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’s global malaria program provides direct technical and operational support to countries around the globe to strengthen their malaria programs and reduce the burden of this preventable, treatable disease. We support governments to scale up effective interventions for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and surveillance, with the goals of sustainably reducing the number of malaria-related illnesses and deaths worldwide in the short-term and accelerating progress towards malaria elimination in the long term.

Position Overview

CHAI is seeking a highly motivated individual to expand our support for community-based malaria surveillance, diagnosis and treatment in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). Within the GMS, community health workers (CHWs) have facilitated dramatic declines in malaria. Recent evaluations in Lao PDR, Cambodia and Myanmar underscore the essential role that CHWs play in (i) extending access to malaria rapid testing and treatment and (ii) performing routine community-based surveillance. The contributions that CHWs make toward national malaria elimination objectives are extensive. CHAI is actively supporting its ministry partners across the region to identify and address common bottlenecks across small- and large-scale, vertical and integrated CHW programs. Among others, these challenges include multi-stakeholder coordination, CHW recruitment and placement, effective training and supervision, commodity security, routine monitoring and evaluation, and sustainable program financing. Additionally, as malaria rates decline, CHAI is supporting ministries of health to explore the necessary evolution of vertical (malaria-only) CHW networks in order to ensure their continued effectiveness.

As it has in other countries and regions, CHAI malaria seeks to scale its support to these government-led efforts in key ways that are both immediate and long-term. Expanded efforts will aim to fortify existing CHW platforms to optimize their case management and surveillance contributions, and integrate them as sustainable, cross-cutting community health infrastructure within the country’s health system. In addition to providing technical support to CHAI’s existing CHW program engagements in the region, the Associate will scope additional strategic opportunities, working closely with partners and colleagues.

The Associate will work primarily with CHAI country teams in Lao PDR (~50%) and Cambodia (~25%) and across other global workstreams (~25%), and report directly to CHAI’s regional malaria lead for commodity access, with dotted management to CHAI’s global technical lead for community health.

The candidate must have excellent communications skills and cultural sensitivity, as s/he will be working closely with global, regional and country partners. The successful Associate will have strong technical, organizational and project management skills, and will be capable of conducting rapid quantitative/qualitative analysis and communicating such analysis on a regular basis in a clear and concise manner to colleagues and partners. The successful candidate will be a self-motivated individual able to function efficiently and constructively with teams/partners across countries, manage multiple tasks at once, make sound informed decisions independently when necessary and build strong relationships. CHAI places great value on relevant personal qualities including resourcefulness, tenacity, independence, patience, humility, and strong work ethic.

The role includes frequent travel (up to 40%) in the region.

Overarching responsibilities:
• Help shape and improve existing and future CHW related interventions across the GMS, and serve as a trusted community health advisor to CHAI country teams and external stakeholders.
• Support government partners and CHAI country and regional teams to develop and execute evidence- and needs-based integrated community health policies, strategies and operational plans at all level to increase availability of malaria and non-malaria commodities, and expand access to quality integrated malaria services.
• Coordinate with government and CHAI teams to include systematic tracking, analysis and mapping of quantitative and qualitative indicators on coverage and quality of malaria diagnosis, treatment and surveillance at community level.
• Develop and maintain a strong understanding of community level febrile diagnosis, treatment and surveillance to identify the highest priority needs and opportunities to improve the quality and coverage of fever diagnostics, treatment and surveillance at community level.
• Conduct collaborative evaluations of existing CHW programs to highlight key strengths and weaknesses, and support in the development of policies, strategies and plans to address them (short-term, medium-term, and long-term).
• Provide central and sub-national colleagues with technical backstopping in the areas of malaria case management and community health.
• Create database of funding opportunities for community systems strengthening work, and lead proposal development with assistance from global CHAI team and country partners
• Engage other CHAI malaria teams to involve, account and advocate for CHWs in strategic planning and implementation.

Lao PDR-specific project responsibilities:
• Support development of strategy, metrics, operational frameworks and best practices for the integrated community health worker project in Laos, including building monitoring and evaluation frameworks, indicators and data collection processes for the pilot, conducting a situational analysis of existing CHW programs, and collaborating with multiple project stakeholders to deliver high-quality, timely project outputs and reports.
• Support the ministry to implement agreed-upon recommendations for improving the CHW program, including: establishing routine coordination systems, fortifying CHW management at the primary health centre level, improving supply chain and program information systems, and supporting streamlined payment systems and long-term financing of the program.
• Contribute to the dissemination of learnings within and beyond Lao PDR.

Cambodia-specific project responsibilities:
• Provide technical and operational guidance to country team in creating CHW dashboards that organize quantitative and qualitative indicators at a granular level to assess the continued efficacy and impact of the CHW cadre, and support monthly tracking of CHW performance.
• Support regional and country case management leads to shape the strategy and activities for Village Malaria Worker (VMW) expansion of services and integration potential with other community-based health cadres, including conducting situational analyses as required, building an appropriate scope of work and training materials, and establishing the data management framework for inclusion of CHW data into the health information system.
• Support country-level relationship building efforts across ministry of health departments and external partners engaged in community health systems strengthening.

Other
• Manage and develop resources and best practices to share lessons across teams, and synthesize and disseminate findings through high-quality presentations, reports, and publications.
• Support global, regional and country colleagues to generate, document, and publish evidence and experience working with CHWs towards malaria control or elimination agendas.
• Pursue opportunities for collaboration with other CHAI teams, helping to build a cross-cutting community of practice within country, region and organization.
• Other responsibilities as needed.

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent plus 3 years work experience; or advanced degree plus relevant work experience
• Experience working in community health systems/with community health workers in low-resource settings
• Demonstrated analytical, leadership, and problem solving skills
• Experience conducting evaluations and literature reviews
• Ability to work both independently and with teams across time zones and locations and ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously effectively in high-pressure situations while remaining calm, set priorities, and work independently
• Experience working in high risk and low/middle income countries
• Strong interpersonal skills and proven ability to build and maintain strong relationships in a multicultural environment
• Strong work ethic, integrity, credibility, and dedication to CHAI’s mission
• High levels of proficiency with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Advantages:
• Experience working with government officials
• An MPH, MS in public health, Epidemiology, or experience working in public health, particularly international health/health policy and management
• Familiarity with monitoring and evaluation of surveillance systems and/or public health programs
• Experience with programming on malaria or other infectious diseases
• Experience with case management, disease surveillance and/or supply chain management
• Working knowledge of Vietnamese, Lao, Khmer, or Burmese