Technical Director for Nutrition at Jhpiego

Jhpiego seeks a Technical Director for Nutrition  to provide technical leadership and oversight for an upcoming U.S. government-funded integrated health system technical assistance project. The project aims to improve the capacity of the public health system to sustainably deliver quality reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health and nutrition services across four provinces of Zambia. The project will operate over a five-year period.

The Technical Director for Nutrition will work closely with technical team leaders and their technical implementation teams to ensure the project is progressing towards expected results.  S/he will also work with M&E staff to ensure project deliverables are monitored and course corrections are identified and implemented as appropriate. Other responsibilities will include supervising project technical staff, overseeing annual work planning, implementation, adjustment of project activities based on monitoring of activities at district level, and reporting of project activities.

This position is contingent upon award from USAID. Zambians are strongly encouraged to apply.

• Provide day-to-day technical and programmatic oversight for design, planning and implementation of nutrition activities in support of the project goals and objectives


• Provide technical leadership and ensure the integration, quality, and sustainability of nutrition interventions


• Foster relationships with local implementing partners NGOs as a representative of Jhpiego and the project


• Facilitate the project team member’s relationship with their designated counterparts within USAID, the Ministry of Health at both provincial and districts levels, as well as private sector partners and other key stakeholders in Zambia such as NGOs and CSOs, to ensure effective technical assistance


• Represent Jhpiego and the project’s progress, achievements and lessons learned to donors, other key stakeholders, and through meetings, conferences, and presentations


• Facilitate annual work planning, in close collaboration with USAID and Ministry of Health, project team and project partners


• Assist COP with the preparation and analysis of budget for nutrition activities; monitoring spending against budget (burn rates), and making decisions concerning re-allocation of resources.


• Contribute to the building, mentoring, and managing a team of highly qualified staff and aligns their efforts to ensure rapid and sustainable results


• Oversee technical and programmatic capacity building for subcontractors and subgrantees


• Establish adaptive management systems to ensure project activities are responsive to changing context and environment in order to achieve results


• Develop efficient and effective mechanisms for reporting across all levels of the project


• Oversee project-wide reviews of progress toward project indicators


• Develop accurate and timely project reports to USAID, in line with USAID reporting requirements

• A Master’s Degree in Food Science, Nutrition, Public Health or related field and three (3) years of professional experience managing Nutrition programs; OR A Bachelor’s Degree and five (5) years of professional exposure working in mid to senior management position (in addition to the below requirement of seven years)

AND

• A minimum of seven (7) years of progressively increasing responsibility working for successful Nutrition technical assistance programs;


• Demonstrates expertise and experience in service quality improvement and operational research approaches;


• Experience and expertise in managing integrated health services;


• Experience and expertise in managing programs across sectors beyond health;


• Excellent communication and negotiation skills;


• Experience in successfully engaging the private sector;


• Must have demonstrated leadership qualities, depth and breadth of management expertise and experience;


• Experience with integration of gender and youth analysis into health/ nutrition projects and services; and


• Demonstrated ability to provide oversight of local capacity development efforts


• Previous direct supervisory experience of project technical staff


• Expertise in research to practice—identifying best practices and adapting them to project realities


• Previous experience working in Zambia (especially in Luapula, Muchinga, Southern, and Eastern Provinces), with in depth understanding of the local health and nutrition gaps and opportunities


• Existing strong relationships with local government agencies


• Excellent verbal, written, interpersonal, and presentation skills in English


• Ability to coach, mentor and develop technical capacity of staff


• Ability to interact with established networks of senior level international health professionals, donors, universities and other partners


• Demonstrated outstanding leadership, strategic thinking, organizational, team-building, and representational skills


• Ability to travel nationally and internationally at least 30%