Health Programme Coordinator - Sierra Leone

About the role: This is a 2 year, new role with unaccompanied terms based in Freetown, Sierra Leone, with a salary of Grade 4 €45,457 – 50,509.

You will report to Sierra Leone Programme Director (PD) and will lead on the strategic development and leadership of Concern’s growing Health Programme in Sierra Leone. You will be responsible for the effective and quality implementation of projects within the health portfolio, line management of Health Project Coordinators and Managers, and play a key role in mobilising resources to continue to expand the programme.

We would like you to start early September 2024.

Your purpose: This is an exciting opportunity for the right candidate to support the significant growth of Concern’s Health Programme in Sierra Leone, in partnership with key line ministries and (I)NGO partners. You will provide leadership and management to the health sector, and technical support to ensure Concern is delivering high quality, relevant, impactful and accountable programming that targets hard to reach, underserved communities living in conditions of extreme poverty. This includes oversight of Concern’s existing health portfolio which takes an integrated and system strengthening approach across 4 pillars: (i) Community Health Seeking and Health Systems (including Adolescent Sexual & Reproductive Health (ASRH) and Nutrition, in close collaboration with the livelihoods sector); (ii) Formal Health System Strengthening (at district and national levels); (iii) Disease Prevention (including vaccination programming); and (iv) Humanitarian response – technical support to the Emergency Coordinator on health related emergency preparedness and response. All pillars are underpinned by gender and equality, protection, climate and environment, disaster risk reduction and conflict sensitivity. You will also play a key role in positioning Concern towards new funding opportunities in Sierra Leone and developing high quality proposals. You will be responsible to maintain and build strong relationships with donors, partners and the Sierra Leonean government – relevant line ministries.

Concern has been awarded the FCDO-funded Saving Lives in Sierra Leone 3 (SLiSL3) as consortium lead, which is an exciting new flagship programme for Concern, under the leadership of Consortium Coordination Unit (CCU) and of significant importance for Sierra Leone. The health coordinator, however, plays a key role in ensuring quality and timely delivery of SLiSL3 in Concern districts.

You will be based in Freetown, Sierra Leone, with frequent travel to the other districts where Concern works.

Reports To: Programme Director (PD)

Direct line reports: Health Project Coordinators and Managers (2 presently).

Liaises With:

• SLiSL CCU unit
• All Sector Coordinators (Education, Livelihoods, Emergency, Programme Development & Quality), PDQ team, Grants Manager, Partnership Manager, Business Development and Knowledge Capitalisation Manager (BDKC)and wider health team;
• Country Management Team, Area Coordinators, Finance, Logistics and Procurement, and HR;
• Concern Desk Officer and relevant technical advisors at head office
• Partner/consortium agencies, Health NGOs Group, relevant Donors, Ministry of Health & Sanitation (MoHS), Ministry of Social Welfare (MSW), SUN Secretariat, National Disasters Management Agency (NDMA).

You will be responsible for:

Programme Leadership and Development:

• Reporting to the PD, lead the implementation of Concern’s Country Health Strategy. Updating in line with Concern Sierra Leone’s country strategic plan which is in process of being updated in 2024.
• Design, implement and manage overall Health Programme at the national level with high quality and ensure participation of community and other stakeholders; Ensuring alignment with Concern Worldwide’s health and organisational policies and strategies.
• Ensure the Concern health development projects are designed in line with global best practices, relevant in country evidence, and in line with the needs of programme participants and partners in the intervention including Ministry of Health guidelines and strategy.
• Provide technical backstopping to the health teams, ensuring the development, review and utilisation of best practices for specific technical interventions.
• Ensure that the core principles and policies of Concern regarding Concern’s Code of Conduct and Associated Policies (especially the Programme Participants’ Protection Policy and Child Safeguarding), Equality and Anti-Fraud Policy are implemented, monitored and reported across the health programme.
• With support of Concern advisors, ensure effective mainstreaming of equality, partnership, protection, environment and disaster risk reduction including how Concern Understands Extreme Poverty approach.

