Operations Planning and Review Officer at World Health Organization

PURPOSE OF THE POSITION

The purpose of the position is to provide technical support to WHO Country Offices (WCO) through the WHO Emergency Hubs in assessing, planning and reviewing emergency operations within the Emergency Management Response Program in the WHO/AFRO Emergency Preparedness and Response Cluster. The incumbent will focus on providing strategic and technical guidance and work closely with other units within the EPR Cluster to support member states in planning, conducting After-Action Reviews for outbreaks, Intra-action Action Reviews and Joint Operations reviews for protracted events. The incumbent is responsible for coordinating and evaluating emergency response planning and review activities within the assigned area of responsibility, in consultations with other programs, Regional Hubs, WHO HQ, and Country office colleagues on program needs within the scope of planning and reviews and will create milestones on new policies and strategies to address regional and country needs. Build technical capacities for WHO staff and Ministries of Health in the Member States in the area of planning and emergency reviews.

Description Of Duties

Operations planning and reviews are an essential aspect of WHO support to countries to facilitate an effective response to acute and protracted emergencies, documenting best practices and lessons learned and identifying areas of support to the WCOs to strengthen capacity for future outbreak response further. The incumbent will collaborate closely with other units within the EMR and EPR cluster, including the emergency hubs, as coordination is key to avoiding duplication of efforts. Specifically, the incumbent will execute the following tasks:

• Undertake technical review and clearance of strategic response plans/HRP and operations plans for graded emergencies
• Provide technical support and tools for planning activities and products
• Liaise with the Hubs and HQ to constitute a review team, and organise and implement the Joint operations review.
• Facilitate joint operations reviews for protracted humanitarian crises every six months in collaboration with the three levels of WHO
• Facilitate capacity building to establish a pool of resource persons to undertake joint operations reviews at the country level.
• Provide technical support to member states to monitor response plans and operations based on set key performance standards and IASC processes.
• Monitor implementation of recommendations from the reviews.
• Track the closure of closed grade 2 and 3 emergencies to identify events for After action review for acute events and joint operations reviews in collaboration with other units/programmes within the EPR. These should be conducted within sixty days of closure of the event for acute emergencies.
• Facilitate the monitoring of incidents at country level, design methodologies, tools, and indicators for monitoring the implementation of projects and operations; evaluate the quality of outputs, including the management, coordination, effectiveness and resource mobilization of multisectoral emergency prevention, preparedness, response and recovery action plans and programmes.
• Provide technical support to the different units within EMR in identifying evidence-based public health baselines and health-specific interventions; synergize the integration and incorporation into related work plans, ensuring compliance with existing reporting requirements.
• Determine the data information elements that are required internally and externally to support the health sector/cluster coordination and decision-making; design standardized methods of capturing and consolidating evidence-based health interventions and documenting lessons learnt, best practices and trend analyses for promoting accountability, responsiveness and transparency.
• Build and strengthen national capacities for monitoring and evaluation of emergency programmes, through needs assessment, defining training needs, developing strategies to achieve targets and facilitate the implementation of training activities.
• Assess the impact and effectiveness of responding to health emergencies at the national level; evaluate the relationship between emergency programmes and operational structures in WCO; identify gaps; recommend capacities required to improve effectiveness; suggest remedial actions to allow greater predictability and accountability and partnerships.
• background documents, concept papers, and situation analysis, and develop monthly technical reports assessing the implementation of related programmes.
• Facilitate the operational planning and reporting of related health emergencies activities, verify results-oriented formulations and brief technical leads on proper submissions that culminate in approved operational work plans, and their subsequent programmatic monitoring, evaluation and reporting.
• Perform any related incident-specific duties required by the functional supervisor

Required Qualifications

Education

• Essential: Advanced university degree (Masters level or above) in information management, public health, epidemiology, economics, international development, life sciences, public or business administration from an accredited/recognized institute.
• Desirable: Professional training in information management, public health, epidemiology, economics, international development, public or business administration from an accredited/recognized institute. Certified training in monitoring and evaluation.

Experience

• Essential: At least 7, (Seven) years of related experience at the national and international levels, in the design and implementation of monitoring and evaluation strategies, methodologies and tools, including experience in emergency operations or humanitarian context.
• Desirable: Prior emergency disaster and health outbreak response or humanitarian working experience at field level, with WHO/UN, health cluster partners, recognized humanitarian organizations or with an international nongovernmental organization.

Skills

• Demonstrated knowledge of principles, disciplines and techniques to implement monitoring and evaluation strategies;
• Good research and documentation skills, especially for ‘best practices in organizational change;
• Proven ability to make recommendations related to work-processing approaches and procedures which would lead to more efficient systems design;
• Advanced ability to gather, analyse and disseminate information on best practices in accountability and results;

WHO Competencies

• Teamwork
• Respecting and promoting individual and cultural differences
• Communication
• Producing results Creating an empowering and motivating environment

Closing Date: Aug 25, 2022