Programme Director for SYCONA (Africa Based Large Research to Action HIV Prevention Initiative at Genesis Analytics

About the Position

Genesis Health is recruiting a Programme Director to manage a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded initiative known as Sycona.  Sycona is the research-to-action arm of the South-to-South HIV Prevention Learning Network (SSLN). The initiative aims to facilitate learning and application of best practice for HIV prevention programmes in 15 African countries and to support research utilisation in two of these. 

This programme will work with key country stakeholders, including national level implementing partners – who can be empowered to apply best practice and research to implementation design and implementation; government and donor organisations in the countries – who can enable the environment for adaptation; and local research institutions - to conceptualise research and evaluate programmes and country progress. 

The programme objectives are to:  

1. Support countries to accurately identify their specific capacity development needs and technical assistance requirements for an effective HIV prevention response.
2. Synthesise and disseminate HIV prevention research and best practice to inform key HIV prevention stakeholders in-country, in a way which supports uptake and use.
3. Mentor country stakeholders to become champions for HIV facilitated learning, and hence address key gaps and practically apply best practice for optimised program implementation.
4. Inform more targeted country strategies and funding proposals for HIV prevention with HIV.
5. Identify further critical questions for optimising HIV prevention programming that can be supported by research utilisation in two countries
6. Support cross-country sharing of best practice and joint problem solving for key barriers and bottlenecks experienced by country HIV program implementers. 

The expected responsibilities of the Programme Director will include:

• Providing strategic and technical programme leadership by:
• Leading the internal Genesis team, to understand, design and implement a responsive facilitated learning approach, focused on HIV prevention programming
• Managing accountability of and working closely with the sub-contractor (The Population Council) in their role in consolidating, synthesising and dissemination information and promising practice.
• Establishing and facilitating involvement and oversight from a programme advisory committee
• Build partnerships and relations with key global and regional HIV prevention initiatives and stakeholders
• Developing the overall programme direction and lead the programme collectively towards it
• Serve as the programme representative and main point of contact with the programme funder on all technical and operational matters
• Work closely with the SSLN programme director and team to support seamless integration of both programmes
• Develop and maintain effective working relationships with key stakeholders, including those at global, regional and country level.
• Coordinate and lead the internal team to ensure streamlined communication and implementation.
• Work closely with the M&E team to harvest outcomes from implementation of the learning to action initiative 
• Lead, manage, motivate and develop programme staff, encouraging their commitment to programme objectives, and meeting their personal development needs.
• Ensure sound financial and operational programme management, working with the programme’s financial team to manage programmatic budgeting, spending, forecasting and reporting.

Requirements

Required Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in relevant field e.g. MSc Epi, MPH
• Research-to-action experience is a must.
• Minimum 10 years of professional experience, at least 5 of which spent in oversight of donor programmes
• Technical expertise in the area of HIV prevention research
• Experience working across sub-Saharan Africa and understanding of the regional HIV epidemic
• Experience working with and implementing donor-funded programmes preferably in the health sector; familiarity with the Bill &and Melinda Gates Foundation would be an advantage
• Experience working with multi-lateral organisations as well as country programme managers building and maintaining good relationships and identifying and leveraging from collaboration opportunities
• Financial and operational management experience for successful programme delivery
• Excellent writing, presentation and interpersonal communication skills
• Fluent of written and spoken English required, business proficiency in French/Portuguese  an asset