Senior Country Technical Coordinator

Malaria Consortium is recruiting for a Senior Country Technical Coordinator to join our team in Abuja.

Job purpose

To provide technical strategic direction, technical leadership and technical quality assurance to the technical team members and the projects in the Nigeria Malaria Consortium office. To ensure that up-to-date technical knowledge, technical methodologies and national and international best practices are used in programme implementation and programme quality improvement. To ensure that experiential learning and lessons learning are captured, documented, disseminated and inform adaptive management in the project portfolio. To identify relevant research priorities and work with team members, the global technical team and key national stakeholders to design suitable studies and submit proposals for funding.

Scope of work

The position holder will be responsible for technical oversight for all projects and programmes within MC Nigeria portfolio. S/he will lead technical quality assurance activities of the country portfolio using a continuous quality improvement approach. S/he will ensure that programmes are effectively coordinated to achieve coherent technical direction and a complementary/balanced portfolio. The position holder will play an active role in strategic and technical development and expansion of the Nigeria programme portfolio and will provide technical inputs to the Ministry of Health and other key stakeholders that are of technical quality and add value to the engagement S/he will actively participate in relevant technical working groups at national and other levels to foster evidence-informed dialogue and decision-making. S/he will be involved in catalytic-solution building between government and non-government actors. S/he will be an advocate for health and wellbeing and communicable diseases control. S/he will be a role model for colleagues and a mentor for direct reports.

Key working relationships

The CTC will have a dotted reporting line to the Technical Specialist West and Central Africa and report directly to the RPD-WCA / CD. S/he will line manage in-country technical team as the technical lead. She will also work with the Global and Senior Technical teams  above-country  as well as the Country Management Team and external stakeholders such as National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP), National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), donor agencies, partner organisations and academic institutions S/he will actively participate in rolling out of Malaria Consortium’s strategy with Nigeria portfolio and capture lessons to be disseminate within MC NG and with the rest of the organisation. S/he will provide supervision of direct reports and dotted line working arrangements with selected team members.

Key accountabilities

Strategic accountability (20%)

• Work with the Regional Programmes Director for West and Central Africa/ Country Director and with inputs from Technical Specialist WCA to lead the development and revision of the technical aspects of the MC strategic roll-out in Nigeria country office
• Support the Regional Programmes Director for West and Central Africa/ Country Director in business development, identifying areas of technical need and developing concept notes, evidence summary and contributing to proposal development to sustain a balanced portfolio of projects in Nigeria
• Take lead on the technical aspects of proposal development in accordance with donor tender documentation and requirements

Technical accountability (40%)

• Ensure all programmes are implemented to high technical quality and based on national and international evidence and best practices
• Provide technical input towards rapid and smooth programme start up and close out, including programme transition to national stakeholders
• Coordinate identification of technical support needs for programmes and work with the WCA technical specialist, and Technical Director as well as other members of the Global Technical Team to ensure that technical support is provided on time and to high quality
• Support the development of MEL plans and utilization of appropriate MEL tools and systems for the country office and its programmes
• Contribute and support implementation of VFM framework to measure MC strategy and interventions
• Provide technical support to key stakeholders including the Ministry of Health in strategy and policy development and review on communicable diseases control and represent MC on technical coordination platforms in consultation with the WCAPD
• Support identification, selection and oversight of short-term technical assistance to take on defined scopes of work and arrange for the quality assurance of their deliverables
• Work with the West and Central Africa Technical Specialist to provide technical inputs to activities of the West & Central Africa Technical Team (WCATT) and Global Technical Team (GTT)

Technical human resource development (5%)

• Support the Regional Programmes Director for West and Central Africa/ Country Director to identify technical resource gaps in the country office team and provide inputs to the recruitment of qualified technical staff
• Lead the technical mentorship of direct reports and other technical team members

Documentation and positioning (10%)

• Lead the development and implementation of internal mechanisms for experiential and lessons learning to inform continuous quality improvement of programmes
• Periodically report to the Regional Programmes Director for West and Central Africa/ Country Director on the technical progress of programmes and highlight any critical technical issues and risks, and advise on solutions and mitigations
• Provide leadership, direction and mentorship in writing of technical publications such as policy briefs, case studies, literature reviews, approach papers, learning briefs, technical briefs, conference abstracts and peer review publications.
• Identify key relevant advocacy issues related to the project portfolio and work closely with External Relations team in the Country Office and UK to develop suitable advocacy outputs and their dissemination

