Senior Specialist, Community Health Programming - GL E

Senior Specialist, Community Health Programming - GL E - 6 years Defined Duration Strengthening Community Systems and Responses (CS&R) is essential to achieving progress against the three diseases and to fulfil the Global Fund’s objectives of building resilient and sustainable systems for health (RSSH) and promoting human rights and gender equity. Responses that are led by communities – and the systems and structures needed to support them – are central to the work of the Global Fund and its vision of “a world free of the burden of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria with better health for all.” The COVID-19 crisis had further highlighted the importance of community-based and community-led responses to the epidemic and to the mitigation of its effects on HIV, tuberculosis and malaria programs.

Community health programs, including activities carried out by Community Health Workers (CHWs), community health extension workers (HEWs), and related services (such as integrated community case management (ICCM)) are essential parts of CS&R. They have been recognized by many countries as critical to achieving better health outcomes, especially for underserved communities. Therefore, the Global Fund is supporting significant investments in CHW and HEW programming, including services delivered by CHW and HEW, such as ICCM, TB case-finding, Behavior Change Communications (BCC), etc.

The Senior Specialist, Community Health Programming, provides strategic guidance on community health programming and CS&R more broadly. They function as the senior advisor on the design and implementation of CHW and HEW programming as well as related activities (e.g., ICCM, BCC, TB case-finding, seasonal malarial chemo-prevention (SMC), patient retention, etc.) . They are placed within the RSSH team, and due to the interdisciplinary nature of CS&R, they will collaborate across the Secretariat (particularly the HIV, TB and Malaria teams, Community Rights and Gender department, Grant Management Division). They will work on the following areas:

• Strategy, Policy, and Technical Guidance. The Senior Specialist, Community Health Programming will provide thought leadership and guide the Global Fund’s efforts in improving the performance of community health responses. The Senior Specialist will spearhead global activities, lead high-level country dialogue, and provide strategic inputs into The Global Fund’s next strategy paper, specifically on CHW and HEW programming, and more broadly on community health responses and CS&R overall. The Senior Specialist will also be responsible for ensuring that Global Fund guidance notes and technical briefs for internal and implementer audiences reflect global best practice and evidence on community health programming.

• Internal advice and support to grant implementation. The Senior Specialist will lead the exploration and development of opportunities to expand and improve community health programming. They will provide expert advice to Country Teams and other stakeholders on practical ways of solutioning this. The Senior Specialist will also proactively support implementation of existing community health activities. They will keep staff updated on the emerging evidence on community health, new tools (e.g. IT and supervision instruments); important innovations (such as use of CSOs to support CHWs). They will support integration of CS&R in the development and reprogramming of HIV, TB, malaria and RSSH grants. They will co-lead in designing and implementing a learning agenda on CS&R (specifically community health programming), in collaboration with other Secretariat stakeholders like the CRG department.

• Partnerships. The Senior Specialist will play a leadership role with a broad array of partner organizations to promote and strengthen community health activities related to the three diseases and building RSSH, in close collaboration with the specialists in the CRG department and the Partnerships and Technical Cooperation Specialist in TAP who have existing partnership relations on CS&R.

Key Responsibilities

Under the leadership of the Head of RSSHand in collaboration with the Technical Advice & Partnerships (TAP) Department, particularly the HIV, TB and malaria advisors, the Community Rights and Gender (CRG) Department, and other internal stakeholders, the Senior Specialist, Community Health Programming will lead the work on improving the performance of community health responses.

Strategy, policy review, and technical guidance:

The Senior Specialist, will:

• Provide thought leadership globally on how the Global Fund and its partners, particularly governments, can expand and improve their community health programs to advance the fight against the three diseases and build RSSH. This will include finding value-for-money innovations that can be financed from domestic resources.

• Provide strategic-level input into the Global Fund’s next strategy, particularly that part related to CS&R and human resources for health (HRH) across the three diseases and RSSH.

