Program Manager, Global Sexual Reproductive Health

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to our mission of saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries. We work at the invitation of governments to support them and the private sector to create and sustain high-quality health systems.

CHAI was founded in 2002 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic with the goal of dramatically reducing the price of life-saving drugs and increasing access to these medicines in the countries with the highest burden of the disease. Over the following two decades, CHAI has expanded its focus. Today, along with HIV, we work in conjunction with our partners to prevent and treat infectious diseases such as COVID-19, malaria, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Our work has also expanded into cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and other non-communicable diseases, and we work to accelerate the rollout of lifesaving vaccines, reduce maternal and child mortality, combat chronic malnutrition, and increase access to assistive technology. We are investing in horizontal approaches to strengthen health systems through programs in human resources for health, digital health, and health financing. With each new and innovative program, our strategy is grounded in maximizing sustainable impact at scale, ensuring that governments lead the solutions, that programs are designed to scale nationally, and learnings are shared globally.

At CHAI, our people are our greatest asset, and none of this work would be possible without their talent, time, dedication and passion for our mission and values. We are a highly diverse team of enthusiastic individuals across 40 countries with a broad range of skillsets and life experiences. CHAI is deeply grounded in the countries we work in, with majority of our staff based in program countries. Learn more about our exciting work: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org

CHAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and is committed to providing an environment of fairness, and mutual respect where all applicants have access to equal employment opportunities. CHAI values diversity and inclusion, and recognizes that our mission is best advanced by the leadership and contributions of people with diverse experience, backgrounds, and culture.

Program Summary

Unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions drive high rates of preventable mortality and morbidity in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs). CHAI’s Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) program aims to ensure that all individuals are empowered to access information, products and services that will meet their sexual and reproductive health needs. We aim to significantly reduce unmet need for modern contraception and the incidence of unsafe abortions in program countries within the next 5 years. To accomplish our goals, we’re pursuing 3 strategic objectives:

1. Scale up access to new and underutilized products to increase choice for women and better meet their needs and preferences.
2. Increase SRH commodity security through global and country supply chain strengthening and improved financing for SRH products.
3. Design and strengthen client-centric service delivery models that will reach key populations with SRH services.

We pursue global and country-focused market shaping opportunities for SRH products to create an enabling environment for the introduction and scale up of quality-assured products and services in LMICs. At the global level, we are working to ensure that a diversified supplier base can meet demand for key products and ensure commodities are affordable and of high quality. We also coordinate donors and partners around a global product strategy. At the country level, CHAI works with governments to develop national SRH scale up plans with clear targets; use data to coordinate partner resources against the plan and achieve targets; strengthen national forecasting and quantification; address supply chain bottlenecks; improve health worker training; and strengthen performance management for the health system.

The Global SRH team’s current grant portfolio (non-exhaustive) includes: an investment by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to support scale up of a three-month, subcutaneous self-injectable contraceptives (DMPA-SC) in Liberia, Ghana, Malawi and Myanmar where CHAI is the lead national Technical Assistance partner; and an investment by the U.K. Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to expand global access to the hormonal IUD (HIUD)  through a number of supply and demand side interventions. CHAI is supporting governments to lead development and roll out of national HIUD introductions in 7 countries: DRC, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia. In addition, in Cambodia, DRC, Liberia, Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zambia, CHAI is also supporting governments to scale up affordable, quality-assured Medical Abortion (MA) combipacks in alignment with local laws.

The Global SRH Team works across the CHAI matrix to support the application of global learning and best practices, and provide thought-partnership and technical assistance to programs implemented by in-country teams who own our valued relationships with partner governments and who possess critical knowledge of local context and operating conditions.  Underlying our approach is our commitment to achieving sustainable, transformational change at scale by working in a way that strengthens health systems and government capabilities to improve SRH outcomes. In addition, leveraging our experience in product introduction, the SRH program is pioneering new approaches to transform the way product introductions are done by establishing processes and systems that support governments to lead management of SRH markets in Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zambia, and by proving out a responsive demand-side funding mechanism that incentivizes alignment with government plans (the Catalytic Opportunity Fund).

Position Summary

The Program Manager, SRH owns SRH strategy execution and implementation support to a portfolio of program countries, subject to change depending on needs of the portfolio. The Program Manager is the primary country focal point (CFP) within the SRH team and leads relationship management with country counterparts. This role reports to the Global SRH Senior Manager and sits within the GSRH Team’s SRH Delivery cluster. The Program Manager will partner with other GSRH team members including the Global Supplies Coordination cluster and Operations, Finance and COF Administration cluster to execute to meet the needs of the portfolio.

The Program Manager is responsible for the below cross-functional responsibilities across GSRH workstream areas. In the future the Program Manager’s portfolio could include a focus on architecting access to services through private sector service delivery channels, scoping new products, people management responsibilities, etc as assigned by supervisor. 

Base location is limited to a CHAI program country in Africa. Expected travel is up to 50% travel.

