Health Working Group Coordinator – Northeast Syria (NES) At Relief International

JOB DESCRIPTION

Title: Health Working Group Coordinator – Northeast Syria (NES)

Location: Al-Hasakeh, Syria

Travel: 60% of Travel within Northeast Syria and/or internationally

Job Family and Grade: On completion of Job Evaluation

Pre hire checks :This role is classified as requiring standard pre-employment checks /enhanced due diligence

Scope

Department: Program

Reporting to: NES Hub Director and WoS Health Advisor for technical supervision

Direct reports: The Health WG Coordinator should manage the entire Health coordination team, even those who are hosted by other INGOs. The Coordination team is composed of the following:

1 public health specialist
1 Health WG Emergency Coordinator
1 Health WG Information Management Officer

Budget responsibility: None

Relationship management:

Internal: Health Programme team, hub management
External: INGOs, NNGOs, LNGOs members of the Health WG, WoS Health Cluster, NES Forum Coordination Unit, donors, Local health authority/ health committees, other stakeholders as needed/required by the role

2. Context

About Relief International

Relief International (RI) partners with communities impacted by conflict, climate change, and disaster to save lives, build greater resilience and promote long-term health and well being.

Currently, RI is active in 14 countries around the world, including some of the most fragile: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen.

Relief International includes the four corporate members of the RI Alliance: Relief International Inc., Relief International-UK, Relief International-France and Relief International-Europe Under our alliance agreement, we operate with a single, shared management structure.

About our Country Program/ Regional Programs

Middle East Region

RI operates in six countries in the Middle East region: Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and Yemen, with a focus on the four RI sector pillars: Health, WASH, Education and Economic Opportunity. We employ more than 4,000 staff (direct and indirect) in the Middle East region and implement a range of humanitarian and development programs valued at approximately $70 million USD on an annual basis.

3. Job Profile

The Health Sector Working Group Coordinator in Northeast Syria will be responsible for coordinating independently all cross-border health activities, interacting and engaging with Health actors, INGO, NNGO, Donor representatives, and other stakeholders. The HWG coordinator should also work closely with the Whole of Syria health sector coordination team, NES Forum, and ensure to build collaboration with UN agencies and their implementing partners working in self-administration-controlled areas of NES through WoS health sector coordination mechanism. This position sits within the Whole of Syria (WoS) health coordination architecture and informed by the Global Health Cluster Guide: https://www.who.int/health-cluster/resources/publications/hc-guide/en/

