For 40 years and in over 150 countries, Jhpiego has worked to prevent the needless deaths of women and their families. Jhpiego works with health experts, governments and community leaders to provide high-quality health care for their people.

POSITION : Country Director

Overview

• Under the general supervision of the West and Central Africa (WCA) Regional Director, the Country Director is Jhpiego’s representative in Nigeria. This position also serves as Chief of Party for the Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) in Nigeria.
• The Country Director is the primary contact for all information and requests for technical or programmatic assistance for new or ongoing Jhpiego and MCSP activities in Nigeria. The Country Director is responsible for ensuring programmatic and operational integrity of Jhpiego’s and MCSP’s activities in Nigeria. As COP the candidate will provide vision, leadership and direction to ensure the strategic, programmatic, technical, and financial integrity for the programs under MCSP in Nigeria.
• This includes planning, implementation and monitoring of program activities, presenting Jhpiego and MCSP’s Nigeria’s activities, overseeing financial management and compliance, fostering a productive team environment, and ensuring safety. The Country Director also leads strategic planning and new business development activities.  
• The Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) is a global, USAID Cooperative Agreement operating in 24 high priority countries to introduce and support high-impact health interventions with the ultimate goal of ending preventable child and maternal deaths within a generation.
• The Program is focused on ensuring that all women, newborns and children most in need have equitable access to quality health care services to save lives. USAID’s MCSP supports programming in maternal, newborn and child health, immunization, family planning and reproductive health, nutrition, health systems strengthening, water/sanitation/hygiene, malaria, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and pediatric HIV care and treatment.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership and set technical and programmatic priorities for in-country programs ensuring that they are  technically sound, evidence- based and responsive to the needs of Nigeria, its people and donors
• Cultivate strategic relationships and alliances with ministries, donors, implementing partners and other key stakeholders to advance Nigeria’s strategy
• Support Global Programs Vice President and WCA Regional Director in developing and implementing processes for providing Jhpiego staff worldwide with updates, technical direction, approaches and successes of the Nigeria country programs
• Ensure successful management, technical, programmatic and financial implementation of Nigeria’s programs and awards
• Provide direct technical support to ongoing programs as needed
• Ensure that Jhpiego’s project management approaches and tools are utilized in management of projects
• Lead development of country and award work plans including budgets and modifications as required
• Work with the WCA Regional Director, HQ program and technical backstops and program partners to ensure successful programmatic, technical and financial implementation of the country’s programs and awards
• Keep the WCA Regional Director informed of successes, challenges, and lessons learned in managing the country programs
• Ensure preparation and timely submission of all programmatic and financial reports to Jhpiego and donors
• Support Program and Technical Review (PTR) processes and subsequent action planning to ensure the highest quality programming
• Lead process to proactively identify and document risks that can negatively affect program deliverables, and develop strategies to mitigate risk
• Review projects’ annual work plans to ensure that they advance the program’s overall strategy, meet key deliverables to achieve project objectives and adequately define work that is achievable within the given timeframe and budget
• Ensure that all projects have strong monitoring and evaluation plans and comply with Jhpiego best practices
• Ensure that all research and learning activities are compliant with review and approval processes of JHU’s institutional review board and Nigeria’s human research ethical review committee
• Seek opportunities to present work and learning from projects
• Ensure that programs are working within resources available and that they are fiscally sound
• Manage and supervise the work of Jhpiego staff and contractors in country, including those providing technical, programmatic, financial and administrative services, to maximize efficiency and effectiveness
• Promote and support the staffs’ understanding of and compliance with Jhpiego, JHU and donors’ operational policies and regulations and Nigerian laws and complete the annual compliance certification
• Support Internal Control Reviews and external audits and take action to address any findings
• Provide oversight and support to Human Resource Management
• Motivate, mentor and develop capacity among local staff, in particular senior staff
• Hire administrative and technical staff with appropriate competencies and manage them to meet timely delivery of country program outputs
• Ensure appropriate orientation for new staff
• Assure role clarity and proactively resolve confusion or conflicts
• Ensure that annual staff evaluations are completed on schedule and support professional development for staff supervised
• Maintain and implement Jhpiego safety and security procedures and coordinate with Jhpiego’s global security advisors, including the development and updating of local security procedures
• Establish local information sources to keep abreast of security information
• Maintain current emergency contact procedures (travel notifications, SMS lists, telephone trees, etc.) for all staff, as well as hibernation and evacuation plans
• Lead the management of any incidents accordingly in coordination with HQ staff and Jhpiego’s global security advisors
• Expand Jhpiego’s in-country opportunities through relationships developed with in-country partners, donors and the business community, as well as through strengthening local program implementation capacity
• Provide analyses of in-country business development opportunities to the relevant staff in the regional and new program development offices at headquarters
• Assist with the creation, leadership, and management of in country proposal development teams, and provide technical, programmatic and financial inputs for proposals
• Participate in final review of all technical and programmatic portions of proposals of applications developed for implementation in Nigeria
•  Represent Jhpiego in professional circles through meetings, conferences and presentations in Nigeria, the region, and internationally
• Develop and maintain excellent relationships with colleagues and donors including US government (USAID, CDC), foundations, and corporations within the country and region
• Conduct stakeholder analysis for all Jhpiego projects and employ strategies to manage stakeholders well
• Ensure staff are included in sharing of information and knowledge and that flow of information comes from the field as well as from Baltimore
• Ensure that the country office has adequate IT and technology support systems and processes in place and is compliant with the Jhpiego IT Policy

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years’ experience successfully leading the implementation and management of large public health programs, preferably within Nigeria or other anglophone Africa countries
• Advanced degree in public health, health administration, international health or a related field
• Strong business development experience, including proposal writing and negotiating with host country government and partner organizations
• Strong project management skills with experience using program management tools (Gantt charts, stakeholder matrix, work breakdown structure, issues logs, project charters, etc.)
• Extensive working knowledge of the international health program development field, in particular reproductive, maternal neonatal and child health and HIV/AIDS
• Working knowledge and understanding of rules and regulations of international and U.S. donor agencies, in particular USAID
• Capacity for analyzing technical problems and issues which impede efforts to provide improved health care to populations; developing technical solutions to these problems/issues and assisting in the design of operational research which could yield appropriate solutions to these problems/issues.
• Thorough understanding of and ability to analyze financial documents, projections, expenditures and accruals
• Proven leadership and management skills, as demonstrated by successful previous residential leadership in one or more developing countries
• Experience in leading and working with multi-cultural staff, including awareness of and sensitivity to working with multi-cultural groups in multiple socio-economic settings
• Excellent skills in facilitation, team building and coordination
• Excellent communication and presentation skills in English and French, demonstrating an ability to communicate with various audiences including stakeholders, partners, and donors
• Ability to work in a complex environment with multiple tasks, short deadlines and intense pressure to perform
• Ability to develop productive working relationships with counterparts in other agencies and organizations worldwide
• Ability to provide technical leadership to develop innovative country program
• Ability to communicate effectively, instilling trust and confidence