Senior Health Programme Specialist

HEALTH PROGRAMME UNIT (HPU)

SCA health programme activities entail elements of service delivery under a contracted-out modality by Ministry of Public Health, capacity development and advocacy – majority of the latter two are SCA own initiatives funded by SIDA and other donors. SCA is currently implementing Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS) and Essential Package of Hospital Services (EPHS) in Wardak province, along with running Community Health Nursing Education (CHNE), Community Midwifery Education (CME) schools in Wardak and Samangan provinces and Learning for Healthy Life (LHL) and School Health projects in Laghman, Wardak and Balkh provinces of Afghanistan. SCA provides financial and technical support to Afghanistan Midwives Association (AMA), in implementation of mentorship project in Laghman, Samangan and Wardak provinces. As a step toward e-health system, SCA is implementing Smart Paper Technology (SPT) in Laghman and Wardak provinces to digitalize Expanded Programme of Immunization (EPI) data. 

As of 2019, SCA phased out BPHS and EPHS delivery in Laghman province with an intended ambition to strengthen its engagement in capacity development and advocacy to remain relevant health actor in Afghanistan and therefore initiated re-orientation of its strategic direction in line with SCA Strategic Plan (SP) 2018-2021 and Afghanistan’s Health Sector priorities. SCA Health Programme has carried out a preliminary assessment of the potential strategic paths and options for SCA during the current and beyond the current SP period. It has been concluded to maintain mix of service delivery, capacity development and advocacy during the current SP period while at the same time take steps towards more substantially contributing to health systems development on national and sub-national levels coupled with initiatives of evidence-based advocacy.  

The evidence so far reveals that SPT has been a cost efficient and effective initiative and has the potential of expansion to other provinces and components of health delivery and therefore SCA together with MoPH and Shifo are aiming for the expansion as key contributor to health system efficiency and effectiveness. The Health Programme Unit at KMO plays central role in re-orientation of the strategic direction to ensure SCA contributes to the health sector development through service delivery, capacity development and advocacy and therefore the role of Senior Health Programme Specialist has been re-defined to actively contribute to the re-orientation of Health Programme.

SCOPE OF WORK

The Senior Health Programme Specialist role mainly focuses on two areas that include:

1. a) strategic and technical input to the programme development particularly in the process of re-orientation of strategic direction, and
2. b) planning and reporting.

Under supervision of the head of Health Programme Unit (HPM), to whom s/he reports, the Senior Health Programme Specialist has a central advisory role in designing, strengthening and developing of the Health Programme for ensuring long-term outcomes. S/he guides processes related to policy, strategy and methodology, and provides technical support for result-based planning, monitoring and reporting. The role encompasses strategic work on institution and system levels as well as capacity building of key Programme/Project staffs.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategic and Technical input to programme development:

• Under the guidance of Health Programme Manager, take active role in health programme strategic direction re-orientation and lead processes related to policy/strategy formulation, development of technical guidelines, manuals and protocols through feeding in new programme development perspectives/ experience from other countries with similar contexts.
• Takes the lead in developing and designing of programme related concepts, studies, evaluations and with inputs from Regional Management teams based on pro-poor and marginalized groups perspectives reflecting the needs identified at the community level.
• Ensure that the concerned units at the field level are pro-actively involved in the development of concept notes and project proposals. Ensure that the concept note, and proposals are aligned with strategic objectives, mission and vision of SCA.
• Assist planning, monitoring, evaluation and reporting with strong consideration of gender responsiveness and right-based approaches through building capacity of KMO (Kabul Management Office) and RMO (Regional Management Office) programme staff.
• To facilitate evaluations and research studies within the health programme and actively follow-up the progress made towards the recommendations proposed by evaluations, studies, surveys and third- party monitoring in accordance with the management responses/action plans.

Annual Planning and Donor Reporting:

• Leading the annual planning, reporting, and proposal development processes within HPU is the primary responsibility of the HPM. The Senior Health Programme Specialist will be responsible to develop quality narrative drafts with inputs from RMOs and submit to HPM for final review before submission to the next level within the organization.
• The Senior Health Programme Specialist also takes the lead in strengthening bottom -up planning and reporting by building the capacity of concerned RMO staff. Support the RMO staff in strengthening participatory planning and reporting to ensure that the target groups’, including men, women, boys and girls actively take part in planning, implementation and reporting processes.

THE REQUIREMENTS                                                                                                     

Qualification:    

• Should be a medical doctor with a Master’s degree in Public Health, holding a PHD will be a preference.
• At least seven years of relevant work experience in senior positions in large organizations within public health.

Essential skills and experience

• Must have strong experience in health policy formulation and strategy particularly related to health systems development and e-health innovations
• Experience of working on rights-based approaches to health and knowledge of participatory methods and tools

• Skilled in results-based planning, reporting, evaluation, research and the proposal development
• Experience in staff capacity building
• Excellent analytical, facilitation, networking, and communication skills
• Willingness/ability to travel to field locations
• Proven skills in advocacy, networking and influencing
• Understanding of social relations and commitment to integrate gender, diversity and other power related issues into programme design and practices
• Fluency in written and spoken English

Desired competency

• Previous experience from Afghanistan or a similar context
• Familiarity with Afghan culture and local languages (Dari or Pashto)
• Experience of developing database and using statistical packages e.g. SPSS and STATA, ArcView to undertake quantitative analysis
• Have participated in HEAT-training or other security training

Application information

• Contract period: 2 years with an initial 6 months probationary period
• Conditions: Non-family posting. SCA offers a competitive salary, free housing, insurances and other benefits.
• Duties to begin: February 2020
• Last date for application: 1 December 2019

Apply from https://sak.se/om-oss/lediga-jobb?jobid=92112
Download a 1-page letter explaining why you are interested in and suited for this position and your CV (no more than 2 pages) in English.