The Ugandan Jobline

Job Title:   Health System Strengthening Specialist

Organisation: Save the Children International

Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda

About Organisation:

Save the Children International is an international relief organization that was established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic opportunities, as well as providing emergency aid in natural disasters, war, and other conflicts.

Job Summary:  The Health Systems Strengthening Specialist (HSS) will provide subject matter expertise in the design and implementation of Save the Children International’s work on Health Systems Strengthening (HSS). The post holder will ensure that the health and nutrition programs utilize state of the art thinking and practices and are aligned with GOU (Government of Uganda), technical agency and donor trends, policies, practices as well as emerging thinking on HSS. Working across a broad HSS spectrum, the incumbent will initially focus on leveraging SC’s principal area of expertise in service delivery, and later develop a strategy on how best to expand SC’s capabilities in other HSS areas.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Technical Leadership:

• Lead in health systems strengthening of the district for efficient delivery of essential health and nutrition services including planning, budgeting, and use of data for decision making.
• Continuously assess project needs in liaison with project managers/coordinators, recommend health system strengthening approaches and provide technical support to achieve project objectives.
• Support the development of staff capacity and DHMTs through training, one-on-one mentorship, on-the-job training, and supportive supervision.
• Provide ongoing technical support to the Kampala maternal and newborn health project in five priority facilities.
• Coordinate assessments, site strengthening, follow-up and supervision, including developing supportive supervision guidelines specifically for the maternal and newborn health project (Kampala) and other health and nutrition projects.
• Serve as a key resource in technical meetings to bring together various experiences and learning.
• Provide technical input into relevant proposals and partnerships.

Ensuring Programme Quality (Design and Implementation)

• Promote the Health Systems Strengthening approach as the overarching framework, that supports working in collaboration and partnership with governments and national bodies, local partners and working towards impact, scale, and sustainability.
• Lead the technical scoping, planning, and design and proposal writing during new programme development, and ensure that we design and deliver high quality health systems strengthening with public health resources, building on global best practice.
• Support the implementation of Kampala maternal and newborn health project through the development of tools and approaches to strengthen systems, use resources efficiently, enhance private public partnerships, and overall programme sustainability.
• Replicate and scale up health system strengthening tools for health and nutrition projects.
• Serve as the direct liaison for sub-award partners supporting roll out of clinical decision support tools in priority health facilities within the Kampala maternal and newborn health project including monitoring sub-awardee performance and providing technical oversight of sub-awardee activities.
• Work with Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability & Learning (MEAL) teams:
• Provide support to program monitoring and evaluation and impact assessment efforts; working in close collaboration with the Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning team to ensure that data collected is accurate, valid and captures process and outcome indicators; participate in technical project review meetings.
• Promote a culture of learning within supported projects and more broadly, proactive document and disseminate technical results and lessons in collaboration with program and knowledge management teams.
• Identify and synthesize evidence generated from project implementation and ensure its transfer to Ministry of Health, district and implementing partner teams to support scale up of evidence based and/or innovative health system strengthening practices.
• Work hand in hand with the advocacy and communication team to transform documentation into practical external tools related to health systems strengthening.
• Undertake field visits to project sites; work with implementation teams to understand impacts, operational challenges, and continuously identify opportunities for learning and improvement.
• Contribute to organisational learning on health systems strengthening ensuring that learning from our programmes is shared across the Country Office and our partners, as well as with colleagues in the wider regional and global health, nutrition, and WASH community in Save the Children. Contribute to strengthening the use of health competencies within training and learning initiatives in the sector.
• Support Humanitarian colleagues (as needed) to develop emergency preparedness plans and conduct sectoral assessments (including gender analysis and disability situation analysis using SC assessment processes and tools) and to design and deliver emergency response and recovery programmes. Ensure synergies between humanitarian Health & Nutrition teams, data, and programme design.

Networking & External Engagement:

• Ensure that Save the Children is influencing and learning on health systems strengthening from others through technical coordination and networking.
• When delegated, represent program to relevant National and Local government representatives, donors, partner agencies, etc. as required.
• Ensure the quality, clarity, and consistency of technical components of internal and external reports (e.g. programme reports, sit-reps, internal updates), working closely with awards, programme implementation and communications colleagues as needed.
• Represent the project in technical working groups, planning and review events as and when delegated by the Head of Health to articulate organizational priorities, emerging evidence, and recommended actions.

Qualifications Skills and Experience:  To be a strong supporter and advocate for children in this role you will need to have:

• At least a bachelor’s degree or higher in health sciences or related field.
• At least 5 years of progressive experience in health systems strengthening, health program design, program management, and implementation.
• Experience working in Uganda HSS and in one or more health technical areas preferred: maternal, newborn, child health and nutrition programming for NGOs.
• Experience providing technical assistance related to strengthen institutional and individual capacity in the component areas of health systems at national and sub-national levels.
• Experience working on integrated health and nutrition service delivery programs, with a focus on systems strengthening.
• Demonstrated strength and experience writing technical documents and reports.
• Excellent interpersonal and relationship building skills.
• Ability to produce thorough, high-quality work within a tight timeframe.
• Flexibility and ability to handle multiple tasks and work collaboratively within a matrix-oriented environment.
• Computer literacy in Microsoft Office Applications Suite.
• Willingness to travel up to 30% of time.
• Must be fluent (writing and speaking) in English

NB: Save the Children is an equal opportunity employer and seeks to employ and assign the best qualified talent, persons with disabilities and female candidates are encouraged to apply.

How to Apply:

All candidates who wish to join Save the Children should apply online at the link below.

Click Here

Deadline: 17th June 2024

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