs and deliverables. Assume overall responsibility for the effective implementation of work plans to ensure delivery is on time, within budget, meets Client and stakeholder expectations and is contractually compliant
• Monitor implementation progress; maintain up to date project logs and registers; work to resolve issues, manages and mitigates risks; and escalate material issues and risks as appropriate.
• Develop and implement plans for results measurement, monitoring and evaluation, knowledge management, value for money analysis and communication management.

Requirements

• At least 15 years working experience in international projects
• At least 10 years of those spent in project in developing countries lasting more than 2 years and managing teams of 10 or more including local and international staff
• At least 5 years of Project Team Leader / Head of Project status in economic development projects with significant elements involving private sector investment and innovation, and budgets over £5 million
• Proven track record of achieving job creation and / or income raising results at large scale and pace (100,000 people plus)
• Relevant Nigeria experience.

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Project Overview and Role   

• The Integrated Health Project (IHP) aims to strengthen local capacity and systems to contribute to reductions in child and maternal morbidity and mortality in target states, and to increase the capacity of health systems (public and private) to sustainably support quality primary healthcare.
• The Technical Lead: Integrated Child Health and Nutrition will be responsible for providing technical leadership in child health and nutrition at facility and community levels
• The position will provide technical assistance from the Abuja County office (ACO), and liaise with relevant federal level agencies in order to create an enabling environment for enhanced Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health plus nutrition and malaria (RMNCH + NM) at the State primary health care and community levels
• The position will liaise with State Coordinators and other technical staff to facilitate strong RI systems, integrated service delivery at PHC levels, capacity building, clinical mentoring and integrated supportive supervision in child health and nutrition
• This position will also provide support to strengthen community-based services (and the CHIPS strategy) to enhance access, referrals and linkages to the formal PHC system. The project will operate over a 5-year period.

Responsibilities

• Provides technical oversight and strategic direction on integrated child health and nutrition services with expansion of primary health care and private sector models and approaches for children and their families.  Includes an emphasis on expansion of high impact, evidence-based practices, as well as community health and community engagement in partnership with other IHP staff and partners.
• Advises on quality improvement and quality assurance approaches of PHC services with the focus on integrated child health and nutrition, including the development of tools and resources for the delivery, scale-up, and documentation of high-impact interventions at facility and community levels in the public and private sector.
• Provides technical leadership on routine immunization (RI) systems and integrated RI/child health approaches to minimize missed opportunities on uptake and use of services by newborns, children and their families.
• Supports capacity building, mentorship and supportive supervision approaches of facility and community providers with an emphasis on scale up of high impact child health and nutrition services in the public and private sector.
• Supports expansion of integrated service delivery platforms to streamline and build efficiencies in the health system which promote preventative and curative health interventions.  This includes Integrated Community Case Management (iCCM), Integrated Management of Childhood Illness, integrated RI, integrated nutrition (including promotion of high impact nutrition practices within Baby Friendly Initiatives such as exclusive breastfeeding and infant and young child feeding at facility and community levels). 
• Supports the IHP learning agenda aimed at synthesizing and packaging learning from across all states across a range of child health and nutrition topics.
• Collaborates with the IHP technical advisor for malaria to ensure expansion of case management approaches for malaria, including malaria diagnostics and treatment, and implementation of malaria prevention activities in the child health and nutrition portfolio including iCCM and IMCI platforms.
• Supports advocacy activities for PHC services quality improvement and resource mobilization for health services at the federal, state, LGAs, and community levels and among private sector stakeholders.
• Prepares technical papers, training materials, curriculum review and presentations for capacity building for child health, nutrition and CHIPS/CORPS outreach at the facility and community levels.
• Supports State IHP teams and stakeholders to rollout state level CHIPS strategy and strengthen community-based structures (CHIPS/CORPS) case management and referral systems (including emergency transport for very sick children) and referral systems between communities and facilities to ensure childhood illnesses receive the appropriate level of care. 

Partner and Stakeholder Coordination and Advisory Services:

• Participates in relevant federal-level Technical Working Groups and provides support to the FMOH and in IHP states for updating child health and nutrition quality policies based on global, national, and IHP state needs.  Supports state level adoption and adaptation of relevant national policies in IHP states to achieve program goals.
• Coordinates with other USG projects’ technical assistance provided to stakeholders on community engagement to ensure access to quality services  to avoid duplication of efforts and ensure integrated approach to capacity building.
• Liaises with commodity and supply chain experts within federal (as needed) and state authorities and will collaborate with other USAID-donor funded supply chain initiatives (e.g. PSM) to support RI and IMCI/iCCM commodities management.
• In collaboration with other USAID partners (e.g. Breakthrough Action), provides strategic leadership for the design and implementation of communication strategies and strategic behavior change communication for public sector, private sector, and community counterparts by providing strategic direction for strengthening the delivery and quality of nutrition and child health services within integrated RMNCH+NM platforms.

Management:

• Contributes to annual work planning, training plans and quarterly reports and other required technical reports
• Collaborates with the program’s monitoring and evaluation (M&E) team on activities to ensure that the program meets set targets in accordance with national and USG standards 
• Contributes to timely, accurate and appropriate reporting of program activities and results
• Ensure quality program implementation consistent with MOH Nigerian Guidelines, global best practices and USAID Nigerian Strategic Directions
• Evaluates program progress against deliverables on a quarterly basis
• With the Deputy Chief of Party oversee program design, implementation, quality assurance and monitoring of work plan in the targeted states
• Coordinate with the other members of the technical team and NGO partners to develop and implement feasible facility and community-based approaches
• Perform other duties as assigned by supervisor which contribute to the achievement of program goals

Requirements

• The Technical Lead: Child Health, Nutrition and Community Engagement must be a proven leader in the field of with senior-level management experience in public health programs
• S/he must be well recognized by the RMNCH community in Nigeria
• The Technical Lead must be intimately familiar with the context in Nigeria and have in-country experience with USAID programs.

Additional qualifications include:

• An experienced Child Health, Nutrition or Community Health Advisor with a relevant Degree (e.g. MPH, Nursing or other relevant Degree)
• Minimum 10 years of experience working in Child Health, Nutrition or Public Health in Africa, preferably in Nigeria
• Demonstrated expertise in working directly with host-country senior government officials and policy makers in child survival and MNCH
• Experience working with host-country partners, organizations, and institutions
• Strong skills in design, implementation and monitoring of program components; e.g. services, training, integrated supportive supervision, clinical mentoring, patient counseling, advocacy and coordination
• Demonstrated capacity to work with African experts and partners in developing technical materials and providing training to improve service delivery, advocacy and resource mobilization for expanding quality improvement of MNCH services
• Experience with technical leadership for programs funded by USAID and/or other donor programs in developing countries, with significant Nigeria experience
• Strong verbal, listening, writing, and intrapersonal skills essential for effective coordination among several institutions and staff involved in a broad range of activities
• Fluent in English, (written and oral communication) and Hausa and/or Fulfulde
• Willingness to travel throughout Nigeria as necessary