Country: South Sudan
Closing date: 30 Sep 2019
Who we are
Crown Agents are an international development company that partners with governments, aid agencies, NGOs and companies in nearly 100 countries. Taking on clients’ fundamental challenges, they make lasting change to the systems and organisations that are vital for people’s well-being and prosperity. Its main focus is to help governments around the world to increase prosperity, reduce poverty and improve health by providing consultancy and training in health systems strengthening, trade and growth, public private partnerships, public financial management and governance.
Background Information
The Health Pooled Fund began its third phase (HPF3) in October 2018 and is supported to run until 2023 by the British Government’s Department for International Development (DFID), the Government of Canada, the Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency (SIDA), United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI). A consortium led by Crown Agents is responsible for managing and implementing HPF
HPF3 supports delivery of community level, essential primary health care, secondary health care and referral health services, stabilisation of local health systems, and procurement and supply chain management of essential medical commodities.
HPF3 supports services in eight state hubs of South Sudan formerly known as: Eastern Equatoria, Central Equatoria, Western Equatoria, Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Western Bahr el Ghazal, Warrap, Unity and Lakes.
The programme impact will be an improved health and nutrition status for the population that saves lives and reduces morbidity (including maternal, infant and under-5 mortality), and has the following three principal outcomes:
Improved health and nutrition services for the population, especially women and children;
Improved community engagement and accountability of health services;
Stabilisation of local health systems.
To attain these outcomes, the HPF3 team is responsible for:
Effective programme management, including robust risk management;
Ensuring continuity of and support to service delivery, with a focus on improving quality;
Specialist technical assistance covering health service delivery, community engagement, nutrition, health planning, information and HRH.
Procurement and supply chain management of essential medical commodities
Management of the Implementing Partner fund
Management of fiduciary risk associated with use of donor funds;
Position Summary:
The EPI Specialist is a key role in the Health Systems Stabilisation team providing technical support to Implementing Partners on delivering immunisation services in HPF-supported facilities and monitor their implementation progress and adherence to BPHNS and other MOH guidelines and policies as relevant. The EPI Specialist plays an important external representation and coordination role and is expected to successfully engage with other relevant stakeholders in the health sector in South Sudan.
Responsibilities:
Within the first six weeks of employment, conduct a needs assessment of Implementing Partners to analyse immunisation capacity and surge requirements
Work with the Health Systems Stabilisation Manager to develop, and oversee the implementation of, the immunisation work plan, ensuring completion of project deliverables.
Provide technical support to Ministry of Health and Implementing Partners on delivering the key elements of the Basic Package of Health and Nutrition Services for primary and secondary health care, with a particular focus on immunisation
Regularly review achievements of immunisation indicators against programme targets. Review the Immunization related DHIS data on a monthly basis
Conduct supportive supervisory visits to the Lots and include the reports on the server. Involve SMOH and Juba-based IP staff in these supervisory visits where possible.
Advise on best practices approaches to improve the quality of immunisation services, document and share lessons learned and capture success stories from all aspects of immunisation
Disseminate MoH guidelines and approved job aids; monitor and follow up on the IPs success in implementing guidelines and availability of the guidelines and job aids in the health facilities. This includes wall charts, forms and treatment guidelines.
Develop new tools including training materials, job aids and data collection tools to train IPs on integrating community-based defaulter tracing and demand generation into Boma Health Initiative package
Attend and contribute to all relevant technical working groups, and other relevant stakeholder meetings
Develop and maintain strong working relationships with key partners e.g. UNICEF, WHO, JSI
Work closely with other technical specialists in the HPF team (family planning nutrition, WASH, community engagement, GESI, and HRIS specialists), leveraging support as needed to ensure smooth integration of immunisation activities into other workstreams
Any other tasks or responsibilities based on organizational or programming needs as assigned by the line manager
Requirements
Qualifications
At least 10 years’ working experience in a related field
Master’s qualification in International Public Health, Health Services Management or related field is desirable
Clinical background desirable (medical doctor, clinical officer, nurse or related)
Extensive experience working in immunization related activities
Preferred experience working in Fragile and Conflict Affected States
Skills and experience
Demonstrable experience of successfully working at a Manager level in a large development programme team or for a development organisation
Excellent people management skills
Experience of working in the South Sudan health sector, with a good understanding of the stakeholder landscape and importance of coordination with other actors in the sector
Proven experience in immunisation service delivery in South Sudan
Clear and articulate communicator in English, both in writing and verbally.
Experience providing external representation at high-level meetings
Demonstrable ability to write reports
Solid experience developing accurately costed workplans and monitoring budgets
Excellent personal relationship skills.
Computer literate; at a minimum must be able to use Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook proficiently.
Reporting and communication
This position reports to HSSD Manager
Works closely with other technical specialist in the HSSD team.
Duration
Fixed-term, from October 2019 to March 2021 (dependent on project funding)
How to apply: