Senior Manager, Geneva 229 views

Vacancy No: VN1096

Job Title: Senior Manager, HSIS

Location: Geneva

Purpose of Position: Support the development and implementation of Gavi’s direct financial support to countries in one or more regions

Team: Health Systems & Immunisation Strengthening

Reporting to: Senior Specialist, Health Systems & Immunisation Strengthening

Career Step Level: 4

Job Description: 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 developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization, 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 nearly 700 million children and the prevention of more than 10 million future deaths.

BACKGROUND

Health System Strengthening (HSS) support is intended to help countries to introduce new vaccines and achieve sustainable improvements in immunisation coverage and equity by targeting and tailoring investments to drive immunisation outcomes with a focus to reach the zero-dose communities.

Recent investments in immunisation programmes worldwide have the potential to substantially decrease illness and death associated with an increased number of preventable diseases. However, as immunisation services expand to include new vaccines and strive to reach larger, more remote or marginalised populations, programmatic constraints of health systems increase. For example, ineffective and inefficient immunisation supply chains and health information systems, insufficient development and retention of the health workforce and constrained capacities for programme and services management are among the challenges faced by countries. Such limitations hamper the ability of countries and the international community to strengthen primary health care systems and achieve shared objectives for increasing the coverage and equity of immunisation as called for in Gavi’s strategy. The HSIS team plays a critical role in helping countries to identify and address these health systems bottlenecks through catalytic tailored and targeted HSS investments.

KEY FUNCTIONS AND DELIVERABLES

Work with colleagues in the Secretariat and Alliance partners to

• Help build the capacity of country teams and in-country partners to design, implement, manage and monitor Gavi’s health systems grants;

o In collaboration with partners, identify and evaluate in-country approaches to reach zero-dose children and missed communities, support the development of tools and guidance;

o Support countries and country teams to ensure that Gavi HSS and other cash support is strategically targeted towards building sustainable immunisation systems that increase immunisation coverage and reach zero-dose children;

o Identify and address bottlenecks to grant implementation;

o Monitor performance of HSS grants, conduct portfolio analyses and support learning and adaptation as required.

Main Duties/Responsibilities: HSIS – country focal point:

• Analyse countries’ health systems to identify barriers and investments to achieve immunisation coverage and equity objectives;
• Support Senior Country Managers (SCMs) to facilitate and support in-country dialogue processes to target HSS investments towards sustainable immunisation coverage and equity, and especially reaching zero-dose children and missed communities;
• Advise SCMs on grant development and review, interpretation of guidelines for specific country contexts, and provision of or identification of appropriate technical support from Alliance partners;
• Engage with partners at country and regional level to help ensure strategic and aligned support across the Alliance to health systems strengthening efforts;
• Proactively identify countries experiencing grant implementation delays and support SCMs to resolve these constraints in coordination with other parts of the Secretariat and Alliance partners;
• Coordinate with other Secretariat teams and SCMs to ensure rigorous, timely and systematic reporting on financial and programmatic implementation of Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) grants;
• Support innovation and new ways of working in focus countries and capture/codify lessons learned and best practices.

HSIS – guidance for strategic HSS investments:

• Conduct portfolio analysis of grants in focus countries to understand trends, progress and challenges to inform future HSIS investments;
• Engage partners at global and regional level to monitor and analyse design and performance of Gavi HSS investments, and ensure provision of adequate support to each country including through the Partners’ Engagement Framework;
• Build capacity of Secretariat country teams and in-country partners to plan strategic HSS investments, including through the development of programmatic guidance and capacity-building exercises;
• Represent HSIS unit as needed in Secretariat and Alliance technical and policy discussions;
• Lead strategic thinking in one or more strategic health systems areas (e.g. immunisation service delivery, community engagement and demand creation, programme management, planning and budgeting and/or health information systems);
• Contribute to other efforts to strengthen HSIS investments and Gavi processes and policies 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.

Work Experience

• Minimum of 8 years of experience in roles related to health policy, immunisation and/or health systems development in an international context;
• Proven expertise and experience in areas of health systems and immunisation strengthening;
• Proven experience working in diverse, multi-partner environments;
• Professional experience in developing countries is highly preferred;

• Tags

  health economics

  health information

  health policy

  health systems

  health systems strengthening

  information systems

  portuguese

  primary health care

  programme management

  project management

  senior manager

  social sciences

  supply chain

  task forces

• Demonstrable experience in project management, managing partnerships and multi-stakeholder task forces, as well as organisation of meetings and events.

Skills/Competencies

• Excellent conceptual and analytical problem-solving skills (e.g., to analyse health systems bottlenecks);
• Ability to think strategically and flexibly;
• Analytical and very comfortable with data;
• Ability to meet deadlines and multi-task in a fast-paced environment;
• Aptitude to plan, organise and prioritize work effectively;
• Adaptability to changing business needs;
• Developed representational and communication skills, including to communicate complex technical information and build knowledge and capacity of others;
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively with colleagues in a global, multicultural context;
• Influencing skills and ability to advance priorities in a complex, multi-stakeholder environment;
• Ability to work autonomously, while also integrating and collaborating effectively in a fast-moving team.

Languages

• Fluency in written and spoken English is required; fluent French is highly preferred; Portuguese is a significant asset.

Academic Qualifications

• Advanced university degree in Public Health, Health Economics, Social Sciences, International Development or a related socioeconomic field. Specialisation in international health policy and health systems is an asset.

Contacts

• Gavi Secretariat;
• WHO;
• UNICEF;
• Gavi-eligible countries;
• The Global Fund;
• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation;
• The World Bank;
• Other partners and stakeholders as required.

Additional Information: Gavi is committed to diversity within its workforce and encourages applications from all qualified candidates.

If you wish to apply, please provide your cover letter and resume by visiting our Careers webpage and apply by clicking on ‘Senior Manager, Health Systems & Immunisation Strengthening (HSIS) ‘. The application deadline is 31 December 2019.

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