Public Health Associate

Hardship Level (not applicable for home-based)

A (least hardship)FamilyUNOPS LICA62025-01-01November 25, 20241. General Background

The Public Health Associate is a member of a multidisciplinary team and contributes to ensuring that UNHCR's public health programmes meet minimum UNHCR and global health standards to minimize avoidable morbidity and mortality among forcibly displaced and stateless persons and towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Public health programmes include primary health care, secondary health care, sexual and reproductive health (including HIV), nutrition, mental health, and psychosocial support (MHPSS). The incumbent provides effective guidance and support to partners on UNHCR’s responses in public health.
S/he will contribute to advancing the concepts found in UNHCR’s Global Public Health Strategy as well as the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) and the mainstreaming/inclusion of refugees into national health programmes and systems.
This Public Health Associate position will be based at Kigali Country Office and is under UNOPS. The incumbent is usually supervised by a more senior public health staff or in the absence thereof, by operations/programmes staff.



Staff under UNHCR duties are accountable to perform their duties as reflected in their job description. They do so within their delegated authorities, in line with the regulatory framework of UNHCR which includes the UN Charter, UN Staff Regulations and Rules, UNHCR Policies and Administrative Instructions as well as relevant accountability frameworks. In addition, staff members are required to discharge their responsibilities in a manner consistent with the core, functional, cross-functional and managerial competencies and UNHCR’s core values of professionalism, integrity and respect for diversity.

2. Purpose and Scope of Assignment

- Assist the implementation of public health programmes with partners and health authorities in a multi-sectoral and coordinated manner.
- Assist efforts towards public health programming towards greater inclusion and access of refugees to national health systems.
- Participate in relevant coordination and collaboration structures as requested.
- Participate in emergency responses to new refugee influxes and disease outbreaks.
- Support gathering information for relevant assessments and identification of needs.
- Work closely with programme and other units as applicable in programme planning and monitoring.
- Support intersectoral collaboration throughout all stages of programme cycle between public health, and other sectoral areas to promote synergies and maximize impact.
- Assist in the use of the relevant UNHCR Health Information System suite of tools and surveys to support in analysis, interpretation, reporting and use of public health data.
- Assist in capacity strengthening of partners to ensure the technical integrity of public health programmes.
- Support the identification and management of risks and seek to seize opportunities impacting objectives in responsibility. Ensure decision making is risk based in the functional area of work. Raise risks, issues and concerns to a supervisor or to relevant functional colleague(s).
- Assist in the coordination of public health programmes across the country operations including assimilation and documentation of better practice/lessons learnt for dissemination.
- Support effective collaborative approaches across different units within the operation.
- Perform other related duties as required.

3. Monitoring and Progress Controls

- Assist in regular data collection and monitoring of key health indicators for timely response.
- Assist in efforts to enhance the technical integrity of health care services and that they are based on Ministry of Health, UNHCR and/or internationally recognized and most up-to-date standards and policies.
- Monitor and support compliance with UNHCR Public Health Administrative Instruction/standard operating procedures.

4. Qualifications and Experience

For G6 - 3 years relevant experience with High School Diploma; or 2 years relevant work experience with Bachelor or equivalent or higher.
a. Education (Level and area of required and/or preferred education)
     
Medicine; Nursing; Public Health; Epidemiology.

b. Work Experience
Essential
Experience in public health programming as well as understanding of health systems and health systems building blocks. Experience with data collection and analysis in position(s) where the ability to draft clear, concise documentation was essential.

Desirable
Experience in public health emergency preparedness and response. Experience in humanitarian settings. Experience with coordination and stakeholder engagement to achieve public health goals. Experience with health information systems. Experience with the provision of quality-assured medicines and medical supplies.

c. Key Competencies

PM-Project monitoring and evaluation
PH-Public Health Epidemiology 
MD- HIV/AIDS situation management
MD-Reproductive Health
PH-Community Health - Health Data Collection/Analysis/Interpretation 

 

Standard Job Description

Required Languages

,

,

Desired Languages

,

,

Additional Qualifications

Skills

Education

Certifications

Other information

This position doesn't require a functional clearance

Home-Based

No