Senior Manager, EPI Management and Health Workforce Performance

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership committed to saving children’s lives and protecting people’s health by increasing equitable use of vaccines in lower-income countries. The Vaccine Alliance brings together implementing country and donor governments, the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private sector partners. Gavi uses innovative finance mechanisms, including co-financing by recipient countries, to secure sustainable funding and adequate supply of quality vaccines. Since 2000, Gavi has contributed to the immunisation of more than 981 million children and the prevention of more than 16 million future deaths.

THE ROLE

The Health Systems Planning, Management & Performance sub-team within HSIS, works with Senior Country Managers (SCMs) and partners to ensure that Gavi’s grants are strategic, data-driven and contribute to strengthening the equity and sustainability of immunisation programmes. The sub-team includes six Senior Managers, Health Systems, who provide dedicated health systems expertise and support to SCMs and countries to help ensure that all Gavi support is used strategically and effectively to reach zero-dose children and missed communities and strengthen health systems. The sub-team also includes specialist leading efforts on digitalisation of Health Management Information System to improve the quality and use of data for planning, monitoring and management. Currently refinement of the design of Gavi investments in country Leadership, Management and Health Workforce performance is underway. A separate consultancy is also being sourced to develop a strategy for Gavi investments in Human Resources for Health especially in Immunisation. The incumbent is expected to build on both these strategies.
Key functions and deliverables:
• Working closely with partners, provide strategic leadership and oversight of Gavi’s approach and investments to enhance the leadership, management and coordination capacity of countries’ routine immunisation programmes, including the management and performance of health workers;
• Develop excellent community of practitioners to help support the Alliance’s approach and provide technical and management support to countries;
• Oversee efforts to develop new tools and platforms to facilitate stronger programme management and capacity-building;
• Provide technical expertise, guidance and capacity-building for Secretariat country teams to help enhance the leadership, management and coordination capacity, and strengthen management and performance of health workers and other programme staff;
• Support learning and continuous improvement of the Alliance’s approaches.

MAIN DUTIES/RESPONSIBILITIES

• Refine and manage the Alliance’s approach to helping countries enhance the leadership, management and coordination capacity of their immunisation programmes and the performance of health workers, based on achievements made to date so far;
• Work with Secretariat country teams and Alliance partners to help countries identify gaps in leadership, management and coordination capacity and health worker performance;
• Target Alliance support to address these gaps with innovative approaches to strengthen capacity;
• Work with existing and new partners from public and private sector to design and scale-up innovative approaches and tools for capacity-building and performance improvement, management and accountability (e.g., management dashboards, digital and blended learning, online communities of practice);
• Proactively identify and seek opportunities to collaborate with other donors and financing organisations to scale-up innovative approaches across the health sector;
• Work with Alliance partners and cross Secretariat teams to ensure that global guidance on National Immunisation Strategy and Annual Operational planning tools facilitate excellent programme management including robust approaches to reach zero dose children and missed communities;
• Other duties and activities as required.

Note: The essential functions listed in this section are not exhaustive of the job responsibilities; other duties may be assigned consistently with the department needs.

QUALIFICATIONS

ACADEMIC

• Advanced university degree in Public Health, Social Sciences, Health Systems, Management, Strategy, Business Administration or related fields is highly preferred.

WORK EXPERIENCE

• Minimum of 8 years of experience in roles related to workforce management and performance, health policy, health systems management and / or organisational management and capacity-building is required;
• Demonstrable experience in strategic programme design, project management, managing partnerships and multi-stakeholder task forces is essential;
• Experience in setting up peer learning mechanism across countries is a plus;
• Proven experience working in diverse, multi-partner environments; experience of working in both public and private sectors at both global and developing countries is an asset.

SKILLS/COMPETENCIES

• Distinctive strategic thinking, programme planning and problem-solving skills;
• Deep understanding of organisational management, performance management and learning;
• Demonstrated track record of helping organisations to strengthen management practices;
• Proven ability to identify and scale-up innovation;
• Excellent quantitative and qualitative analytic skills, with ability to evaluate and synthesise complex challenges;
• Excellent organisation and coordination capabilities, including demonstrated ability to prioritise;
• Excellent collaboration skills and demonstrated ability to work across multiple, multisectoral teams and organisations in pursuit of a common goal;
• Understanding of gender responsive and gender transformative programming in a variety of country settings is an asset;
• Proven ability to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines;
• High sense of responsibility, efficiency, reliability and results-focus;
• Compelling oral and written communications;
• Demonstrated ability to engage credibly with senior counterparts across multiple sectors;
• Diplomacy, tact and discretion.

LANGUAGES

• Written and spoken fluency in English;
• Fluency in French strongly desired;
• Fluency in other languages of Gavi-supported countries an asset.

CONTACTS

• Close collaboration with Country Support, Programme Finance, Strategy, Monitoring and Learning teams in Gavi Secretariat;
• Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance partners.