Request for Proposals: Program Strategic Operations Consultant

This position is posted on April 26 2023. While we review all applications on a rolling basis, please note that we will prioritize applications received within the first two weeks of the posting. 

All applications must be submitted by email to: knoye@lastmilehealth.org. Please scroll down to review all documents required as part of a successful application package. 

This position is remote and open to qualified local and international candidates. 

The Africa Frontline First (AFF) Initiative is a collaborative initiative that supports the scaling and strengthening of professionalized community health workers in Africa.Through unique partnerships between governments, donors, implementers, and technical allies, AFF will support ten countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in building high-functioning, resilient, country-led community health service delivery systems. These systems will aim to triple the number of institutionalized and professionalized 200,000 community health workers across Africa by 2030. AFF works across three pillars:

• Financing: Advocate, design and support implementation of sustainable funding mechanisms that enable transformed financing
• Political Prioritization: Cultivate regional political will and champions to support accelerating community health reforms, including domestic financing
• Community leadership: Partner with countries to ensure that financing mechanisms contribute towards achieving national community health goals

Examples of AFF’s current programing include: 

1. Africa Frontline First Catalytic Fund (AFF-CF) (Phase 1) which aims to improve the systems supporting community health in 8 African countries to improve performance unlock bottlenecks to scale frontline community health workers, and provide health for all. The AFF-CF will be available to countries from January 2024 until December 2026
2. Project BIRCH (Building Integrated Readiness for Community Health), which is a Global Fund mechanism whose main goal is to provide technical assistance and community health systems strengthening grants in eleven countries between January to December 2023, with potential for extension. These include technical assistance to develop Global Fund funding requests as part of the current Grant Cycle 7 funding windows. Ultimately, country support will empower countries to enhance the design and effectiveness of existing and upcoming Global Fund investments in CHWs for pandemic preparedness, including investments through the AFF-CF
3. Partnership with the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. The AFF team supports Africa CDC’s mandate in providing technical guidance to member states in community health workforce, in particular the role of CHWs in pandemic preparedness and response. AFF also supports the Africa CDC’s coordination mechanisms around community health, and joint advocacy to prioritize community health.

The Role:

Last Mile Health seeks a consultant to apply targeted and time critical support to advance AFF’s institutional development alongside its external impact goals and support AFF management team to set up the systems for AFF’s program success, make key strategic and operational decisions, and join project teams for important and timely projects.

Project Details:

• Commitment – 8 months at least 20 hours per week, with potential for renewal 
• Contract Type - Consultancy
• Reports to - Chief Operating Officer, Africa Frontline First in Last Mile Health
• Location – remote 

This position is remote and open to qualified local and international candidates. 

What You'll Do

• Support AFF leadership to develop and execute on strategy
  • Apply intensive and strategic support to bottlenecks that disrupt institutional function and consequently external scale, as part of the project team
  • Identify key strategic issues, and organize the leadership team to deliberate and decide on these issues 
  • Support the organizing of briefings for AFF advisors and AFF partners 
  • Support other key enablers of AFF execution such as identifying key positions for recruitment 
  • Draft internal and external communications (as needed) for leadership team coordinating across staff and teams/ workstream 
  • Model effective information-framing, appropriate decision-making protocols and progress-tracking
  • Co-create and manage AFF’s Executive Committees strategic agenda and priorities in partnership with the AFF leadership team Where designated, represent AFF Management leadership in meetings
• Improve internal cross-workstream and cross-partner systems and processes
  • Support and facilitate effective partnership across AFF, LMH, FAH, and CHIC. This includes, clarifying our shared operations - in particular, 
    • Participate in the creation and revision of systems, policies, and processes to improve operational efficiency and effectiveness
    • Work with all core partners to develop partnership agreements
    • Define resource contribution/ commitments [e.g. staff Level of Effort (LoE) and in-kind contributions, financial investments, etc]
    • Support grant agreements and document approach to shared financial and operational practices
    • Contribute to a policy comparison including recommendations for risk mitigation for divergent policies 
    • Building on existing work, support the AFF team to develop and adopt improved project management systems 
    • Perform a risk assessment with proposed mitigation actions 
  • Ensure M&E input is translated and represented across teams 
  • Leverage improved communication to refine and tailor OKRs and workplans.
  • Support recruitment needs as needed to improve speed and quality of hiring processes.
• Lead or contribute to time-sensitive key priorities and special initiatives critical for advancing AFF’s objectives, as determined in coordination with the COO or Co-executive directors

What You'll Bring

• Bachelor's degree community health, public health, health policy, health program management, or other similar fields
• Several years working in non-profit/government and management experience
• Strong leadership and stakeholder management experience with demonstrated ability to build trust-based relationships when engaging at different levels and cross-disciplines 
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with a high degree of context-switching
• Comfort working across different issues, at strategic to tactical levels, with a variety of ongoing projects
• Team player with experience working cross-functionally across multiple levels of staff.
• Excellent project management, program design and coordination/organizational skills
• Experience leading events and/or workshops end-to-end
• Sound understanding of primary health, community health and universal health coverage as well as familiarity with global health inflection points and annual events an asset.
• Practical leadership experience in leading multi-functional, multi-cultural teams that are geographically spread
• Excellent strategic analysis skills and conceptual problem solving
• Structured work approach where efficiency, consistency, and accountability are prevalent
• You should also be an independent worker and ‘out of the box’ thinker, comfortable with ambiguity, ready to build the venture, and keen to work towards the broader mission of improving health outcomes and expanding access
• High personal alignment to core values. Passion for and experience in social impact and change

• Working proficiency in French (Bilingual is strongly preferred) with additional language skills are an added advantage

You'll Impress Us If

• You have previous experience demonstrating strategic thinking, project management, written communication/ advocacy, or any other relevant skill sets related to the scope of work above.

Application Submission  

All applications must be clearly marked with the title of the consultancy and submitted by: Include the following documents in the application package:

1. Curriculum Vitae with relevant experience
2. Previous work sample demonstrating strategic thinking, project management, written communication/ advocacy, or any other relevant skillsets related to the scope of work above. 
3. Please share your consultancy daily rate, or monthly rate equivalent to 50% LOE. 

All applications must be submitted by email to: knoye@lastmilehealth.org. Application Packages will be reviewed on a rolling basis. 

About Last Mile Health

Last Mile Health (LMH) saves lives in the world's most remote communities by partnering with governments to bring critical primary care services to the doorsteps of people living in the last mile. LMH is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and currently works in Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Malawi, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Sierra Leone with US offices in Boston. For more information, visit www.lastmilehealth.org

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at LMH. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.