Project Officer (Sexual and Reproductive Health) Grade NOA

Contract

This is a No grade contract. More about No grade contracts.

1. Area of expertise:

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

2. Purpose of consultancy

Coordinate implementation, build capacity of health workers and conduct monitoring and support supervision activities of Suzan Thompson Buffet Foundation (STBF) project for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights.

3. Background and Rationale

Integrated delivery of women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health services using a health system and life cycle approach are lacking. This is compounded by lack of effective coordination among different agencies supporting the health sector as well as inadequate capacity at the Ministry of Health (MoH) to align partners with government priorities. Although there have been improvements in key maternal and child health indicators over the past decade1,2 a lot remains to be done to meet national and global targets.

In response, the Health Sector Strategic Plan 2023-2027 has prioritized Reproductive, Maternal and Child Health (RMNCH) interventions to reverse the wort performing indicators. A milestone towards achievement of the targets in the national strategy is that, South Sudan is among 18 Countries benefiting from a WHO Africa Regional Office coordinated multi-country two-year grant from the Suzan Thompson Buffet Foundation aimed at strengthening comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) services as well as health systems using a primary health care approach.

The objectives of this collaboration are:

• Increase access to Comprehensive abortion care services integrated into Primary Health Care (PHC)
• Providing comprehensive SRHR services including abortion care, Family Planning, Cervical Cancer screening and prevention of maternal death in conflict and emergency settings
• Strengthen coordination and governance for effective delivery of SRH services at primary health care level in selected States.
• Development of pre-service training and continued education

Successful implementation of this project requires a coordinated approach between WHO and the Ministry of Health as well as multi-stakeholders. The role of the project officer is to facilitate coordination, build capacity of health workers and conduct monitoring and support supervision activities of the project.

1. Key activities

a. Contributes to the planning, development, and implementation of the SBTF activities.

b. Support periodic Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response (MPDSR) review meetings across all project sites in collaboration with Ministry of Health and partners.

c. Co-facilitate with Ministry of Health in the planning, implementation, and review of various trainings activities in the project including trainings on cervical cancer screening, post abortion care and MPDSR.

d. Develop supervision check list and supervision plan for the project.

e. Conduct periodic support supervision to all project sites and ensure implementation is on tract in achievement of project targets.

f. Build capacity of health facility staff on data collection and facilitate data collection and reporting on the indicators agreed for the project.

g. Provide technical guidance in development, monitoring, and evaluation of maternal and neonatal country activities, within the framework of the National Reproductive health Strategy.

h. Revive the Reproductive Health Coordination Forum, revise the ToR and map out the partners.

i. Facilitate the organization and conduct of Technical Working Group (TWG) meetings for RMNCH.

j. Engage in community engagement and social mobilization activities for the project.

k. Engage in any other duty assigned by the supervisor.

2. Deliverables

a) Project implementation plan developed and implemented.

b) Terms of Reference for Reproductive Health Coordination Forum updated.

c) ToT and cascade Trainings for the project conducted.

d) MPDSR meetings conducted.

e) All project sites supervised on a quarterly basis.

3. Qualifications, experience, skills, and languages

Educational Qualifications:

Essential: Certificate in Midwifery with degree or master’s level training in Public Health.

Desirable: Experience working in RMNCH programming.

Essential: The technical person should have a minimum of 2 years of progressively working as a midwife or in public Health.

Desirable: Relevant work experience with WHO and/or UN agencies, health cluster partners; Experience managing diverse teams; experience working in relevant nongovernmental or humanitarian organizations. Ability to express ideas clearly and write well capacity to work well in a multicultural and multinational settings.

Skills/Knowledge:

a) Excellent knowledge and expertise of country level situations regarding maternal health. Understanding of WHO’s policies, practices, guidelines, and procedures on cervical cancer specifically the global strategy for elimination of cervical cancer and related tools.

b) Extensive knowledge and skills in problem solving, planning and management, monitoring and evaluation, negotiation, and resource mobilization.

c) Excellent communication skills, specifically ability to write documents in a logical and professional manner.

d) Demonstrated ability to provide sound methodological and technical advice and guidance to multiple stakeholders and partners in countries

e) Ability to conduct research and analyze results, identify issues, formulate opinions, make conclusions and recommendations for strengthening health care systems.

f) Ability to review and revise policies and objectives of assigned program and activities.

g) Demonstrated ability to understand and work on complex policy and programme issues related to RMNCH.

h) Excellent training skills.

Other Skills (e.g., IT):

Excellent knowledge of Microsoft applications (e.g., Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc) with an emphasis on Excel or a similar workbook application.

Languages and level required (Basic/Intermediate/Expert):

Essential: Excellent knowledge of English.

Desirable: Working knowledge of Other UN Language.

1. Location

Juba - WCO South Sudan

State WHO offices – 30%.

2. Travel

There will be 30 % travel to the field.

Additional Information (For HR use only):

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