4. Key responsibilities

Coordination and Representation

Perform all the standard Health Cluster functions (Core functions) that are defined by the Global health Cluster.
Ensure humanitarian health needs are identified by planning and coordinating, joint, inter-cluster, rapid assessment and follow-on, more in-depth health sub-sector assessments. This could be performed in collaboration and support of Whole of Syria health sector team for more alignment. All assessments should be captured in the Whole of Syria assessment registry to ensure inter-hub coordination and harmonized data collection techniques.
Support NES Forum/ISWG in area-based needs analysis and contribute to developing practical action plans.
Guide Health WG partners in identifying proper response strategies and selecting areas of intervention based on the prioritization of needs to avoid overlapping interventions and align as much as possible with WoS health sector response plan and strategy agreed on in the Syria HRP strategic objectives.
Ensure and chair regular coordination meetings with the Health Working Group partners for Northeast Syria; building – when possible – on existing health sector coordination fora, including a diversity of locations within NES.
Develop health working group membership criteria and based on that, identify new and existing actors to add to the working group, inclusive of those that may be registered in other hubs, but responding in North East Syria..
Support the Information Management officer (IMO) in collecting information from all partners on all relevant IM products including 4Ws (Who’s Where, since When, and doing What), and feed into the Whole of Syria Health sector reporting for the OCHA 4W database as well as the reporting under NES Forum.
Develop the monthly HWG bulletins, HeRAMS analysis reports, attack on healthcare, advocacy messages and the annual reports. Support the NES HWG IMO to ensure working with health sector partners’ IMOs team to provide consolidated feedback to health actors and other clusters, in line with NES Forum data sharing and anonymization guidelines/protocols.
Mobilize Health Cluster Partners to contribute to establishing and maintaining an appropriate surveillance of Early Warning and Response System in collaboration with the WoS team to avoid any overlap and to align with the existing WHO surveillance EWARN/S mechanism, and regularly report on health services delivered to the affected population and the situation in the areas where they work.
Work with Health Working Group members to ensure that key health concerns are reflected and addressed, including coordinated efforts towards advocacy and awareness-raising.
Lead and develop the health situation reports regularly that reflect the changes in the contexts in NES, including the public health situation analysis (PHSA) template.
Work with the IMO and WoS team to a) ensure accurate and consistent reporting and mapping of health activities and b) provide analysis back to working group and other interagency fora. This exercise will assist in steering the strategic and operational planning for the WOS response, including but not limited to contributions to the HNO and HRP processes.
Represent the cross-border health response and raise health concerns and liaise with the existing coordination Fora (NES Forum and ISWG) on local and technical level to ensure and facilitate contextual analysis, needs assessments and access to beneficiaries and sites/structures.
Provide sectoral inputs for NES Forum bi-weekly updates and quarterly sector bulletins in coordination with the ISWG.
Collaborate with other sectors, including, in particular, the WASH Working Group, the Nutrition Working Group, the Protection Working Group, the Food Security Working Group and other working groups in coordination with ISWG and WoS Health sector to ensure integration of health concerns and responsive programming. Provide support to the MHPSS and RH Sub-Working Groups, to ensure that interventions are duly integrated with the health sector strategic objectives and implementation plans.
Identify gaps and areas of overlap in the health sector in Northeast Syria and share the updated gap analysis with all XB partners and stakeholders including donors for advocacy.
Coordinate regularly WoS health cluster coordination team including IMO, and engage in Whole of Syria health initiatives – including strong engagement in regular inter-hub coordination meetings – and sharing the NES HWG updates, issues, concerns, and challenges in those meetings – as required Also support in the joint service mapping of health response in the camps and non-camps settings.
Identify resources needed and track the funding situation and advocate with NES Forum and WoS Health coordinators to donors to ensure appropriate coverage of health needs in NES.
Ensure effective health response monitoring and that the heath sector plan activities are duly monitored in coordination and collaboration with the health partners and the Whole of Syria Health cluster.
Develop the necessary NES health preparedness and contingency plans for many potential risks/ hazards in NES to reflect changes in context and integration with other response hubs – when required- and made available to health sector partners.
Provide technical lead on health sector emergencies, in coordination and collaboration with other sectors and NES Forum Coordination Unit. Provide sectoral inputs in Flash Appeals and sitreps issued by NES Forum.
With support from IMO and WoS team, assist in developing/updating information management tools and products.
Regular engagement with the local health authorities and ensure effective partnership especially around the early recovery and humanitarian – development nexus, resilient relevant strategies
Interact with the Global Health Cluster team to ensure provide regular updates, surveys, Cluster Coordination Performance Monitoring (CCPM), and seek technical support when needed, the Accountability to affected population (AAP) for instance.

Capacity Building

Conduct a training need assessment among the health partners operating in NES to identify the capacity gaps and reflect in the capacity building plan.
Arrange/conduct direct training in health for key national and local stakeholders as feasible, in line with agreed upon sectoral priorities in the work plan.
Work with partners to promote understanding of and adherence to humanitarian and health principles and standards according to international standards.
Ensuring consideration and inclusion of cross-cutting issues (Protection, Age, Gender, Disability, Disaster Risk Reduction and Environment) in the sector’s response; with particular attention to guidance contained in the 2019 WoS Health Sector Protection Risk Analysis document.

Behavior and conduct

Ensures that behavior inside and outside of work promotes the values in RI’s code of conduct and safeguarding policies
Acts with integrity and holds themselves accountable for being respectful, inclusive and professional
Reports any concerns

4. Person Specification

Skills, knowledge and expertise required for the role.

Essential criteria

Medical background/degree in medicine and higher degree in public health
Minimum of five years professional health cluster coordination experience leading, managing, and implementing health emergency response, and/or coordinating programs, preferably in a conflict setting;
Demonstrated background and knowledge of major humanitarian donors particularly, OFDA, ECHO, and HPF funding;
Have excellent/ strong experience in technical areas of public health, epidemiology, health emergencies coordination, response plans, need assessments, contingency and preparedness planning, and response monitoring, drafting, and writing reports skills.
Excellent interpersonal, communication, public speaking, and strategic planning skills required;
Strong English writing skills required; Arabic will be an asset
Has effective communication skills
Proactive

Desirable criteria

Demonstrated experience in management of health or other relevant sectors is highly desirable;
Demonstrated ability to manage multiple priorities, deadlines, and tasks efficiently;
Strong budgeting and budget monitoring skills including a high level of proficiency with MS Excel;
Demonstrated experience in successfully managing a multicultural team, and a commitment to capacity building;
Excellent time management skills and resourcefulness with strong attention to detail;
Demonstrated experience of upholding humanitarian principles and actively engaging the most vulnerable communities. Committed to promoting NGO’s focus on accountability, innovation and partnership building
Fluent English speaking and comprehension skills required, native Arabic speaker preferred.

5. RI Values

Guided by the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, as well as “Do No Harm,” Relief International Values: