Senior Associate, HIV Testing Services Strengthening (HTS) and Oxygen Ecosystems Analytics At Clinton Health Access Initiative

Overview

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries, while strengthening the capabilities of governments and the private sector in those countries to create and sustain high-quality health systems that can succeed without our assistance. For more information, please visit: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org

CHAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and is committed to providing an environment of fairness, and mutual respect where all applicants have access to equal employment opportunities. CHAI values diversity and inclusion, and recognizes that our mission is best advanced by the leadership and contributions of people with diverse experience, backgrounds, and culture.

In 2006, CHAI signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Malawi (GoM) to strengthen health systems in the most challenged districts, provide national support to HIV/AIDS drug pricing and programmatic work, support the pilot and scale-up of prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) initiatives, expand access to ART for children, strengthen Malawi’s lab system, and scale-up an integrated nutrition program for children. CHAI’s support to Malawi has expanded to include Human Resources for Health (HRH), Vaccines (pneumococcal and rotavirus), Health Financing, and Pediatric HIV and TB among other areas.

Position Overview

HIV testing services (HTS) strengthening

With Support from the Bill and Melinda Gate foundation (BMGF), The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) is implementing a four-year grant called DRIVE. Its objective is to support Ministries of Health to build stronger, more resilient, nationally owned HTS programs.

Under this grant, CHAI will support Ministries of Health to develop and execute HTS strategies that are nationally owned, aligned with national program needs, and that meet the needs of the evolving epidemic. CHAI will work with its Ministry partners to ensure national programs are further capacitated and empowered with the capabilities, data, and structures to maximize impact with limited resources, and to continuously adapt to newly emerging challenges, opportunities, and evidence.

CHAI will work to ensure that national HTS responses are informed by the latest global evidence and policy guidance, and that the evidence from national HTS implementation is elevated to inform the global HTS landscape and dialogue. This bi-directional relationship is critical. The current reality is that HTS delivery is largely partner driven and heavily influenced by global partner priorities. CHAI will continue to document and disseminate country implementation evidence to support stronger policies and guidance from global partners, more in line with country realities. This is critical to building greater global consensus around the role and value of HTS across the cascade and advocating for resources accordingly.

Oxygen Ecosystems

COVID response has been challenged due to scarcity of resources which includes Oxygen treatment. Oxygen systems in Malawi do not meet the current needs of the population, resulting in excess morbidity and mortality from a variety of illnesses and conditions including COVID 19 that can be treated with oxygen therapy. Surges in oxygen demand due to COVID-19 have emphasized shortfalls in oxygen production capacity, shortages of equipment and supplies, and inability to quickly source oxygen from suppliers. Malawi also faces technical challenges to quantify oxygen needs and determine an appropriate allocation of resources across health facilities. CHAI Malawi with funding from UNITAID is supporting the Ministry of Health in planning and coordinating the national covid19 response and mobilization of resources for Oxygen and therapeutics for COVID19. CHAI aims to introduce new but already available therapeutics to improve access to care and treatment to COVID 19 patients and improve patient outcomes. The program focus on health system strengthening mainly development of Oxygen therapy guidance, linkage systems for covid19 patients to Oxygen therapy and creating a system for monitoring oxygen therapy.

To support these efforts, CHAI is hiring a Senior Associate for HTS and COVID 19 Oxygen Ecosystems to support the Infectious Disease (ID) cluster and the technical team in driving forward activities which will support MoH to respond to the dual pandemics of HIV and COVID 19. The Senior Associate will work to support the two projects and other programs in cluster in strengthening data systems capacities including planning and monitoring through data collection, optimization, and costing analyses.

The Associate will be based in Lilongwe, Malawi with anticipated travel up to 30% of the time, whether locally or internationally.

Responsibilities

Working in close collaboration with the CHAI ID cluster team and MoH, the Senior Associate will:

HIV Testing Services (HTS) Strengthening

  • Serve as a trusted technical advisor to the MoH on a range of HTS strengthening issues, enabling MoH to mobilize more resources into the HIV response and ensure effective implementation.
  • Work with Ministry of Health and partners to develop effective, evidence based national annual HIVST targets through creation of testing/linkage models that will evaluate the optimal mix of testing modalities.
  • Strengthen national planning through supporting the Ministry of Health develop an optimized national scale up plan for HIVST to select high risk populations.
  • Supporting MoH to translate identified HTS targets into national strategy, taking into consideration the implementation, monitoring, and financial resource requirements.
  • Support designing of M&E tools necessary to improve the use of data for decision making. This work will include the development of indicators and methodologies to track the uptake of HIVST and linkage to confirmatory testing and treatment or prevention services.
  • Strengthen the capacity of program management and coordination of efforts for effective implementation of an optimized HTS program by working with Ministry of Health and partners.

Oxygen Ecosystems

  • Assisting the MoH in routine monitoring, review, and utilization of data for programmatic decision making. • Work with MoH and partners to map and quantify all COVID 19 commodities including Oxygen supplies based on annual national treatment targets.
  • Take lead in costing of commodities and supply chain plans using carefully assessed assumptions and fine-tuned models.
  • Strengthen national planning through supporting the MoH to routinely collect, analyze and review data on commodity consumption through participation in the supply chain core group. The Senior Associate will play a significant role in conceptualizing COVID 19 supply chain dashboards for MoH utilization to facilitate ease of data visualization and programmatic decision-making.
  • Support in designing of additional tools necessary to improve the use of data for decision making, including design of data collection tools, leading data collection, managing and analyzing data sets, and presentation of analyses to support decision-making for all programs in the ID Cluster.
  • Share global market intelligence with key supply chain decision-makers to help inform a sustainable supply of products.
  • Support ID cluster team to provide quantitative updates on grant performance and progress to the donor as requested.
  • Identify best practices and synergies across the cluster and enhance knowledge management within the cluster.
  • Any other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

  • A minimum of a Bachelors’ degree from a well-recognised, high-calibre institution
  • A minimum of 3 years of professional experience
  • Strong analytical skills and advanced technical proficiency with MS Excel and PowerPoint
  • Natural ability to build strategic relationships and interact with individuals of different backgrounds
  • Demonstrated experience building and analysing quantitative models to inform decision-making
  • Structured thinker with experience analyzing complex datasets to identify key trends and to translate them into actionable options for decision makers
  • Excellent organizational and problem-solving skills without need for extensive structural or operational support • Tenacity and a can-do attitude
  • Ability to manage ambiguity and navigate political environments
  • Demonstrated ability to thrive in high-pressure and ever-changing environments
  • Excellent verbal, visual and written communication skills
  • English language fluency, both written and verbal

Advantages:

  • Masters’ degree in Health Economics, Biostatistics, or Public Health
  • Experience working with government ministries and partners within the HIV sector
  • Professional experience in public sector policy/planning, health policy, or other relevant private and public sector experience;
  • Experience with or interest in shaping national health policy decisions

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