Project Officer Job at Malaria Consortium

Malaria Consortium is one of the world’s leading non-profit organisations specialising in the comprehensive prevention, control and treatment of malaria and other communicable diseases among vulnerable and under privileged populations. We increasingly find our work on malaria can be effectively integrated with other similar public health interventions for greater impact and therefore expanded our remit to include child health and neglected tropical disease interventions.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Position: Project Officer

Job Location: Kaduna
Employment Type: Full-time

Job Purpose

• The job purpose is to work with State Programme Manager (SPM) to effectively manage project activities and resources.
• Top provide leadership and stewardship to the project team and maintain collaborative links with the project’s key stakeholders at the LGA level.

Scope of Work

• The project officer will support the SPM in the implementation of the MDA-AZM project across the state.
• S/he will work with LGA Field Assistants and will be responsible for liaising with the focal persons at the Local Government Level. 

Key Working Relationships:

• The PO would be line managed by the SPM and would work with the LGA Field Assistants in-charge of the assigned LGAs (presumably within a specific senatorial zone of a state).
• S/he would also maintain relationships with the country office departments, including Finance and Logistics.
• Key external relationships would be with staff at the LGA and State Malaria Elimination Programme (SMEP), LGA health staff and leading community members and gatekeepers.
• S/he would lead micro-planning, training and coordination, through drug administration and supportive supervision, to reporting of activities at the LGA level.
• S/he would maintain close communication with stakeholders and influential persons in the assigned LGAs through the agreed frameworks.

Key Accountabilities
Programme Management (70%):
Support the SPM and the state management team to lead activities for smooth programme management in the assigned LGAs in the following areas:

• Liaise and work with the  SMC project team in the assigned LGAs;
• Be conversant with and guided by Malaria Consortium, policies, guidelines and the SMC Handbook towards the delivery of MDA-AZM in assigned LGAs;
• Implementation (MDA-AZM) including QA and innovations, including the use of technology;
• General management including security, HR including line management, risk management, work planning and budgeting, VFM, optimization of grant, etc.;
• Planning (microplanning, selection of implementers at the local levels, training, database finalization, last mile distribution, MDA-AZM and reverse logistics);
• Engagement of stakeholders including government, communities and beneficiaries;
• Risk Free operations including ensuring that all staff comply with MC values and start-to-finish (SFG) policies; and
• Coordination with other levels of government and internally, all MC functions.

Technical (20%):

• Support M&E activities, including reporting of MDA-AZM and lot quality assurance sampling (LQAS); and
• Support programme review including end of cycle (EoC) reviews, end of round (EoR) reviews and EoR coverage survey.

Representations & Knowledge Management (10%):

• Lesson identification and use including adaptive management;
• Harmonization with other partners; and
• Representation especially at the LGA levels.

Person specification
Qualifications and experience:
Essential:

• Training in Nursing or Public Health;
• Five years of experience of working in the Public Health sector;
• Experience in using digital data collection tools in SMC campaigns and other health programmes; 
• Some practical experience in Health Information and Disease Surveillance Systems, interoperability, and international standards; open Global Health Information System software and open data sources, such as, but not limited to, DHIS2, ODK, KoboCollect;
• Experience in programme management at the LGA/state level;
• Excellent project planning, management and monitoring & evaluation skills.
• Experience managing project budgets;
• Experience working at the LGA and community levels;
• Experience working on campaign style interventions (delivery of integrated interventions or social mobilization and SMC would be an added advantage).

Work-based skills and competencies:
Essential

• Good understanding of the Nigeria health system;
• Understanding of communication for behaviour change and social mobilisation;
• Team player and demonstrated ability to work within a team as well as individually;
• Ability to travel to LGAs outside of state capital at least 80% of the time;
• Ability to perform under pressure;
• Excellent communication skills in English and the dominant local language in assigned state;
• Evidence of being resident in state of assignment.