Strategic Plan Project Lead – Access to Products for Health At Médecins Sans Frontières

Location: Any MSF office*, with travel

Contract: 9 months – 70%

Starting date: no later than 1 September 2024

Application deadline: 7 July 2024

Reporting to: Executive Director – Access to Products for Health

*By default, the successful candidate will be offered a contract in the MSF office of their country of residence at the time of application.

I. MSF INTERNATIONAL

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, healthcare exclusion and natural disasters. MSF offers assistance to people based only on need and irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation.

MSF International is the legal entity that binds MSF’s 24 sections, 26 associations and 18 branch offices together. Registered in Switzerland, MSF International provides coordination, information and support to the MSF Movement, as well as implements international projects and initiatives as requested.

II. POSITION BACKGROUND

Access to Products for Healthcare (APH) is critical to MSF’s Social Mission. MSF has been engaged in a wide variety of ways to improve APH in the past decades. In 2023, the MSF International Board approved the set-up of a new organisational model for APH work in MSF. A central part of this model is the creation of an international Structure that supports the APH agenda, and is overseen by an Executive Board.

To guide and resource the activities of the APH Structure, a Strategic Plan will be developed that covers the period 2026-2031. This Strategic Plan will summarise the projects that the Structure executes, the support to projects relevant to APH that originate elsewhere in MSF, and the collaboration with external parties. At the basis of the Strategic Plan are the common APH problems MSF field operations and patients are facing in the field and that have been defined as priorities to address. An agreed subset of these Common Priorities will be explored in-depth, and this further research will result in the selection of the priorities for the APH Structure over the 2026-2031 period. The Strategic Plan will also inform the construction and staffing of the APH Structure from 2026 onward.

Working very closely with the APH Structure’s Management Team and Executive Board, and specialists and stakeholders across MSF, the Strategic Plan Project Lead will design the process for establishing the Structure’s first Strategic Plan, identify and oversee research and consultation activities, and communicate regularly with internal MSF platforms that are expected to actively support and/or co-own the Plan. The Strategic Plan will be put before the Full ExCom for validation, after approval by the Structure’s Executive Board.

While the development of the APH Structure’s Strategic Plan requires a collaborative effort, steered by the Project Lead, the final responsibility for delivering the Plan rests with the Executive Director.

III. PURPOSE OF THE POSITION

The purpose of this position is to design, implement, oversee, document and conclude the process of coming to the first Strategic Plan for the APH Structure.

Design:

• Map out and propose a detailed process, including timeline, roles and responsibilities of all relevant internal stakeholders and platforms as relevant, for all stages of the inception of the Strategic Plan
• Propose resources needed for the above process
• Design a monitoring methodology, including a set of indicators, for tracking progress on the Strategic Plan preparation
• Propose an internal communication and engagement strategy for MSF platforms that need to be updated regularly on the progress of the Strategic Plan preparation process
• Working closely with the Head of Analysis and other members of the Management Team, list parties and individuals inside MSF and externally that will be consulted as part of the Strategic Plan production, and describe how they will be consulted
• Propose a review of existing APH related external and internal analysis, plans and lessons learned, specifically tailored to the Common Priorities and the support that the APH Structure is expected to give to the MSF movement
• Describe ways of working, including relations with key parties relevant to the Strategic Plan production, systems for progress reporting and documentation, and key check-in moments over the production period
• Seek agreement in the Structure’s management team, and with its Executive Board, for the proposed methodology

Implement:

• With the Management Team, shortlist those Common Priorities that require further scoping in terms of feasibility, impact, and unique position of MSF to address them
• Source partners inside MSF who will contribute to this research required for the scoping
• Survey, in collaboration with the members of the Executive Board, MSF entities as to their plans for APH-related activities in 2025 and beyond
• Survey, in collaboration with the members of the Executive Board, MSF entities as to their expectations regarding support from the Structure for their APH-related activities
• Making use of knowledge already available in among staff members of the Structure, seek clarity on the multi-year agendas of key organisations, external to MSF, that are active in APH
• Organise consultation with the listed parties and individuals inside MSF, through interviews and focus groups
• Develop and update tools for presenting the progress on the Strategic Plan preparation, including research progress on the shortlisted APH-related problem statements
• In coordination with the Management Team, present progress on the strategic Plan preparation, and potential bottlenecks, to selected platforms inside MSF regularly
• Compile findings in a draft Strategic Plan, and discuss this with relevant platforms

Oversee:

• Keep track of every stream of research, consultation and scoping that is part of the Strategic Plan production
• Provide weekly progress updates to the Management Team, and at least monthly to the Executive Board, directly and/or through the Executive Director
• Maintain a register of the most important risks that could negative impact the production of the Strategic Plan, including mitigation measures, and present the register at any time that the Management Team or the Executive Board requests it

Document:

• Make sure that every step of the Strategic Plan production is documented and easily retrieved
• Make sure that outcomes of consultations and research are documented and stored in a central register
• Import into such register the relevant parts of platform meetings where the APH Strategic Plan is discussed
• Make sure that every informant to the process understands that they can contribute their thoughts anonymously, if they so desire, and implement such confidentiality
• As the writing of the (draft and final) Strategic Plan progresses, make sure that there is transparency on versioning throughout the process

Conclude:

• Produce a summary report on the Strategic Plan process, capturing the main lessons learned along the way, and present this report to the Structure’s Management Team and Executive Board
• Leave behind clear documentation that gives the rationale for including some of the Common Priorities in the Strategic Plan and for excluding others
• Combine all information listed above in one folder and store this according to International Office policy

VI. JOB REQUIREMENT

• A track record in complex project management, preferably inside MSF
• Experience overseeing the design of multi-year strategic plan for a middle-sized organisation with an annual turn-over of between 5 and 10 million EUR
• Good understanding of the governance and architecture of MSF
• Excellence in designing and conducting consultation processes with a broad variety of parties
• Understanding of research methodologies that support the translation of broad problem statements into actionable goals
• Excellence in networking with a broad variety of professionals, inside MSF and externally, and committing them to contribute
• Excellence in summarising complex information for non-specialist audiences
• Experience in presenting complex information in engaging manners during meetings
• Fluency in English (other languages such as French, Arabic and Spanish are an advantage)
• Proven excellence in writing reports
• Proficiency in relevant elements of MS Office, including Sharepoint
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work effectively within a team.
• Strong appreciation for cultural and gender diversity, combined with commitment to contributing to an equitable and inclusive work environment

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

At MSF, we are committed to an inclusive culture that encourages and supports the diverse voices of our employees. We welcome applications from individuals of all genders, ages, sexual orientations, nationalities, races, religions, beliefs, ability status, and all other diversity characteristics.