Technical Advisor II – Health Systems Strengthening.

Catholic Relief Services a Development Organization is seeking a qualified, experienced, and highly motivated Technical Advisor II – Health Systems Strengthening. You will provide technical advice, guidance, and support to a wide range of program design and implementation issues with a focus on a President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) Cameroon project in health systems strengthening in line with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices to regional and Country Program (CP) teams to advance the delivery of high-quality malaria programming to the poor and vulnerable. You will lead HSS activities focused on capacity building of non-government local actors and technical assistance initiatives to strengthen planning, coordination, implementation of malaria activities at the regional, district and community level. You will ensure effective and timely implementation of HSS activities in the work plan and quality deliverables. Your technical knowledge, advice and guidance will contribute to determining how effective, adaptive and innovative CRS’ health systems strengthening programming is in Cameroon. This position is based in Garoua/Cameroon and is contingent upon approval by the donor.

The position is based in Garoua (North Region of Cameroon)

Primary Responsibilities:

• Contribute to the development and implementation of agency-wide strategies, standards, tools, and best practices in health systems strengthening that effectively engage partners, donors, and governments. Help ensure a cross-sectoral approach integrating gender, protection mainstreaming, and disaster risk reduction.
• Provide remote and on-site technical solutions to the Cameroon PMI project team, the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP), and their partners for strategic planning and how to best apply program design and implementation standards, best practices, partnership principles, tools, and M&E, ensuring high-quality implementation for a health system strengthening framework at national, regional, district, community, and facility levels.
• Contribute to Country Program (CP) efforts to pre-position CRS for growth opportunities in health systems strengthening. Lead or contribute to the development of the technical design for large and/or complex proposals.
• Lead capacity strengthening initiatives in health systems strengthening in malaria programming, HMIS, supply chain and governance for PMI project staff, the NMCP, and their partners through conducting capacity assessments, developing learning and training strategies and agendas/curriculums, conducting trainings and workshops, and mentoring and coaching.
• Contribute to the development and roll out of an improvement/strengthening plan for the Ministry of Health, the NMCP and its decentralized units in line with CRS’ High-Performance Implementer (HPI) program.
• Contribute to knowledge management and learning through collecting and analyzing program data, evaluating strategic projects, assisting with measuring program impact, capturing and sharing lessons learned and best practices, and research and internal reports.
• Contribute to the development of malaria policy documents, work plans, and periodic reports.
• Establish and maintain relationships with the NMCP, other government actors, peer organizations working in malaria, research, and other institutions. Participate in forums in the area of malaria and health systems strengthening to collect and share best practices and promote CRS’ work.

Qualifications and Experience:

• Master’s Degree in public health, health economics, public policy, or field related to health systems strengthening required.
• Minimum of five years relevant working experience in health service delivery, health policy and administration, health sector development, or public health in an advisory or management role with progressive responsibilities, ideally with an international NGO, with minimum of three years working for malaria programming interventions.
• Previous experience providing technical assistance and developing successful proposals for external donor funding is required.
• Demonstrated application of technical principles and concepts in malaria health systems strengthening.
• General knowledge of other related disciplines to ensure proper cross-sectoral approach.
• Experience in mentoring, coaching, facilitation, and training applying adult learning principles and practices.
• Experience with program monitoring and evaluation, including applying data collection tools and methodologies, data analysis, and data presentation.
• Experience and skills in networking and relations with donors, peer organizations, government, and faith-based and civil society partners. Understanding of partnership principles.
• Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information and budget management systems, knowledge-sharing networks.

Required Languages

• Professional proficiency in written and spoken English and French.

Personal Skills

• Excellent relationship management skills with ability to influence and get buy-in from people not under direct supervision and to work with individuals in diverse geographical and cultural settings.
• Strong strategic, analytical, problem-solving and systems thinking skills with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment. Proactive, resourceful and results-oriented
• Strong written, oral, communication skills, presentation, facilitation, training, mentoring, and coaching skills
• Experience working in community and hospital-based health system strengthening programs for malaria control.
• Skills in strengthening malaria service delivery programs, training, performance and quality improvement and monitoring and evaluation. A good knowledge of malaria indicators and the Cameroon Malaria Control Strategic Plan.
• Recent experience working in PMI, Global Fund, or other international donor in malaria control programming.

Required Travel: The selected candidate must be willing and able to travel up to 30% (mostly within Cameroon)

Disclaimer: This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.