CHAI established presence in Sierra Leone in 2015. While CHAI’s original intent was to provide assistance related to the Ebola response, it became clear based on preliminary conversations with the government that the real need for partner support was in the realm of health systems strengthening. CHAI in response to the government need developed a scope of work focusing on Human Resources for Health and Supply Chain, supporting the HRH Directorate within MOH and the National Pharmaceutical Procurement Unit (NPPU) respectively.

CHAI made significant progress in both areas and was able to build trust and establish strong relationships with the government. In recent years CHAI has expanded its support to the Government to include programs on sexual and reproductive health, vaccines delivery, assistive technology, geospatial data use (GRID3), and improving access to medical oxygen. With each new and innovative program, our strategy is grounded in maximizing sustainable impact at scale, ensuring that the government of Sierra Leone leads the solutions, that programs are designed to scale nationally, and learnings are shared globally.

CHAI recently initiated collaboration and support to the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP) of the MOH and has spent its initial months trying to understand the strengths and areas for improvement within the malaria program, the broader health system, and the partner and donor engagement with it. CHAI aims to empower the program to regularly utilize disaggregated data and analytics for effective decision-making in both programmatic and strategic planning and operations.

Through a set of technical and operational assessments, CHAI has identified potential areas of work and has prioritized them based on impact and feasibility. We anticipate our initial focus to be on strengthening data reporting, data analysis, and disease surveillance based on the results of an in-progress surveillance assessment and epidemiological stratification. CHAI is also positioned to provide strategic and financing support to the national malaria control program, following successful costing of the malaria Operational Plan and application to the Global Fund. CHAI will continue to consult with government and non-government partners in country to evaluate how it can best add value to ongoing efforts.

 Position Overview

This position reports to the CHAI Malaria Program Manager in Sierra Leone, and will will work closely on issues related to malaria case management from a gender, equity and diversity perspective (at all levels of the health system), including supply chain management and  community health  The Associate with technical partner organizations, donors, governments and the civil society.

The successful candidate will have excellent communications skills and cultural sensitivity, as s/he will be working closely with global and country partners. The Associate will have strong organizational and project management skills and will be capable of synthesizing data and literature, conducting rapid gender sensitive analyses and communicating such analyses on a regular basis in a clear and concise manner to colleagues and partners. The successful candidate will be able to collaborate effectively with other teams, function efficiently in a semi-independent setting, and thus be a self-motivated individual capable of managing multiple tasks at once and making sound independent decisions regarding data analysis.

CHAI places considerable emphasis on personal qualities such as resourcefulness, tenacity, independence, patience, humility, and a strong work ethic. The Malaria Associate will be embedded within the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP) at the Ministry of Health in Freetown, fostering relationships with key stakeholders from the government, donors, and the international community in Sierra Leone.

Up to 40% travel is expected and might support field activities in remote areas.

Providing technical support including but not limited to:

• Developing and maintaining a strong understanding of the malaria diagnosis and treatment landscape within Sierra Leone, while uncovering the root causes of inequities in access to malaria diagnosis and treatment;
• Identifying high priority opportunities to improve the quality, coverage and equity of malaria diagnosis and treatment across public, private and community sectors through scoping exercises and review of routine data; this includes supporting the country in conducting malaria equity assessments and transforming findings in actionable and human centred interventions
• Developing and supporting the implementation of M&E plans for CHAI and government case management, community health, and supply chain interventions and tools to include collection, analysis, interpretation and use of appropriate (gender-sensitive) indicators across Sierra Leone;

• Leading the documentation and dissemination of topics related to malaria case management, community health and/or supply chain management activities and results through technical reports, presentations, policy briefs, and publications;
• Improving the integration of a gender and diversity lens into malaria policies, plans and M&E frameworks through guided equity assessments and action plans;
• Generating, synthesizing and translating evidence (i.e., via surveys, literature reviews, routine data analysis) to inform government and partner policy and programmatic decision making.

In close collaboration with CHAI’s country, regional and global teams, NMCPs and other stakeholders, provide operational and implementation support including but not limited to:

• Expanding access to and effectiveness of community health workers (CHWs) through targeted and context specific strategies developed in partnership with the MOH CHW program;
• Developing gender responsive materials for health care workers, including SOPs and updated training curriculum for CHWs to improve adherence to national guidelines;
• Designing and implementing strategies and detailed plans to address equity gaps in availability and universal access to case management services, and supply chain management;
• Drafting and/or updating of national guidelines related to diagnosis and treatment, quality assurance and control for medicines and diagnostics;

• Designing strategies, plans and tools for the integration of case management and supply chain information into malaria surveillance systems;
• Facilitating regular coordination between MOH stakeholders and key partners on ongoing country activities and priorities.
• Facilitating equitable community engagement through the co-creation of local solutions through soliciting meaningful, systematic participation of different segments of at-risk communities and local CSO networks
• Provide support to the PSM team, NMCP in collaboration with other stakeholders in activities involving malaria commodity demand forecasting, procurement, inventory management, logistics coordination, data management and continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• Bachelor or Master’s degree in public health, epidemiology, sociology, gender or other relevant fields plus relevant professional experience in a demanding, results-oriented environment;
• 3-4 years of relevant professional experience (i.e., management consulting, malaria, health systems strengthening, supply chain, community health, gender integration or a related field)
• High levels of proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint;
• Ability to work independently in remote and unstructured settings, to work closely within and across other teams and to adapt to new environments and challenges;

• Excellent written and oral communication (English) skills, problem-solving and strong organizational abilities and detail-oriented approach;
• Willingness and ability to travel up to 40% of their time within Sierra Leone and extensively across sub-Saharan Africa, and to other trans-continental meetings based on program requirements.

Advantages:

• 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 conducting gender equity and diversity analysis;
• Experience working with infectious disease control programs