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 Health Workforce Background:

A skilled health workforce is the backbone of every health system and therefore an essential precondition for progress toward universal health coverage (UHC). However, the WHO estimates that there is a global shortage of 17 million health workers. The gap is most acute in Africa (with a shortage of 4.2 million), which bears 24% of the global burden of disease yet has only 4% of the world’s health workforce. CHAI assists governments to develop their health workforces by enhancing their capacity to train highly qualified health workers and by strengthening national systems to finance, deploy, and manage those health workers.

CHAI’s approach to national heath workforce strengthening emphasizes three strategies: (i) improving the quality and strategically increasing the scale of education for health workers, (ii) expanding and optimizing health workforce financing, and (iii) providing technical assistance to governments to strengthen their overall health workforce planning and management systems.

Two key principles guide CHAI’s approach to workforce development. The first is focusing on the right kind of health workers—from community health workers to midwives, nurses, health managers, general physicians and medical specialists—based on national need and service delivery objectives. CHAI’s approach also emphasizes sustainability by building the institutional capacity of the schools and universities where health workers are trained, training new generations of health professions educators, and developing systems and individual capabilities within governments to better plan and manage their own health workforces.

CHAI’s health workforce programs vary by country, as they reflect the major barriers and opportunities to workforce development in that specific context, as well as the priorities of the host government. Currently, CHAI is focused on health workforce programming in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The government of Rwanda has developed the National Strategy for Health Professions Development (NSHPD) 2020-2030, a 10-year plan to strengthen and expand the Rwandan health workforce though improved and expanded pre-service training. The strategy outlines national health workforce targets for 33 cadres of providers, and the necessary inputs to training institutions to scale up enrollment and graduation to meet those targets. The government has created a Human Resources for Health Secretariat (HRH Secretariat) to manage implementation of the strategy. The HRH Secretariat has requested CHAI’s support to set up the Secretariat team and functions, and initiate implementation of the NSHPD.

CHAI is seeking a highly motivated individual with outstanding technical skills to assist the Secretariat as it transitions from strategy development to implementation.  This role requires managerial capabilities to lead a CHAI Rwanda Health Workforce team; manage day-to-day CHAI team program activities; and play a key role in relationship building with key stakeholders across the Rwandan government, education sector, INGOs, and academic partners in support of the NSHPD.

The CHAI Rwanda Health Workforce team will work very closely with the HRH secretariat to ensure that essential functions are developed, and capacity built in the secretariat to independently manage routine operations of implementing the NSHPD. The Program Manager should have the technical skills to advise, design, oversee, co-implement and directly provide technical assistance to the HRH Secretariat not limited to the design and implementation of data collection and analysis processes, operational planning and costing, measurement and evaluation systems, intervention design for health worker training, and governance of health workforce development systems.

The desired candidate must be able to multi-task effectively and have experience project managing multiple work streams and delegating responsibilities to staff effectively. Candidates should also have experience managing relationships with high level government stakeholders and ideally will have worked in the field of health professional education or health workforce planning. Successful candidates must have a passion for results, a commitment to excellence, and a demonstrated capacity to work in high-stress environments.

This position will report to the CHAI Rwanda Country Director or designate and will coordinate with the Health Workforce Global Team. This position is based in Kigali, Rwanda with some national and very limited international travel.

Key Responsibilities:

Program Management

• Develop a workplan to organize CHAI’s efforts to support the government and manage that work plan in a dynamic fashion
• Build and manage the CHAI Rwanda Health Workforce team to support the HRH Secretariat
• Develop briefing documents and information dissemination products as needed
• Manage CHAI team budget and expenditure
• Develop and oversee execution of a monitoring and evaluation plan for the CHAI team
• Proactively identify and mitigate any risks that is related to this program
• Become a member of CHAI Rwanda Management team and actively participate and contribute to the development of the CHAI Rwanda office
• Identify areas where support is needed, plan for and design the programmatic support
• Other responsibilities as assigned by the CHAI Rwanda office leadership team and the government

Technical Assistance

• Provide and manage internal and external technical inputs on all program activities
• Provide strategic direction and technical oversight to data collection and analysis activities as requested
• Assist the HRH Secretariat to develop a team and update its costed operational plan
• Support the HRH Secretariat to develop a measurement and evaluation plan, supervising staff who whose work will include developing the strategy, design, and tools needed to manage and implement the plan at the request of the Secretariat
• Support the HRH Secretariat to develop interventions for additional health workforce cadres including design of data collection and analysis tools, facilitation of planning meetings, computation of inputs, translating inputs to needed interventions, and offering guidance and clear recommendations to stakeholders
• Advise the HRH Secretariat and government stakeholders on governance issues related to health worker training and deployment, including facilitation of stakeholder consultations, data analysis to support policy recommendations, and development of policy documents and presentations needed to implement recommended strategies

Resource Mobilization

• Support the HRH Secretariat to develop and implement an effective resource mobilization strategy including donor research and scoping, developing a database to log prospective donors, and track potential and committed funding against program budgets, advising on fundraising strategy and developing concepts, budgets, and proposals needed to implement the strategy
• Assist the secretariat to identify, develop and maintain strong relationships with potential and existing donors
  Support the development of proposals to solicit resources for the government
• Manage grant submission process including narrative and budget development
• Complete donor reports and filing as necessary for various grants

Relationship Management

• Serve as the CHAI focal point for engagement in the NSHPD
• Understand government requirements for support and coordinate CHAI’s efforts to meet those requests
• Effectively engage and manage relationships with key government and training institution stakeholders
• Represent CHAI in government meetings as requested
• Develop, maintain, and facilitate strong working relationships with existing/new academic partners
• Support the HRH Secretariat to develop and execute MoUs and contracts with academic partners
• Troubleshoot academic partner programmatic and administrative issues with local stakeholders

Leadership, Administration & Operations

• Create an environment of continuous learning, where staff are encouraged, supported to grow and develop, and are willing to be held accountable for their commitments
• Support the CD in promoting culture that is inclusive and welcoming
• Develop and maintain efficient and effective systems, and ensure compliance with CHAI Rwanda Policies, procedures and guidelines by holding the team accountable to enhance the smooth running of the program,
• Provide input towards development of the Country budget and budget re-forecasts, with participation of operational and program teams in CHAI Rwanda
• Address staff Safety and Security matters in collaboration with Safety Point Person (SPP)
• Coordinate with the Human Resources department to ensure full compliance with the applicable laws of Rwanda
• Other responsibilities as needed

• Masters’ Degree or equivalent in Public Health or other related field
• Documented 7 - 10 years work experience
• At least 5 years work experience in the health sector, and or higher education sector;
• At least 3 years work experience in managerial positions;
• Demonstrated excellent people management skills with experience managing a team of at least three
• Demonstrated experience providing technical assistance to government(s) or other high-level stakeholders
• Demonstrated strong analytical, leadership, and problem-solving skills
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills in English
• Ability to communicate effectively with people of varied professional, cultural, and educational backgrounds
• Ability to multitask and to work independently and effectively in high-pressure, fast-paced environment
• Ability to work with teams across time zones and locations
• Ability to work with humility and achieve results
• High levels of proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and internet applications
• Highly organized with demonstrated project management experience
• High emotional intelligence and excellent interpersonal skills, especially in cross-cultural settings and highly distributed work environments with demonstrated ability to build relationships quickly

Preferred Qualifications:

• Background health systems strengthening, health workforce, and pre-service education for health workers
• Background in medical studies
• Experience working with resource-limited governments
• Experience working in health financing or health workforce financing

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