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

Immunization is one of the most successful public health interventions in history. National immunization programs reach >100 million infants every year and have averted globally two to three million deaths every year since the launch of the Expanded Program for Immunization (EPI) in 1974, whilst the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) and rotavirus vaccines could save ~1 million lives per year. Furthermore, great advances in discovering and financing new vaccines provides a great opportunity for countries to further reduce burden of disease such as human papillomavirus (HPV). Despite these successes, 1.5 million children still die each year of vaccine-preventable diseases, many of them in low-income countries, as immunization programs there face unprecedented challenges.Since 2010, the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) has worked to save lives and reduce the burden from vaccine preventable diseases by improving access to immunization services in resource-limited setting by strengthening national immunization programs and by leveraging its experience in-country to improve the global immunization ecosystem. CHAI is pursuing six complementary strategic goals:

1. Improving affordability and supply security of immunization products;
2. Accelerating the uptake of new or under-utilized vaccines;
3. Enhancing the performance of vaccine cold chain and logistics systems to increase effective immunization coverage;
4. Improving the design and implementation of service delivery to reach the unreached
5. Supporting successful transition from Gavi support; and
6. Strengthening the management system and capacity of immunization programs

CHAI's vaccine program very closely supports the national immunization programs in 13 focus countries - Cameroon, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lao PDR, Lesotho, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Vietnam- and also engages with global stakeholders such as Gavi, WHO and UNICEF to inform global policies and practices.

New Vaccine Introduction and Covid-19 vaccine

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19, a global pandemic. The global pandemic has caused major challenges to health and economic indicators globally as Governments have worked to control the spread of COVID-19 and prevent further outbreaks. In the rush to mitigate the effects of the pandemic, global partners and pharmaceutical already launched 150+ vaccines into development. Typically, vaccines take 7-15+ years for development, but the global efforts are potentially propelling us towards safe, efficacious vaccine ready for production as fast as 10 months after the start of the global pandemic with production scaling up shortly thereafter.

Analogously, global partners and countries will have to accelerated vaccine introduction processes from 12-18+ months to ~6 months to ensure readiness for this vaccine. Moreover, due to development, manufacturing, access, application and financing terms being developed in parallel countries need to take decisions with significantly more limited information than usual to commence planning. The vaccine will likely also have additional challenges relative to an infant vaccine introduction as it faces 1) novel storage and delivery mechanisms, 2) a target cohort that is not typically targeted with vaccination, and 3) more public scrutiny and concern as timelines are condensed. Thus, countries will need to have both robust decision-making processes, delivery strategies, and rollout plans to account for the new challenges. 

CHAI is currently in the position to support the novel considerations and build off of significant experience of both infant vaccine and new complex vaccine decision-making and introduction to target successful COVID-19 new vaccine processes in our focal countries. CHAI is also currently coordinating with key global partners to support lessons sharing and guidance development to accelerate COVID-19 vaccine introductions globally. 

Position Overview

We are seeking an Associate to join the Global Vaccines Delivery team and support CHAI's work in improving coverage and equity through new vaccine introductions and enhancing service delivery across focus countries, particularly as it relates to the COVID-19 vaccine decision making and introduction process.

We are seeking a motivated and mission-oriented individual with strong analytic, problem-solving, and cross-cultural communication skills. The candidate should be experienced at presenting data and messages powerfully through written documents and presentations; working collaboratively in a fast-paced, multi-cultural environment; and functioning independently with minimal guidance.

Location: This role has flexibility to be based in a CHAI program country, pending country team leadership approval. Base location in a sub-Saharan Africa program country is strongly preferred.

Key responsibilities for this role include, but are not limited to:

1) Provide strategic and programmatic support for the design and implementation of key in-country work on COVID-19 and other new vaccine introductions. The successful candidate will provide both strategic and technical support to the select CHAI focal countries on COVID-19 and other new vaccine introductions. These activities will include collaboration with CHAI country program staff to support select CHAI focal countries on 

• Decision-making and delivery model optimization to make robust decisions on joining the Covax Financing Facility and on feasibility/impact of introducing the COVID-19 vaccine into the population. In particular, there will need to be emphasis on supporting CHAI country teams to adapt global tools and guidance to the country specific context. Including:

• Facilitation of a review of the potential impact of introducing COVID-19 into the immunization program in selected focal countries; review of various product and introduction scenarios to support countries to determine feasibility and risks to introduction readiness; and support countries to identify key challenges for mitigation or potential scenarios where a vaccination program will ultimately not be feasible on a reasonable timeline
• Support focal countries to understand key challenges and intervention needs for service delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine, including but not limited to selecting and reaching target cohorts, novel supply chain challenges, and rapid regulatory needs of vaccinations
• Identification of an appropriate mixed delivery model for different segments of the population

• Funding mobilization & coordination, particularly through facilitating successful applications for Gavi New Vaccine Introduction Support. This includes providing technical input to countries’ Vaccine Introduction Grant requests to Gavi, supporting clarification of any questions/comments/concerns that countries may have on Gavi guidelines or application materials.

