Country

South Africa

Type

Full Time

Program (Division)

Health Systems Strengthening - Health Financing

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to our mission of saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries. We work at the invitation of governments to support them and the private sector to create and sustain high-quality health systems.

CHAI was founded in 2002 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, with the goal of dramatically reducing the price of life-saving drugs and increasing access to these medicines in the countries with the highest burden of the disease. Over the following two decades, CHAI has expanded its focus. Today, along with HIV, we work in conjunction with our partners to prevent and treat infectious diseases such as COVID-19, malaria, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Our work has also expanded into cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and other non-communicable diseases, and we work to accelerate the rollout of lifesaving vaccines, reduce maternal and child mortality, combat chronic malnutrition, and increase access to assistive technology. We are investing in approaches to strengthen health systems through programs in human resources for health, digital health, and health financing. With each new and innovative program, our strategy is grounded in maximizing sustainable impact at scale, ensuring that governments lead the solutions, that programs are designed to scale nationally, and learnings are shared globally.

At CHAI, our people are our greatest asset, and none of this work would be possible without their talent, time, dedication and passion for our mission and values. We are a highly diverse team of enthusiastic individuals across 40 countries with a broad range of skill sets and life experiences. CHAI is deeply grounded in the countries we work in, with the majority of our staff based in program countries. Learn more about our exciting work: 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.

Position Overview 

CHAI’s Health Systems Strengthening cluster works with governments to build stronger, more resilient, and more equitable health systems, ensuring that everyone, especially the most vulnerable, can access high-quality primary health care. We support Ministries of Health and Finance to increase and optimize health spending, strengthen national systems (e.g., workforce, digital infrastructure, supply chains), and implement cross-cutting reforms that drive long-term improvements in service delivery and health outcomes. Health financing is a cornerstone to this work. This includes working with governments to improve the efficiency, equity, and impact of health financing systems—from resource mobilization and budgeting to strategic purchasing and public financial management.

CHAI’s team works side-by-side with government institutions—often embedded within ministries—and partners with other CHAI programs and global technical teams to deliver support that is practical, data-driven, and rooted in country priorities. This work often plays a key role in supporting and enabling teams across CHAI including Infectious Diseases, Non-Communicable Diseases and Assistive Technologies, Maternal and Newborn Health and Child Health.

This role will serve as the strategic anchor for CHAI’s multi-country work on public finance  — driving coherence, knowledge sharing, and strategic alignment across 10+ countries and multiple program teams. The role will provide technical guidance on financing primary health care and specifically resource mobilization and strengthening public financial management and strategic purchasing efforts. It will include working with countries to better understand financing and budget cycles, and bottlenecks to program delivery.  And then improving financing and management of key areas from health workforce to supply chain.

The position will lead efforts to surface, consolidate, and elevate high-impact ideas from across teams and geographies, helping to coordinate and prioritize efforts through an impact-focused lens in a context of increasingly scarce resources. The role will sit within CHAI’s Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) cluster and report to the Vice President Health Systems and work closely with cross-cutting functions including country support and ‘strategy and grants’. This person will serve as a resource for country teams and all program workstreams within the cluster and across clusters.

Strong preference for this position to be based in relevant program countries, subject to country leadership approval. 

Strategic Direction & Coordination   

• Provide strategic direction and technical guidance to CHAI country and program teams, and serve as a central authority for CHAI’s public financing work.  This includes facilitating internal communication and information flow across programs and geographies, as well as external communication.
• Collaborate with country teams to support the MOH/MOF in in resource mobilization, managing and influencing budget cycles, strengthening Public Financial Management for health, improving efficiency and equity in financing, and strengthening strategic purchasing.

• Promote the use of rigorous analytical methods in assessing options for improving health financing systems and driving efficiency gains. This can range from contributing to priority setting to expenditure reviews, for example.

• Identify new approaches that CHAI is uniquely placed to drive, iterate on these approaches with country teams and governments, scope new projects and support their design, hire key personnel and work with them to demonstrate success, and adapt and support scale across countries.
• Provide input across CHAI programs in health systems and other clusters to address financial bottlenecks to service delivery. This includes working closely with focal points for health workforce, digital health, private sector engagement, and efforts to address the foreign aid cuts. 

Project Management

• Manage a small core project team and closely collaborate across the HSS cluster, including with country focal points to provide cross-country support, implementation guidance, and direct technical assistance where needed. 
• Support onboarding of new staff working across the organization in the public finance space, and/or programs that can benefit from this work.  
• Drive delivery of key projects, working closely with country leadership.
• Support fundraising and grant management, including donor reporting, communications, and compliance with funding requirements.

• Facilitate rapid learning cycles by creating feedback loops across countries and programs—helping teams reflect on progress, identify what’s working (or not), and pivot strategies where needed.
• Support the development and implementation of robust monitoring and learning approaches to track progress of CHAI’s health financing efforts, working closely with the Director of Strategy and Grants and Technical Director.
• Document and synthesize cross-country insights and emerging lessons, and ensure they are systematically shared to drive continuous improvement.

Donor & Partner Engagement 

• Support resource mobilization efforts by aligning country and global priorities with funding opportunities and leading fundraising, from lead generation to proposal development.
• Represent CHAI’s work with key donors and partners, including to engage new donors in this work.
• Cultivate and maintain relationships with relevant stakeholders, including bilateral donors, development banks, philanthropies, and multilateral institutions (e.g., Global Fund, WHO, World Bank).

• 10-15+ years of experience in health financing in low- and middle-income countries, ideally with time at CHAI or a similar matrixed organization.
• Demonstrated ability to coordinate complex projects or initiatives across multiple teams or countries, with strong organizational and problem-solving skills.
• Strong understanding of government priorities and decision-making processes in health, including planning, budgeting, and donor engagement.
• Experience applying analytical tools (e.g., cost-effectiveness analysis, gap analysis, prioritization frameworks) to inform health system planning and policy decisions.
• Skilled at synthesizing complex information across contexts and stakeholders into clear, actionable insights.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate complex information into clear, actionable recommendations for senior stakeholders.  
• Comfortable working in fast-paced, results-driven environments that require adaptability, problem-solving, and strategic thinking. 
• Experience supporting or contributing to resource mobilization efforts is a plus.

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Experience working at high levels of government (e.g., Ministers of Health, senior policymakers) to drive meaningful policy change. 

• Experience with multi-country program design and implementation. 

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