Senior Advisor, Health Systems, Governance and Leadership at Palladium Group

Project Overview and Role
Health Policy Plus (HP+) is a USAID-funded five-year project awarded to Palladium (formerly Futures Group) on August 28, 2015. HP+ has a mandate across global, country and sub-national levels to strengthen and advance health policy priorities in the areas of family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH), HIV, and maternal health. HP+ 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. HP+ aims to help public health and policy leaders attach higher priority to their national and sub-national health needs, secure sustainable financing, advance health equity, and monitor policy implementation to ensure gains stay on track. HP+ aims to secure long-term enduring change by working with coalitions both inside and outside of health and showing common cause with neglected populations and other development actors. Central elements of HP+ revolve around building in-country capacity, institutionalizing achievements of past investments, and promoting country ownership of programs and initiatives.

HP+ Nigeria is supporting state-level efforts to effectively capitalize on key health financing reforms, specifically the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF), by strengthening systems and structures to operationalize the fund, while also meet, and potentially exceed or improve performance to meet, the requirements of Primary Health Care Under One Roof (PHCUOR). Working in Abia, Osun, Ebonyi and the FCT, as well as some national-level support, HP+ Nigeria is looking to advance the following key objectives: (1) strengthen state-level governance, coordination, and synchronization to sustain stewardship and ownership of key health financing reforms; (2) identify and mobilize predictable and sustainable revenues for state-level health reforms; (3) improve transparency, accountability and efficiency of mobilized resources.

Position Summary

• The Senior Advisor, Health Systems, Governance and Leadership, based in Abuja, Nigeria will be responsible for providing technical expertise for the governance aspects of the workplan, by helping strengthen the required governance framework of the State Primary Health Care Boards/Agencies (SPHCB/As) and State Social Health Insurance Agencies (SSHIAs) across the focal states, while ensuring their linkages with respective initiatives and federal-level counterparts (i.e. NPHCDA and NHIS) and initiatives at the national level.
• He/she will work with and support state-level Accountability and Advocacy Advisors (based in Ebonyi, Osun, and Abia, plus the FCT) and will coordinate activities with the Senior Advisor, Gender, Policy and Advocacy, while also working with Washington DC (HP+ home office) technical support on strategic approaches and best practices in health governance, leadership and strengthening health systems in pursuit of BHCPF rollout.
• The position will be supervised by the Technical Services Director.

Key Responsibilities
Reporting to the Technical Services Director, the Senior Advisor, Health Systems, Governance and Leadership will:

• Provide overarching technical assistance, across the project, to strengthen governance aspects of the workplan, to include strengthening governance frameworks of state-level primary health care boards and health insurance agencies.
• Help drive programmatic direction for implementation of program approaches that promote health governance, policy and planning, and leadership.
• Collaborate and guide state-level Accountability and Advocacy Advisors in further supporting the strengthening of governance frameworks of those state-level boards and agencies.
• Provide technical expertise to address policy needs across systems strengthening building blocks, to include leadership and governance; financing; service delivery; and health workforce, among others.
• Collaborate with Senior Advisor, Gender, Policy and Advocacy, as well as state-level Capacity Development Advisors and Officers to develop national and state-level government capacity for leadership and stewardship of key initiatives and efforts under the BHCPF.
• Provide technical assistance and support to government boards and agencies, in focal states and at the national level, in the implementation of activities and approaches focused on improving accountability and transparency of state and national governments in BHCPF rollout and meeting PHCUOR goals and objectives.
• Aid state teams in their support to state-level PHCB/As to fulfill their functions and achieve PHCUOR compliance, especially in areas related to governance, leadership and health systems.
• Participation in annual project workplanning and quarterly reporting, particularly related to governance activities designed to the strengthen the health system.

Requirements/Qualifications

• Master's degree in related field with minimum 12+ years of relevant experience.
• Deep understanding of the BHCPF, PHCUOR and related processes and structures necessary.
• Experience providing others, especially government leaders and stakeholders, with guidance and technical assistance that enables them to understand policy options and strategies for improving health governance.
• Experience carrying out project-related health governance technical assistance and promoting the integration of governance and health systems.
• Ability to develop strong, working relationships with government counterparts strongly desired.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Strong interpersonal and collaborative skills. Experience working with diverse and multicultural teams.
• Experience working on USAID funded projects is highly desired.
• Ability to speak, write and read English is required.