Save the Children is the leading independent organization for children in need, with programs in over 120 countries. We save children’s lives. We fight for their rights. We help them fulfil their potential. Save the Children is working in Nigeria because one in five children in Nigeria dies before their fifth birthday. About 40% of children miss out on school and have to work to survive while nearly 2 million children have lost one or both parents to an AIDS-related disease.
We are recruiting to fill the position below:
Job Title: Head of Health and Nutrition
Job ID: 200005RE
Location: Abuja
Contract Length: 2 years
Employee Status: Fixed Term
Team / Programme: Programme Development and Quality
Child Safeguarding
- Level 3: The role holder will have contact with children and / or young people either frequently (e.g. once a week or more) or intensively (e.g. four days in one month or more or overnight) because they work in country programs; or are visiting country programs; or because they are responsible for implementing the police checking / vetting process staff.
Role Purpose
- Provide strategic technical support to the country programme and technical support to Managers in field / project offices.
- Support the quality, design, delivery and representation of Save the Children’s Health and Nutrition programming in Nigeria.
- Initiate, lead, advise, support and optimise the contribution of the Nigeria country office to Save the Children’s global Child Survival breakthrough and campaigns.
- The incumbent will have overall responsiblity for the development of quality country-level interventions in the thematic areas of health and hunger reduction (nutrition).
Scope of Role:
- Reports to: Director, PDQ
- Dimensions: Save the Children has offices in 10 locations (Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara, Jigawa, Borno, Gombe, Cross River, Yobe, Lagos, and Abuja). SCI Nigeria has over 400 staff, and about 37 active awards.
- Staff directly reporting to this post: Senior Health and Nutrition Advisor
- Budget responsibility: As delegated by Director of PDQ
Key Areas of Accountabilities
Strategy and Programme Quality:
- Establish and lead the implementation of Save the Children’s health and nutrition strategy and organisational goals in collaboration with field staff, regional technical staff and the senior management team.
- Lead on the preparation of funding proposals and help to identify high value and high potential fundraising opportunities in collaboration with field teams and programme staff, ensuring that funding proposals are in accordance with country and global strategies and policies.
- Coordinate and enhance quality of community and primary healthcare and nutrition programming, and successfully raise funds to ensure programme continuation and expand coverage, ensuring high quality programming that is compliant with national guidelines.
- Ensure that beneficiary accountability is taken into consideration throughout programme implementation.
- Lead in planning of assessments and surveys and ensure best practices throughout implementation and dissemination of findings and results.
- Ensure integration and coordination among the various Save the Children projects contributing to the overall goal of the organisation.
- Enhance collaboration with other technical departments to support integrated programming and improve impact.
- Guide health and nutrition teams to develop and implement robust systems for gathering evidence and measuring impact, with reporting systems that provide appropriate information for use in national and global advocacy.
- Ensure that information for donor reports is high quality, accurate, reliable and available in a timely fashion as per plan.
- Produce and compile regular updates and mandatory reports on child survival for internal and external audiences (e.g. donors, internal use, for learning purposes between countries).
- Strengthen the nutrition and health team’s capacity for effective project management through mentoring and the identification of training needs.
- Support the recruitment and induction of health and nutrition staff and consultants.
Representation and Coordination:
- Represent Save the Children in various fora for nutrition and health in order to increase visibility and networking opportunities between different stakeholders (government and non-government).
- Represent our work to relevant bodies, including donors, and identify changes to their policies and priorities that may create opportunities and threats for our funding.
- Promote the sharing of best practice and learning in relation to programming, advocacy and campaign activities among field sites in the country and with SCI and other partners in the region.
- Work at the policy level with high-level decision makers from the Government, participating in strategy development, policy-making, and technical discussions, as well as negotiating to determine priorities for development.
- Serve as the principal health and nutrition technical expert (advisor) for Save the Children, preparing briefing materials and reports on health and nutrition sector development for donors, SMT and visitors where necessary. Present clear and convincing reports as needed on nutrition and health topics at workshops, meetings and other venues that demonstrate sound analysis and synthesis.
Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) and Knowledge Management:
- Promote effective knowledge management within the health and nutrition programme and across sectors.
- Collaborate with appropriate Regional and HQ Advisors to promote programme quality and sharing of learning and identifying relevant innovations.
- Work collaboratively across all sectors to ensure integration, complementarity, and learning.
- In collaboration with the programming team, provide guidance and oversight to partners and other collaborating agencies to ensure that lessons of sound practice are documented and disseminated.
- In collaboration with the Head of MEAL, oversee the development and management of the CO’s monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) system for health and nutrition programmes.
- Ensure data is analysed to measure project performance and identify areas of improvement. Ensure that learning is incorporated into evolving programme plans.
- Collaborate with Regional and Headquarters technical staff to identify and implement appropriate electronic data collection solutions to improve timeliness and quality of M&E and reporting.
Management and Administration:
- Promote coordination and cooperation between health and nutrition programmes and operations staff, including working closely with the Director PDQ to ensure stewardship of resources and appropriate budget management of projects, collaboration in forecasting, and other business processes.
- Ensure accurate and timely management and reporting on financial and material resources as it relates to health programming.
- Ensure staff compliance with all SCI administrative and operational procedures and policies, as well as applicable donor regulations.
- Approve program expenditures, budget adjustments, and cost modification requests to donors per agency policies and procedures and donor regulations.
- Assist with the development of the Annual Programming Plan and provide overall leadership to the development of the nutrition and health budgets.
Advocacy:
- Advocate for reforms that will promote the effective implementation of Save the Children’s health and nutrition strategy. Apply knowledge and expertise to nutrition and health policy and programmes to design and develop activities that promote health policy implementation and development.
Human Resource Management:
- Lead, manage, and supervise nutrition and health programming team staff directly or indirectly according to the CO structure.
- Conduct periodic reviews of staff performance in keeping with SCI’s performance management system and mentor staff to ensure high levels of motivation, commitment, capacity, and teamwork.
- Ensure and build high quality staff at all levels.
Responsibilities of CSG:
- Report all cases internal and external.
- Know CSG policy and code of conduct, and raise awareness on the policy (Children, partners, community).
- Contribute to lessons learned and the documentation of good practices under the lead focal point.
- To be a model in his/her work and private life, and respect the code of conduct and the policy of CSG.
- Know and respect local procedures.
- Ensure the well-being of children.
- Ensure the work place is a safe place for children.
Behaviours (Values in Practice)
Accountability:
- Holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values.
- Holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities - giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved.
Ambitious:
- Sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and their team, takes responsibility for their own personal development and encourages their team to do the same.
- Widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others.
- Future orientated, thinks strategically and on a global scale.
Collaboration:
- Builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, Members and external partners and supporters.
- Values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength.
- Approachable, good listener, easy to talk with.
Creativity:
- Develops and encourages new and innovative solutions.
- Willing to take disciplined risks.
Integrity:
- Honest, encourages openness and transparency; demonstrates highest levels of integrity.
Qualifications and Experience
Essential:
- Post-graduate, Master or equivalent field experience in Nutrition, Health, or related field.
- Strong experience in community nutrition and health programming.
- 8 years of experience at the international level in technical support and/or programme management.
- Direct experience of planning, implementing and measuring the impact of health, hunger reduction or other related programmes.
- Successful track record of developing large-scale proposals ($1m and above) and securing funding from donors.
- Clear commitment to, and experience of, developing and coaching staff, combined with the ability to give direct actionable feedback.
- Successfully work with minimal administrative support.
- Inter-personal skills to influence and guide field and other senior managers in identifying programming opportunities and resolving programme and campaign challenges, and to work in a collaborative manner within the Country Leadership Team.
- Ability to analyse information, evaluate options and to think and plan strategically.
- Credibility to represent the organization to regional bodies and donors.
- Commitment to the values and mission of Save the Children.
- Ability to speak and write clear English.
- Ability to travel to the field.
Desirable:
- Experience with Save the Children.