Programme integration and partnership development

• Support the project leads to ensure successful roll out of health projects with a collaborative approach (particularly essential for any integrated projects and SLiSL3).
• Maintain effective partnerships particularly with Health Development Partners, Ministry of Health at national level and other relevant ministries (e.g. Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation, National Secretariat for the Reduction of Teenage Pregnancy, Ministry of Social Welfare).
• Initiate and develop partnerships with relevant international and national NGOs and CBOs. This includes working with the Partnership Manager to identify and support in the assessment and capacity strengthening of potential strategic partners.

Proposal Development, Grants and Financial Management

• In line with the country strategy, and in collaboration with the PD, CD, BDKC Manager and Country Finance Controller, analyse funding requirements and opportunities, support positioning and lead/support developing funding proposals of high quality to expand appropriately the health programme.
• Prepare health sector annual budget and analyse the need to seek additional funding based on the health programme strategy.
• Overall responsible for, and to build capacity of direct reports to ensure:
• Effective management of all aspects of donor grants for the health programme including the timely preparation of high quality donor reports.
• All projects are on track in terms of implementation and quality of activities as well as budget expenditure through effective planning and monitoring; Manage risks and escalate to line manager when necessary, with suggested solutions/actions.
• Build/maintain effective relationships with stakeholders and partners at district level.
• Monthly cash forecasts and donor management accounts are prepared/jointly reviewed with comments by Project Managers/Coordinators and adjust accordingly to ensure that budgets are spent effectively;
• All health projects have annual budgets, Detailed Implementation Plans (DIP), with realistic timeframes and milestones, and procurement plans. With the support of the PD, and liaising with relevant departments, ensure that all resources needed (technical, financial, HR) are in place to implement DIP. Regularly review the budget, DIP and procurement plan and update relevant components at least quarterly with project and finance staff.
• Lead in starting up new projects and hand over appropriately to the respective Project lead.
• Support the project leads to close out projects according to internal Concern and donor guidelines.

Human resource management and development

• Line manage direct reports, and ensure they are appropriately managing their teams. Set clear performance objectives, provide regular feedback and conduct performance reviews (in line with Concern processes), holding staff accountable for meeting agreed success criteria.
• Design appropriate and effective mentoring, coaching and career development plans for members of the Health team to build their capacities. This includes liaising with HR to ensure an effective induction when new staff join Concern and regularly providing ongoing technical and managerial support as needed.
• Prove leadership to support the team to move towards more equitable partnership ways of working.
• With HR, lead in the recruitment process for health project teams. This includes updating job descriptions as needed and periodically reviewing the health sector team staffing structure - with recommendations for any changes to the PD and HR.
• Ensure that work within the health team(s) is planned and organised in a way which will meet the organisation’s needs in the most cost effective manner possible; ensuring that team members are given appropriate workloads and are working efficiently.
• Provide technical support to Project managers/coordinators – and wider team with specific focus on clinical and health technical support.

Monitoring, evaluation and learning, Innovation

• Regularly visit programme locations to monitor implementation and quality, and coach and mentor staff and partners.
• With the PDQ team:
• ensure all health projects have strong MEAL plans in place, in line with Concern policies and systems, using standard and approved tools, and that the MEAL plans are feasible; indicators set for projects are reflective of project aims and are realistic and measurable;
• evaluation and learning from monitoring is regularly shared with teams and partners for improved performance; Support partners to equally engage in effective MEAL planning and implementation;
• review meetings (internal and external with partners, project stakeholders and programme participants) are conducted and learning used to adjust programming as necessary;
• case stories and lessons learnt are captured and shared;
• ensure production of high quality timely donor reports, monthly internal reports, reports for Service Level Agreements for the Government - that reports reflect contributions from the whole team and partners.
• Lead on writing the country annual report for the health sector with high quality, ensuring it reflects contributions from the whole team.
• Ensure that health project related documentation is continuously input and updated in Concern’s grants management system (GMS) and Sierra Leone working site.

Accountability

In line with Concern’s commitments under the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS):

• Actively promote meaningful community participation and consultation at all stages of the project cycle (planning, implementation, M&E);
• Fully incorporate Concern’s Accountability and CHS commitments in Health programming design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation;
• Work with relevant colleagues to ensure that the Feedback Complaints and Response Mechanism (FCRM) is functional and accessible, that feedback and complaints are welcomed and addressed;
• Work with relevant colleagues to ensure that information about FCRM, safeguarding and expected staff behaviour is disseminated among programme participants and communities.

