Country Engagement Lead (CEL) At Partners for Health and Development in Africa

Partners for Health and Development in Africa (PHDA) is an international NGO working to increase access to health for disadvantaged communities in Africa through systems strengthening, research, program development, and partnerships. PHDA is implementing the South-South Learning Network (SSLN) project, an initiative of the Global HIV Prevention Coalition (GPC). The SSLN aims to strengthen country HIV prevention programmes through shared learning of good country practices. The Network provides countries with a platform to gain experiential knowledge from peers, harness and share good prevention learnings, and inform grant-making and technical assistance needs. This engagement empowers countries to adapt interventions to the unique African context. The SSLN engages key country stakeholders, including government officials, members of National AIDS councils (NAC), Civil Society, Programme Implementers, and Development Partners. SSLN is being implemented by Genesis Analytics and University of Manitoba.

Job Purpose

SSLN will be implemented in the three sub-Saharan African regions including Southern Africa, Eastern Africa, and the West and Central African Region. We are looking for a Country Engagement Lead (CEL) to join the Eastern Africa hub. The CEL will be responsible for engagements with the assigned countries, onboarding onto the SSLN, completion of PSATs, and overarching activities relating to drafting reports and communication of the various engagements between countries, promising practices, and country narratives for improved sharing and knowledge impartation among countries.

Key Responsibility

• Country progress tracking and actively tracking and following up with countries to implement their learning agendas in a timely manner;
• Learning activity outputs to support the development of outcomes in preparation for learning events and post-learning events;
• Ensure countries complete the PSAT on an annual basis for all relevant prevention pillars and develop their learning agendas and action plans based on the PSAT results;
• Link the country teams with other initiatives in other countries;
• Actively and routinely engage country champions to build personal relationships and rapport;
• Support country teams to implement their learning agenda/action plans including the development of case studies, virtual tours, and webinars;
• Support the countries to track and monitor implementation of the action plans and provide support where needed to fast-track implementation or address gaps;
• Follow-up on the participation of the country champions in all learning opportunities created by SSLN and other allied networks;
• Support the countries to access technical support and other resources to implement their country HIV Prevention priorities;
• Provide direct support to countries in the region or link them with available resources;
• Increase the visibility of the countries in the region by finalizing the technical products/best practices documentation from the countries;
• Share relevant technical documents, and information tools with the countries on a periodic basis;
• Meet with the country champions (virtually or physically) to support the country and assess progress against the action plans; and
• Carry out any other duties as may be assigned by the SSLN Lead

Qualification and Experience

• A Master’s degree in a relevant discipline (epidemiology, development economics, public health, or other appropriate social science discipline);
• Strong technical expertise in HIV prevention and/or sexual and reproductive health and rights;
• At least 5 years of experience working in the area of HIV prevention, and/or sexual and reproductive health and rights will be highly advantageous;
• Demonstrable experience managing and working with multiple stakeholders and strong relationship management skills; and
• Experience working in and/or with stakeholders from multiple countries in the region

Skills and Attributes

• Ability to work as part of a multicultural team as well as independently;
• Excellent communication skills – both written and verbal delivery;
• Strong organizational and management skills with high attention to detail;
• Excellent interpersonal skills;
• Ability to maintain strict ethical standards and client confidentiality;
• Willingness to travel 30% of the time;