Country

Malawi

City

Lilongwe

Type

Full Time

Program (Division)

Country Programs - Malawi

Additional Location Description

Lilongwe, Malawi

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 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.

Program Overview:

The WHO estimates a projected shortage of 10 million health workers by 2030, with the majority of that shortage (7.5 million) falling in low- and middle-income countries. Many of the governments with which CHAI works face significant challenges producing the workforce at the quantity and quality needed to meet the demands of their health systems. In addition, in many of the countries where CHAI works, there is not only a gross shortage of health workers, but the existing workforce is characterized by suboptimal skill mix, distribution and performance—which means that governments are facing significant inefficiencies and unable to get the most out of their existing resources.

The aim of CHAI’s Health Workforce Program is to ensure that our partner governments are able to optimize the number, skill mix, performance and distribution of their health workforces within available resources. When this is the case, governments will be able to make progress toward UHC and PHC by maximizing the extent to which available, high performing, and motivated health workers can provide quality services when and where needed.

Governments are increasingly prioritizing PHC as a step toward UHC. With that in mind and given our strategic focus on resource optimization, CHAI is increasingly working with governments on workforce development for PHC—including community health workers (CHWs). Though CHWs are a cornerstone of PHC, community health systems in LMICs have been particularly plagued by fragmentation, verticalization, and inadequate resources in many of the contexts where CHAI’s work. CHAI’s Health Workforce Strategy outlines five overarching objectives:

• Objective 1: Align supply and demand - Define health workforce requirements and implement systems to realize targets, including aligning pre-service training supply and strengthening systems for evidence-based deployment
• Objective 2: Improve competency and performance – Strengthen continuous learning and performance management systems and address gaps in pre-service training in order to improve health worker performance
• Objective 3: Reduce inefficiencies – Identify and address sources of inefficiency in workforce financing and programming in order to maximize the impact of available resources, including through advancing government-owned systems for health workforce planning, management, and resource coordination
• Objective 4: Build institutional capacity - Institutionalize government-led systems and structures for health workforce planning, management, and training
• Objective 5: Support governments to define, operationalize and scale national integrated community health systems.

Currently, CHAI partners with the governments of Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Laos, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Zambia to strengthen health workforce and community health.

Position Overview:

The Project Manager, Global Fund Application Support, will be based in Lilongwe to support the Government of Malawi to develop a robust and evidence-based application to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria’s New Funding Model (NFM4), with a particular focus on the Resilient and Sustainable Systems for Health (RSSH) component. The Project Manager will manage staff members who are providing technical support to the Global Fund application process, and will report to the Program Manager, Sustainable Health Financing, within the office’s Health Systems Strengthening Cluster.

CHAI is currently providing close technical assistance to the Malawi Ministry of Health to develop, cost, and prioritize the Health Sector Strategic Plan III (HSSP III). This includes evidence-based health workforce investments, as well as other key health systems strengthening interventions prioritized by the government. With the Global Fund as the single largest funder of the Malawi health sector, representing 28% of all health sector resources, CHAI will work with the Malawi Ministry of Health to ensure that the health systems strengthening priorities in the HSSP III are included in the NFM4 funding application. This will also build off CHAI’s years of experience in supporting the development and costing of National Strategic Plans for HIV, TB, and malaria, and subsequent incorporation of the NSP priorities into Global Fund applications.

The Project Manager, Global Fund Application Support will supervise work to ensure that Malawi prepares a robust and evidence-based NFM4 application, with a primary focus on the RSSH component but also supporting coordination and alignment with the HIV, TB, and malaria components. This work will help ensure that the health systems strengthening investments in Malawi’s NFM4 application are strategic, aligned with national priorities, and integrated across disease areas.

This is a challenging but rewarding position which will directly impact the government’s capacity to deliver improved health services for the population of Malawi. It presents an opportunity to work closely with a government that is committed to finding opportunities for sustainable financing of the health sector, providing strategic advice, and developing tools that will deliver a stronger health system for the people of Malawi.

Management Responsibilities

• Manage an ELMA-funded grant to provide technical assistance to the Global Fund NFM4 application, including leading the development and implementation of overall grant workplans and budgets
• Manage an Associate, Health Workforce, enabling high performance and professional growth
• Manage programmatic and M&E reporting requirements, both internally within CHAI and externally facing for program donors such as ELMA
• Manage financial reporting requirements, both internally within CHAI and externally facing for program donors such as ELMA (including but not limited to approving or endorsing individual activity budgets and liquidations from the team members, real-time tracking of activity budgets and expenditures against the grant funding envelope, management of monthly preliminary expenditures, review of cashflow forecasts, etc.)
• Perform any other relevant duties as assigned by the Program Manager, Sustainable Health Financing

Technical Responsibilities

• Supervise technical assistance to the government to ensure that NFM4 application is robust, evidence-based, and aligned to government priorities
• Supervise the integration of the costed HSSP III priorities into the NFM4 application, with a particular focus on the RSSH component but with alignment and coordination with the HIV, TB, and malaria components as needed
• Supervise the timely completion of NFM4 application materials, such as proposal narratives and budget documents, as requested by the government
• Supervise updates to the health workforce models in the HSSP III as needed, including updates to the costed and prioritized need for health worker pre-service education and salaries to deliver the health services in the platform of care
• Build strategic relationships and facilitate meetings with the government and other stakeholders to ensure timely and consensus-driven completion of the NFM4 application
• Coordinate across the CHAI office to ensure that NFM4 application support by the Health Systems Strengthening Cluster and the Infectious Disease Cluster are harmonized, aligned, and coherent
• Perform any other relevant duties as assigned by the Program Manager, Sustainable Health Financing

• Master of Public Health or related field with coursework/experience in economics and finance preferred, or bachelor’s degree with exceptional experience
• Minimum of 5 years of relevant work experience (e.g., in a research institution, government, bilateral or multilateral development agency, consulting firm, NGO or think tank), with increasing levels of responsibility
• Strong program management experience including managing and recruiting teams, developing and executing budgets, creating and implementing work plans, and monitoring both program and staff performance
• Knowledge of and experience in health systems, health care financing, and/or health systems governance, particularly in low- and middle-income countries and working with governments at the subnational level
• Strong writer, facilitator, and oral communicator able to distill and explain complex concepts to varied audiences
• Exceptional diplomatic and interpersonal skills and ability to build strategic relationships
• Ability to think strategically about long-term program objectives and the detailed steps necessary to achieve them
• Excellent organizational and problem-solving skills without need for extensive structural or operational support
• Experience working in resource-limited settings and in a multicultural office environment
• Ability to multi-task and work effectively in fast-paced, high-pressure situations
• Technical proficiency with MS Excel and PowerPoint

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