Uganda: Technical Advisor, Policy - Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health

Clinton Health Access Initiative Overview

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries, while strengthening the capabilities of governments and the private sector in those countries to create and sustain high-quality health systems that can succeed without our assistance. For more information, please visit: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org

Program Background

Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health outcomes in Uganda remain below national and global targets despite concerted efforts by policy makers, health managers, service providers, development partners and civil society organizations. While investments in Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health have translated into tremendous scale up of essential services for women, children and adolescent girls, indicators remain poor. For instance, while under five mortality reduced by 50% between 2006 and 2016, neonatal mortality increased over the same period of time from 24 per 1,000 live births to 27 per 1,000 live births; far from the national goal of 10 neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births by 2020.

Maternal mortality is unacceptably high, with a nationwide maternal mortality ratio of 336 per 100,000 live births, indicating that the risk of a woman in Uganda dying due to complications in pregnancy or childbirth is four times the global average and above the national target of 211 per 100,000 live births by 2020. Uganda's modern contraceptive prevalence rate among married women is 35% and only 20% among married adolescents, contributing to a high teen pregnancy rate.

CHAI will implement an evidence based Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health project to support the Government of Uganda address the challenges above. The 4 year project will focus on ensuring that timely and quality Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health services are available and accessible to women, adolescents and children. Working at national, district and community level, the program will focus on equipping, and building the capacity of the health system to ably manage, deliver and sustain improvement in Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health programming. The project will be implemented in 5 districts.

Position Description

The Technical Advisor, Policy will provide strategic professional leadership and technical policy inputs to the Ministry of Health in order to strengthen the stewardship role of Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health activities in the country. He/She will support CHAI to influence priorities in the area of Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health in Uganda including the area of reproductive health rights, maintain technical partnerships, and provide strategic technical support to ensure that evidence is updated, generated, collected and disseminated for effective technical and policy dialogues. This position requires approximately 30% travel domestically.

1. Strategic technical support

• Facilitate and provide technical assistance to Ministry of Health in order to ensure smooth implementation of Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health strategy, guidelines and protocols at subnational level
• Work collaboratively with other Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health partners to render technical support to Ministry of Health in the implementation of the investment case for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and the Family Planning costed implementation plan mainly focusing on the implementation of high impact reproductive, maternal and adolescent health service interventions
• Stay abreast with any new developments and technologies in the field of reproductive, maternal and adolescent health and appropriately advise the Ministry of Health and stakeholders on their appropriateness, efficacy and effectiveness
• Liaise with Ministry of Health, the World Bank and other key-stakeholders to facilitate the successful roll-out of the Global Financing Facility at national and sub national levels in Uganda

2. Resource mobilization

• Provide technical inputs to resource mobilization activities within CHAI as well as at district and national (Ministry of Health) level using data and evidence

3. Evidence and knowledge development and dissemination

• Identify, analyze, distill and synthesize state-of-the-art technical knowledge and evidence and ensure its transfer to Ministry of Health and partners to support scale up of evidence based and/or innovative Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child And Adolescent Health related interventions
• Ensure incorporation of existing evaluation results, lessons learned and new knowledge in routine Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child And Adolescent Health technical updates/review

4. Technical representation

• Ensure coordination and improved functionality of Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health coordination meetings, technical working groups and program review symposia at national level

• Participate in all coordination meetings relevant to Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and ensure effective information sharing and decision making inside and outside of Ministry of Health

• Advanced degree or equivalent in Public health, Public policy, International relations, International Development, Public administration, Management or other related field

• At least 5 years' relevant work experience

• Advanced proficiency in computer packages such as Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, PowerPoint, and Word

• Excellent analytical (qualitative and quantitative) and communication (written and verbal) skills

• Practical project/program management experience

Advantages

• Public Health experience in a developing country setting
• Demonstrated expertise in the substantive area of work; and programme experience

Key competences

• Practical project management experience
• Guides subset of program/ functional development across related project areas
• Advises supervisor on effectiveness of program, systems or procedures
• Recommends initiatives and priorities within a defined program area or function
• Flexible in achieving work objectives as necessary
• Readjusts work objectives as necessary; keeps supervisor informed
• Plans and carries out individual work with minimal oversight
• Assists in identifying discrete issues
• Develops presentable insights and recommendations with guidance
• Designs approaches to collect data, improve processes and able to analyze and draw conclusions from data
• Manages the development and maintenance of databases and tools
• Presents findings from analysis
• Coordinates and establishes credibility with internal and department head level external stakeholders

PI101459359

Apply Here

Apply Here