• Rollout planning and preparation to support the implementation of the national introduction preparations, including working with country program staff to anticipate potential challenges to accelerated uptake of COVID-19 vaccine rollout and collaborating across the team to help identify mitigation action to get delayed activities back on track. Critically, during the introduction rollout, the successful candidate will provide technical assistance to country partners and help to adapt global guidelines to the country specific context. 

• Post-launch support to diagnose bottlenecks and designing bottleneck mitigation strategies post-introduction, identify concrete opportunities and best practices for boosting COVID-19 vaccination coverage. Depending on the development of the COVID-19 vaccination landscape, successful candidate may also collaborate with select CHAI focal country teams to develop recommendations and strategies on subsequent phases of COVID-19 vaccination, including decision making on issues of product selection, preventative vs reactive vaccination strategies, and integration with routine immunization and primary health care programs.

• Continuous development and effective dissemination and use of programmatic lessons learned, and other know-how related to new vaccine introduction across CHAI's vaccines program focus countries and global partners. 
• Support collection, documentation, and sharing of key lessons learnt in collaboration with CHAI focal countries. These lessons will be shared across CHAI country programs to help accelerate COVID-19 countries and help with cross country sharing and collaboration. 
• Support global efforts towards developing guidelines towards successful COVID-19 vaccination decision-making, introduction strategy and planning, and post-launch coverage acceleration. Leveraging lessons learnt from in country work the successful candidate will coordinate with the workstream manager to share these lessons and influence key global guidelines
• Technical support (tools, information and lessons learned developed across CHAI’s work) provided to country governments and partners and through global mechanisms that support COVID-19 vaccine interventions and/or service delivery

While the focus of this role is expected to be on COVID-19 vaccination, the successful candidate may also have opportunity and be requested to carry out support to other critical new vaccination work within CHAI’s portfolio or scoping, such as infant and HPV vaccination programs as needed. 

2) Support the development of CHAI's vaccines program, in collaboration with program and country leadership

• Support development of program-wide and country-specific objectives and strategies regarding new vaccine introduction, particularly as related to the long-term arc of COVID-19 vaccination
• Support scoping and development of new grants
• Develop program thought leadership in new vaccine introduction and complex vaccine service delivery to new target cohorts to deliver against current and future goals

3) Support program and grant management, in collaboration with program and country leadership

• Assess progress against overall objectives & milestones in areas of focus and help prepare high-quality briefings for donors and CHAI management, including achievements to date, action plan going forward, and key risks & opportunities
• Assess effectiveness of CHAI's theory of change and approach related to immunization service delivery in focus countries and recommend improvements
• Contribute as a member of the global vaccine team to the effectiveness and collegiality of the team, help identify opportunities and improve CHAI’s vaccines program and team

• Bachelor's degree (Masters-level or above in business, finance, or health science preferred) and at least 3 years of relevant professional experience in public or private sector
• Exceptional problem-solving and analytical skills (qualitative and quantitative), including experience with quantitative modeling, data analysis, and assessment design
• Excellent interpersonal and cross-cultural communication skills, with proven track record of building strong & effective working relationships remotely
• Excellent ability to work independently, set and achieve ambitious targets with limited guidance, and manage competing and sometimes shifting priorities, often under tight deadlines
• Excellent communication skills in English (including synthesis & presentation) with diverse audience
• Demonstrated capacity to synthesize evidence into an effective presentations and actionable recommendations for broad range of audience, including Ministries of Health, global donors and policy makers
• Comfort working in ambiguous circumstances to solve problems and generate course of action
• Ability to travel extensively (at least 35% of time) to focus countries and other locations as needed for work as COVID-19 restrictions on travel ease

Advantages

• Knowledge and experience in vaccines, health systems strengthening, and/or health financing
• Experience working in management consulting, investment banking, or similar fast-paced, output-oriented environments 
• First-hand experience of strategy development and/or decision-making (e.g. cost-benefit analysis), with previous exposure to strategy work 
• Experience working with government and in developing countries, notably in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Professional proficiency in a second language of a vaccine program country

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