Programme Management (5%)

• Take on the role of Principal Investigator (PI) on priority / relevant research studies
• Act as budget holder on key programmes or research studies as agreed with the Regional Programmes Director for West and Central Africa/ Country Director when relevant

Representation (10%)

• Represent Malaria Consortium at relevant technical working groups at the national level to share and use up-to-date technical information for evidence-based decision-making. This will involve sharing results from our work, current technical perspectives, approaches and best practices.
• Represent Malaria Consortium at regional and international meetings/workshops on specific technical areas as appropriate, including relevant networks to showcase the work the country team are doing and to position the organization as one of the leading technical organisations

Business Development (10%)

• Work with Regional Programmes Director for West and Central Africa / Country Director, Head of Technical WCA and the BD team to identify new business development opportunities which will include identifying areas of interest, responding to relevant opportunities, and writing funding proposals
• Support the NMEP/MOH in resource mobilisation activities such as GF Concept Note writing.
• Facilitate the identification of ideas, research questions aligned with the country strategy

Person specification

Qualifications and experience:  

Essential

• Master’s degree in Public or International Health, Communicable or Infectious diseases, Epidemiology or related discipline
• Medical qualification and familiarity with the Nigerian health system
• Extensive experience working in public health programmes or communicable disease control, with significant experience in a senior role
• Significant experience managing projects or programmes funded by major institutional donors and agencies such as DFID, USAID, the UN or EU
• Substantial first-hand experience in malaria control
• Experience working with actors in the public and private health care sectors
• Experience in health systems strengthening
• Demonstrable experience working in a technical advisory capacity to Ministries of Health and other partners, including relating to policy and guidelines review or development, and programme reviews
• Experience of building effective working relationships between MoH and its stakeholders
• Business development, including needs assessment, the development of concept notes and proposals, and stakeholder consultation and analysis

Desirable

• Field experience in Sub-Saharan Africa and a solid understanding of the realities and complexities of in-country programme implementation
• Experience in project or programme management including design, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation
• Experience in strategic planning and strategy implementation
• Experience working with teams with diverse cultural and professional backgrounds
• Experience in conducting qualitative and quantitative research related to public health programmes
• Financial management and/or experience of working with large budgets

Work-based skills and competencies:     

Essential

• Excellent understanding of communicable disease control, in particular malaria
• Excellent understanding of health services delivery in both the public and private sectors, in particular community-based primary health care
• Extensive knowledge of the health system in Nigeria including non-government actors
• Familiar with operations research (OR) methodologies and capable of designing and implementing OR studies
• Demonstrable ability to write funding proposals
• Demonstrable ability to write technical publications
• Excellent communication, interpersonal and presentation skills, with strong stakeholder management skills, able to engage effectively with broad and diverse audience
• Strong leadership skills with inclusive and motivational style and strong influencing ability
• Strong problem-solving ability, with excellent planning and organizational skills
• Results-oriented mind-set that is capable of balancing processes and outputs
• Excellent written and spoken English
• Strong technical writing skills
• Strong computer skills, conversant with MS Office packages
• Self-motivated, proactive and results-focused
• Able to work effectively as part of a team and on own initiative, with ability to work under pressure to meet tight deadlines whilst being attentive to detail

Desirable

• Demonstrable data management and statistical analysis skills
• Basic security training
• Skills in strategic thinking
• Familiar with mixed methods research approaches
• Familiar with the evaluation of complex health interventions
• Able to design and use quality improvement approaches including adaptive management.

Due to the nature of this role we will be reviewing applications on an ongoing basis and the role might be filled and closed before the closing date. Early applications are encouraged.

To apply for this position, you will need to have the right to work in Nigeria.

The Company

Established in 2003, Malaria Consortium is one of the world’s leading non-profit organisations specialising in the prevention, control, and treatment of malaria and other communicable diseases among vulnerable populations.

Our mission is to save lives and improve health in Africa and Asia through evidence-based programmes that combat targeted diseases and promote Universal Health Coverage.