Malaria Surveillance, Monitoring, and Evaluation Regional Hub Lead—Nairobi, Kenya at ICF Incorporated

Job Description

ICF is a partner on the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) Measure Malaria project, a five-year cooperative agreement led by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The project aims to strengthen host-country systems to generate high-quality health information that is used for decision-making at local, national, and global levels, with the goal to reduce disease burden. ICF’s role includes providing technical assistance to PMI and national governments to strengthen capacity in surveillance, monitoring, and evaluation (SME), primarily for malaria programming in PMI priority countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

ICF seeks a malaria SME expert to lead Measure Malaria’s East Africa regional hub. He or she will be responsible for technical coordination across several PMI priorities countries in the region and will ensure that emerging issues and approaches at regional and global levels are translated into country contexts. The regional hub lead will ensure cross-fertilization across countries to ensure that lessons learned and best practices in one country inform practices in other countries. The hub lead will report to the project technical director. The position will be based in Nairobi and will be for an initial period of 12 months, with the possibility of an extension, depending on the needs and the availability of funding.

Responsibilities

• Provides thought leadership and strategic vison for the implementation of malaria SME activities in PMI priority countries
• Engages with the PMI teams in countries where the project does not have SME advisors and discusses potential technical assistance in light of the support provided to other countries
• Supports and provides technical expertise to countries where the project does not have SME advisors for malaria SME, ensuring that it is informed by lesson learned from other countries
• Provides thought leadership for routine data analysis to document progress and achievements in malaria SME across countries
• Provides technical guidance to the Anglophone country backstop
• Communicates regularly with the technical director for guidance on technical issues, and with the operation director for operational aspects
• Engages with malaria SME partners in the region to create opportunities for collaboration
• Participates in opportunities to showcase the project’s best practices, such as publishing in peer‑reviewed journal articles and presenting at international conferences
• Represents the project on behalf of ICF in regional meetings, consultative sessions, conferences, and other fora
• Establishes and maintains a strong collaborative working relationship with PMI, project partners, and subcontractors, as well as other stakeholders in the region
• Ensures that project activities are meeting client and stakeholder expectations and that project results are proactively disseminated
• Is responsible for the overall planning, implementation, and management of the project in the region and for establishing a framework to monitor and ensure progress toward the achievement of project goals and objectives
• Ensures timely communication with and reporting to project team and PMI/country team
• Leads ICF business development in the region
• Performs other tasks as requested by the technical director
   

Qualifications

• Advanced degree in public health, epidemiology, or related field; MD or PhD preferred
• Minimum of 15 years’ experience in SME of infectious diseases (or other international health programs, especially in supporting country malarial control programs in East Africa region)
• Strong expertise in malaria technical components, including vector control, case management, entomology, malaria elimination, surveillance, and data use and visualization
• Good understanding of and prior experience working in with routine health information systems
• Good understanding of emerging malaria SME priorities at the global, regional, and country levels
• Experience in strengthening the capacity of government institutions
• Excellent scientific writing and presentations skills, with evidence of previous publications and conference presentations
• Ability to work coordinate work in multiple countries
• Demonstrated experience of being a strategic thinker
• Familiarity with USAID-funded projects, particularly PMI
• Excellent verbal, interpersonal, and written communication skills
• Excellent leadership, management, supervision, communication, and interpersonal skills, and ability to work in a large team-oriented setting
• Prior experience providing technical advice and mentoring at a range of levels
• Willingness and ability to travel frequently and internationally up to 25% of the time
• Fluency in English required; working knowledge in French will be an added advantage
• Experience in capture and proposal development for new opportunities
• Excellent proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite applications, as well as advanced analytics/ statistical software and code