SRH strategy execution and program implementation

• Cultivate and demonstrate deep understanding of country strategic priorities and execution plans
• Maintain knowledge of CHAI’s global market shaping initiatives across products relevant to focal countries to facilitate linkages to country market shaping and product introduction and scale up
• Maintain visibility and in-depth understanding of COF projects implemented by CHAI and non-CHAI stakeholders in focal countries in order to advise on coherence with country introduction strategies and support linkages across national strategy and plans.
• Cultivate deep contextual knowledge of country SRH market stewardship mechanisms in focal countries; make evidence-based recommendations on linkages and transition to global SRH market stewardship mechanism Shaping Equitable Market Access (SEMA).
• Proactively look for opportunities to accelerate transformational impact, including through innovations in financing and technology, for example to sustainably improve last mile distribution of health commodities at scale. Conduct analyses as needed to build comprehension and consensus around high-potential approaches/opportunities.
• Lead/execute tactical support to country teams including:
  • Develop and monitor workplans
  • Provide supply chain strengthening technical and analytical support including monitoring national sexual and reproductive health commodity stock levels to flag risks of stock-out and overstock. Develop mitigation actions and solutions with global procurers and donors as needed and support execution of evidence-based forecasting and quantification of products using best-practice assumptions.
  • Develop evidence-based, rational product introductions plans that are validated by country government stakeholders. Design and execute plan costing.
    Map resources back to product introduction plans. Execute gap analyses and regularly monitor and communicate on funding gaps to both country and global stakeholders.
  • Other hands-on analytical and technical execution or advisory, working across the matrix with the Global Markets Team, the Applied Analytics and Implementation Sciences Team, the Clinical Services Team and others to develop national strategy, guidelines and training materials; product registration and tendering; routine national forecasting and quantification; product procurement; stock monitoring and data trend analysis; health service and HR data management and trend analysis; improvement of data management systems; and implementation of service delivery scale up.

Measurement, analytics, reporting and communicating results

• Measure and track key SRH indicators (e.g. uptake of key contraceptive methods; service coverage and readiness; stock on hand, consumption and procurement data; other grant logframe/ results framework indicators)
• Regularly review and communicate progress against workplans, KPIs and milestones and make recommendations on strategy execution and trouble shooting based on analysis of program and external data and evidence
• Lead development of high quality, polished donor and external stakeholder narrative report outputs that integrate robust data analysis and interpretation. Key reports currently include annual grant reporting for BMGF and FCDO and quarterly reporting to the HIUD Global Steering Committee and the DMPA-SC Access Collaborative.
• Draft succinct written status updates for internal and external stakeholders that communicate achievements, progress, risks and opportunities. Disseminate through agreed channels.

Portfolio performance management

• Proactively and effectively flag delays to implementation of country and product workstream workplans and key project deliverables/outputs, and communicate implications with respect to program outcomes and grant KPIs and milestones
• Act with urgency to foster alignment on and shared understanding of risks; escalate risks as needed horizontally and vertically across the matrix to solve pressing issues
  Make evidence-based and well-reasoned recommendations to solve problems. Proactively manage the feedback loop by communicating how risks have been addressed

Grant ownership and project administration

• Execute Grant Owner R&R as specified in GSRH Grant Management R&R guidelines as assigned
• Establish/maintain low level of effort processes to track and communicate priorities and tasks, minimizing transactional work and optimizing efficiency and effectiveness in team processes

Thought leadership

• The GSRH team focuses on downstream aspects of product introduction and liaises closely with the Global SRH Markets Team to provide key information and input on upstream activities (e.g. product commercialization strategy, regulatory strategy, global forecasts). The Manager will provide technical support and consultation as needed on country market shaping opportunities
• Make informed recommendations based on knowledge of national plans and guidelines, health workforce systems, supply chain and logistics systems, data management systems, private sector landscapes, and other knowledge areas as assigned
• Represent CHAI in key external facing forums as assigned
• Develop knowledge products and papers to execute the GSRH team’s priorities related to influencing within and outside of CHAI in alignment with team plans. Complete knowledge focal point responsibilities as outlined in the
• SRMNH knowledge map

Additional responsibilities

• Anticipate bandwidth constraints and resource needs that impact on country portfolio; proactively advise on resource requirements, working with supervisor to identify additional resources as needed to execute deliverables on time to agreed deadlines
• Execute other technical assistance based on need and program priorities
• Exemplify SRH team norms and contribute to key internal team operations and culture-building initiatives such as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Assist with hiring, onboarding and mentoring of team members as requested
• Maintain excellent relationships across the CHAI matrix, demonstrating sensitivity and cultural competency
• Travel to program countries to collaborate with teams and travel other countries for internal and external meetings

• Master’s degree with a minimum of 5 years of experience in a demanding, fast-paced and results-oriented environment or Bachelor’s degree with 6+ years work experience in a demanding, fast-paced and results-oriented environment.
• Excellent written and oral English communication skills
• Intermediate to high level Microsoft Excel and STATA skills and high level of proficiency in PowerPoint and Word
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and quantitative and data visualization skills, and ability to use data to inform program development and strategy
• Willingness to work with a geographically dispersed team across multiple time zones
• Demonstrated ability to consistently deliver to agreed upon deadlines
• Demonstrated ability to synthesize complex information and technical or scientific evidence into easy to digest key takeaways and actionable recommendations tailored for the audience
• Demonstrated practice of consistently seeking alignment with supervisor on priorities and tasks
• Demonstrated ability to ruthlessly prioritize by consistently identifying and executing highest impact activities
• Proactively communicate bandwidth constraints and work with supervisor to triage as needed to keep ball rolling
• Proactively flag and escalate risks and bottlenecks to foster alignment around collective response
• Exceptional diplomatic and interpersonal skills to facilitate challenging conversations and achieve alignment
• Strong writing skills and attention to detail; ability to develop a polished, high quality and ready to share output with senior audiences in one turn around
• Ability and willingness to travel frequently to program countries

Preferred experience:

• Experience working in management consulting, investment banking, or similar fast-paced, output-oriented environments
• Excellent written and oral French communication skills
• Experience leading the development and management of grants
• Experience with MS Power BI a plus
• Demonstrable passion for CHAI’s mission to save lives and eliminate preventable deaths, including by scaling access to affordable and high quality sexual and reproductive health products and services

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