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Job Title:  Project Manager (Integrated Outbreak Analytics)

Organisation: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

Duty Station:  Kampala, Uganda

About US:

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is mandated by the UN general assembly to advocate for the protection of children’s rights, to help meet their basic needs and expand their opportunities to reach their full potential. Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere.

About the Project:

Uganda is one of the over 190 countries and territories around the world where we work to overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, disease, and discrimination place in a child’s path. Together with the Government of Uganda and partners we work towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, the objectives of the Uganda National Development Plan, and the planned outcomes of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework.  Visit this Link to connect with our mission in Uganda.

On 20 September 2022, Uganda confirmed a case of Ebola (Sudan Virus Disease, SVD) in Ngabano Village of Madudu Sub-County, Mubende district. Concurrently, two sub-counties; Kiruma and Madudu reported a cluster of six unexplained deaths that had occurred between 1 and 15 September 2022 that have been classified as probable cases of Ebola. By 17 November 2022, 60 days later, 141 confirmed cases with 55 confirmed deaths (CFR 39%) had been reported in nine districts: Mubende, Kassanda, Kyegegwa, Bunyangabu, Kagadi, Kampala, Wakiso, Mukono and Jinja districts. This includes: 19 health workers (HW CFR 37%), and 35 cases reported among children (child specific CFR 60%). A total of 76 people including children have recovered from the disease. As part of the initial surge response and at the request of the Uganda Country Office, UNICEF PHE HQ deployed its Global Integrated Outbreak Analytics (IOA) lead to support the response through the set up of an IOA Cell under the Ministry of Health. IOA applies a multidisciplinary approach to understanding outbreak dynamics and to inform outbreak response. It aims to drive comprehensive, accountable, and effective public health and clinical strategies by enabling communities, and national and subnational health authorities to use data for operational decision-making. IOA is produced through partnerships and a multi-disciplinary community of practice (a network of agencies and organizations that work or are interested in working with this approach have come together under the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN). It is primarily a field-based initiative that leverages support from national, regional, and international experts to reinforce pre-existing local capacity.

Objectives of IOA set up within the Uganda Ebola response

Within the response, the objective of IOA are to

• Drive comprehensive, accountable, and effective public health and clinical strategies for outbreak management and control
• Produce data from multidisciplinary perspectives that can rapidly and systematically inform operational decisions
• Drive a holistic understanding of outbreak dynamics, and highlight the impacts of both the outbreak and response control interventions
• Advance mechanisms and methods for relevant, useful, and rapid evidence-generation
• Build, strengthen and scale-up sub-national and national, regional, and global capacity to conduct IOA
• Provide support via field deployment, remote assistance (analytics/helpdesk), technical and normative guidance, tool development or dissemination and online trainings.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Support the IOA MoH leadership to manage IOA Cell

• Bring together partners and collaborators, facilitate discussions, meetings and presentations as required
• Support on the identification of key IOA themes and studies over time
• When/if required support the development of an IOA workplan within the Ebola response strategy
• Support the tracking and development of IOA studies with different partners
• Work with MoH to ensure IOA cell can be sustainable as /if requested

Provide technical guidance to MoH and partners on key questions for IOA

• Support understanding of outbreak dynamics and identify and support on appropriate methods to collect and analyse data to answer questions
• Review routine data from response pillars (case, surveillance, ETU and others); continuity of care (use of healthcare services) and context (community; healthcare worker) to monitor trends in outbreak, impacts of the outbreak and response and communities perceptions and practice over time to identify questions for further investigation
• Provide training and technical guidance to MoH and partners on IOA approaches and methods (in person, online, tools etc)

Support on data analytics (social epidemiological, statistics, R) based on data types and study questions

• Conduct routine analyses of social epidemiological data (qualitative, quantitative)
• Contribute to reflections around data analytics within other specializations (data science, modelling, anthropology etc)

Ensure that studies are robust and of quality through support to data collection (tools, methods) and analyses

• Regularly accompany and support MoH and field teams in different locations to review and adapt data collection methods/tools to ensure they are usable and provide quality data for analysis

Support the monitoring of evidence use across response pillars and actors over time

• Contribute to systematic review of IOA presentations, use of evidence (co-development) and ensure that this is being documented and tracked by MoH
• Support all IOA partners to ensure that results are presented in ways which are usable and used and that recommendations are documented across all pillars, response actors and support the MoH to identify the best mechanisms for doing so.

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Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

• The ideal applicant must hold an Advanced (master’s degree) university qualification in relevant field (social epidemiology, epidemiology, operational social sciences health research, public health).
• At least eight years of progressively responsible professional work field-based (operational) experience at national and international levels working in humanitarian settings including in public health emergencies.
• Demonstrated ability to synthesize complex scientific content for multiple audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to develop capacity building tools.
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.
• The individual should be highly proficient in a range of PC/web applications, including but not limited to: MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, NVivo/Atlas Ti, Epi Info.
• Experience working in public health emergencies is required. Specific experience is using evidence to inform outbreak and humanitarian response is required.
• Experience working in health research in humanitarian or development programmes is required.
• Working in data science (R, SPSS) is an asset
• Strong organizational, planning, and analytical skills.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified and interested applicants should apply online at the link below

Click Here

Deadline: 5^th December 2022

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