Senior Manager, Programme & Workforce Performance and Management at GAVI Alliance

Location: Geneva
Purpose of the position: Design and oversee Gavi’s approach and investments to strengthen the leadership, management and performance of routine immunisation programmes and staff
Department: Country Programmes
Team: Health System & Immunisation Strengthening (HSIS)
Reports to: Head, Health Systems Planning, Management & Performance
N° of positions supervised
(if applicable): N/A
Career step level: 4

BACKGROUND

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership committed to saving children’s lives and protecting people’s health by increasing equitable use of vaccines in lower-income countries. The Vaccine Alliance brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private sector partners. By pooling the demand of Gavi-supported countries, securing long-term commitments from donors and implementing innovative financing mechanisms, Gavi is able to shape markets to ensure sufficient supply of high-quality vaccines at affordable prices. Through its co-financing, eligibility and transition model, Gavi ensures works with countries to scale-up domestic financing for immunisation and to help them transition from Gavi support as their economies grow. Since 2000, Gavi has contributed to the immunisation of nearly 822 million children and the prevention of more than 14 million future deaths. Gavi’s 2021-2025 strategy has equity as its organising principle, with a focus on reaching the 10.6 million children who do not receive a single routine dose of vaccines in Gavi-supported countries each year. With 87% of children already being reached by a first dose of routine vaccines in 2019 (more than any other routine health intervention), extending immunisation services to the communities which are still being missed can be a first step towards achieving universal health coverage.

Every year, the Alliance provides hundreds of millions of dollars in health system strengthening (HSS) grants and technical support to help countries strengthen their health systems and immunisation programmes, and achieve sustainable improvement in the coverage and equity of immunisation. The HSIS team works closely with other Secretariat teams, especially the Country Support team, and a diverse range of Alliance partners (especially WHO and UNICEF) to help countries design and implement this support. Within the Secretariat, the team leads work with partners to develop programmatic approaches in areas including equity, supply chain, data, demand, gender, community engagement, immunisation workforce and programme management; provides hands on support to help countries and Secretariat teams design Gavi’s grants; and to monitor performance and capture and disseminate lessons learned.

The Health Systems Planning, Management & Performance sub-team is a new team within HSIS, which brings together several existing functions from across the Secretariat. It works with Senior Country Managers (SCMs) and partners to ensure that Gavi’s grants are strategic, data-driven and contribute to strengthening the equity and sustainability of immunisation programmes. The sub-team includes six Senior Managers, Health Systems, who provide dedicated health systems expertise and support to SCMs and countries to help ensure that all Gavi support is used strategically and effectively to reach zero-dose children and missed communities, and strengthen health systems. The sub-team also includes specialists leading efforts to enhance leadership, management and performance of routine immunisation programmes; and improve the quality and use of data for planning, monitoring and management.

MAIN DUTIES/RESPONSIBILITIES

• Refine and manage the Alliance’s approach to helping countries enhance the leadership, management and coordination capacity of their immunisation programmes and the performance of health workers, working closely with partners and other members of the HSIS team;
• Work with Secretariat country teams and Alliance partners to help countries identify weaknesses in leadership, management and coordination capacity and health worker performance, target Alliance support to address these weaknesses and introduce innovative approaches. Strengthen and implement mechanisms to analyse and measure countries’ leadership, management and coordination capacity and health worker performance across Gavi countries;
• Work with existing and new partners from public and private sector to design and scale-up innovative approaches and tools for capacity-building, training, management and accountability (e.g., management dashboards, digital and blended learning, online communities of practice);
• Proactively identify and seek opportunities to collaborate with other donors and financing organisations to scale-up innovative approaches across the health sector;
• Work with Alliance partners and cross Secretariat teams to ensure that global guidance on National Immunisation Strategy and Annual Operational planning tools facilitate strong programme management including robust approaches to reach zero dose children and missed communities;
• Other duties and activities as required.
Note: The essential functions listed in this section are not exhaustive of the job responsibilities; other duties may be assigned consistently with the department needs.

QUALIFICATIONS

ACADEMIC

• Advanced university degree in public health, social sciences, health systems, management, strategy, business administration or related fields.

WORK EXPERIENCE

• Minimum of 8 years of experience in roles related to health policy, health systems management and / or organisational management and capacity-building;
• Experience working at both global level and in developing countries;
• Demonstrable experience in strategic programme design, project management, managing partnerships and multi-stakeholder task forces;
• Experience in setting up peer learning mechanism across countries;
• Proven experience working in diverse, multi-partner environments; experience of working in both public and private sectors is an asset.

SKILLS/COMPETENCIES

• Distinctive strategic thinking, programme planning and problem-solving skills;
• Deep understanding of organisational management, performance management and learning;
• Demonstrated track record of helping organisations to strengthen management practices;
• Excellent Project Management skills: ability to prioritise, organise and coordinate;
• Tested experience in identifying and scaling-up innovation;
• Outstanding quantitative and qualitative analytic skills, with the ability to evaluate and synthesise complex challenges;
• Sound collaboration skills and demonstrated ability to work across multiple, multisectoral teams and organisations in pursuit of a common goal;
• Understanding of gender responsive and gender transformative programming in a variety of country settings is an asset;
• Demonstrated ability to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines;
• High sense of responsibility, efficiency, reliability and results-focus;
• Compelling oral and written communications;
• Demonstrated ability to engage credibly with senior counterparts across multiple sectors;
• Diplomacy, tact and discretion.

LANGUAGES

• Fluent English;
• Fluency in French strongly desired.

CONTACTS

• Head, Strategy (direct report);
• Frequent interactions with Board members, CEO, Deputy CEO and Gavi leadership team;
• Collaboration with all teams in Gavi Secretariat;
• Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance partners.

If you wish to apply, please provide a cover letter and resume through our Careers webpage and apply by clicking on “Senior Manager, Programme & Workforce Performance and Management”. Deadline for applications is 18 June 2021.

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