Visibility

• Ensure Concern is represented at a range of national and international technical fora related to our work or future strategic direction (delegate where applicable to Direct reports).
• In collaboration with the PDQ team, ensure that information products, programme briefs and capacity statements are produced and shared within Concern and with external partners and platforms.
• Represent the work of the Health sector through presentations of our work and learning where opportunities allow (and delegate where applicable to the Direct reports).
• Take up the role of co-chair of the INGO health forum – which Concern is currently co-chair of.

Staff health and wellbeing

• Where necessary and in collaboration with the country management team and HR, ensure staff can access reliable and up to date information on health emergencies.
• In collaboration with the HR team, put forward suggested staff health initiatives to the CMT that can improve the health and wellbeing of Concern Sierra Leone staff.

General

• Promote and protect the reputation of Concern in external settings, ensuring that the organisation’s experience and expertise is well communicated and consistently presented, and that we are looked upon as a professional organisation, guided by policies and our Code of Conduct.
• Contribute to the ongoing reviews and updating of Concern in Sierra Leone’s Security Management Plan (SMP), the country strategic plan, and other Concern initiatives.
• Ensure the efficient and transparent use of all project resources in order to maximize the benefit to the targeted communities. Ensure adherence to Concern policies and procedures.
• Promote Equality, especially gender, within the organisation and across programmes, in line with Concern’s Equality Policy and ensure targeting and project implementation is fully informed and led by How Concern Understands Extreme Poverty (HCUEP).
• As a humanitarian organisation, all staff are required to engage / support in emergency response work as may be necessary (training and other support will be provided as appropriate). Actively participate in the periodic updating of Concern in Sierra Leone’s Preparing for Effective Emergency Response (PEER) plan.
• Any other tasks as may be mutually agreed with the Programmes Director and /or the CD.

Your skills and experience will include:

Essential:

Education 

• Master’s degree in Public health/Community Health /WASH/Reproductive Health or other equivalent relevant experience.

Experience

• Minimum of 5 years’ experience of implementing and managing health programs in development and fragile contexts (including programs relating to primary health care, WASH, Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health, maternal and child health) including at least 3 years at management level.
• Proven experience with Health Systems Strengthening approaches.
• Experience in partnership and localisation approach, working with a range of different partner organisations (national, international NGOs, private sector, research institutions etc., and strengthening their capacity.
• Skills and experience in budget development and management, including expenditure tracking.
• Strengths in leadership, management and building strong high performing teams.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills.
• Experience of liaising, networking, advocating with and influencing senior Government officials and policy makers.
• Experience of fundraising and donor grants management of large complex programmes.
• Experience of working with/managing partner organisations and managing consortia projects.
• Proven ability to report on impact/result of programmes with strong technical writing skills in English.
• Experience of implementing project cycle management - project planning, monitoring and review and adaptive management.

We also value the following special skills and aptitudes:

• Experience in West Africa preferred.
• Experience with donors such as FCDO, USAID or other large health-programme donors.
• Experience in mainstreaming one or more of gender and equality, protection, conflict, environment/climate and DRR into programming.
• Good team player, flexible and politically and culturally sensitive.
• Proven ability to work in calmly in high pressure environments.
• Ability to demonstrate initiative.
• Experience in strategic development of country level health programming especially in development and fragile contexts
• High level of critical thinking and problem solving abilities.
• Training of trainers & facilitation skills.
• Experience in Community Based Feedback Complaint & Response Mechanism and the Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS) is an added advantage.

Concern Worldwide is an Irish-based non-governmental, international, humanitarian organisation dedicated to the reduction of suffering and working towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries. 

To apply:  Apply with your CV and Cover Letter through our website at https://jobs.concern.net by the closing date.

Due to the urgency of this position, applications will be shortlisted on a regular basis and we may offer posts before the closing date.

If you have any concerns about our recruitment process and need particular assistance - for example if you have a visual impairment or are neurodivergent - please let us know and we will do our best to accommodate you.