• Identify priority countries where strengthening community health responses will be particularly important in accelerating results.

• Lead high-level policy dialogue with Governments and other stakeholders about the different aspects of community health, including financing, monitoring and evaluation, and human resource policy

• Ensure that Global Fund’s guidance notes and technical briefs that relate to the public-sector provider performance improvement reflect the current state of the art and take full advantage of global experience and Global Fund learning.

• Act as co-lead on the development of the CS&R roadmap that is being developed collectively with the CRG department (and input from other teams in TAP, the HF departments and GMD), with the objective to step-up CS&R performance.

• Review the way in which The Global Fund currently supports community systems in its grants and the impact that these investments are having.

Internaladvice and support to grant implementation:

The Senior Specialist will:

• Provide strategic-level input into the Global Fund’s next strategy, particularly that part related to CS&R and community health.

• Work closely with the Grant Management Division and provide strategic advice to the Grant Management Division (including country teams) on the design and implementation of community health programming.

• Proactively uncover opportunities for expanding and strengthening community health activities and bring these to the attention of stakeholders including country teams and collaborating to enable their implementation. Working with and through country teams, the Senior Specialist, will autonomously provide professional opinion and expert guidance, bringing practical and contextualized advice and support that pushes in-country results and the CS&R agenda forward.

• Ensure that learning on community health programming is socialized across The Global Fund and reflected in investments and implementation approaches.

• Provide training to Global Fund staff and key external stakeholders and develop tools (technical briefs, presentations, literature summaries, etc.) on community health programming that reflects global best practice, relevant to the Global Fund model.

• Provide strategic analyses at country level about opportunities and options for community health improvement.

• Advise stakeholders, particularly governments, in the broad design of community health strategies and plans.

• Spearhead detailed design considerations of community health activities.

• Ensuring that detailed designs are clear about: (i) monitoring and evaluation, including means of verification and robust evaluation design for pilots; (ii) scale of implementation; (iii) quality control of the implementation; and (iv) cost of the interventions to be able to find the most cost-effective package of interventions.

• Support the implementation of community health activities in selected countries.

Partnerships:

• Set-up and co-lead(together with CRG specialists and the Partnerships and Technical Cooperation specialist) close collaboration with partners, including Gavi, the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, WHO, bilateral aid agencies, foundations, and NGOs who work on community health responses and to shape the partnership agenda in this area..

• Explore means to collaborate with partners to increase the focus on community health responses improvement and CS&R improvement in general, in the fight against the three diseases and building RSSH.

Subject to change by the Executive Director at any time at their sole discretion.

Qualifications

Essential:

• Advanced university degree in public sector management, public policy, development studies, or a related field

Desirable:

• Advanced university degree in public health in developing countries

Experience

Essential:

• Significant experience with community health programming and CS&R more generally.

• Significant experience and technical knowledge of community health programming, including financing, monitoring and evaluation, and human resources for health.

• Track record in the area of community health programming, including program design and implementation

• Experience in developing country contexts

• Demonstrated in-county experience in the field of program design, monitoring and implementation of community health programs.

Desirable:

• 8-10 years of experience with community health programming and CS&R more generally

• Demonstrated understanding of the international health and development landscape

• Demonstrated understanding of the Global Fund and its business model.

• Experience and knowledge of Global Fund and its policies, processes, and its governance structure

Competencies

Languages:

An excellent knowledge of English and preferably a good working knowledge of French. Knowledge of other languages would be an asset.

Organizational Competencies:

• Global Fund awareness and mind-set

• Service orientation

• Drive for results

• Collaboration

• Interaction

• Adaptability

Functional Competencies:

• Strengthening Systems for Health (Level 3)

• Project Management (Level 3)

• Geopolitical awareness (Level 2)

• Multicultural understanding (Level 3)

• Analytical Skills (Level 2)

• Human Rights/Gender/Key Populations (Level 2)

• Business (Level 3)

• Operational Policy (Level 2)

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Job Posting End Date

10 August 2021