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Senior Program Specialist, SCMS

Overall Responsibilities: The Senior Program Specialist (SPS) works with the Project Support Leader (PSL) as the MSH primary points of contact in the MSH home office. In collaboration with the Project Support Leader, CPM Director of Operations, CPM Senior Finance Manager, and other key players, the Senior Program Specialist helps ensure prompt and effective managerial support to the SCMS Country Directors, Project Management Office (PMO) staff, and other team members, in order to facilitate the smooth implementation of MSH’s scope of work under the SCMS project. The Senior Program Specialist helps ensure the successful completion of programmatic and administrative deliverables, whether directly or through coordination and facilitation.

This position is assigned to the SCMS project – in particular, to help manage the activities included in MSH’s subcontract to the Partnership for Supply Chain Management. The Senior Program Specialist liaises with the SCMS Project Management Office (PMO) to ensure coordination between the central project team members, the MSH US team and SCMS field management team. The current SCMS field offices managed by MSH are Ethiopia, Cote d’Ivoire, Haiti, Vietnam, Guyana, Kenya, Uganda, Namibia, Burundi, and Swaziland.

Specific Responsibilities: 1. Keep a clear understanding of the technical work in order to provide the managerial support required to get the technical work done. 2. In partnership with Country Directors, Program Officers at the PMO, and other key players, identify programmatic and administrative paths critical to activity implementation. Elicit next steps of the MSH support team and coordinate their action and response. Foresee, prevent, and address barriers to activity implementation, such as work flow flaws, protracted decision-making, administrative hurdles, etc. 3. Manage home office support for the SCMS project; plan and facilitate communication with the field-based Country Director and senior project staff; plan and facilitate coordination meetings and communications with home office support staff emphasizing the need for focused and timely support. Communicate operations needs to operations support team(s). 4. Assist the SCMS Country Directors and the Project Support Lead in the management and coordination of technical assistance to the project. This includes supporting the SCMS Country Directors and the Project Support Lead with successfully implementing the project’s work plans; support the development of and help maintain the STTA plan for the project. In consultation with SCMS Country Directors and Project Support Lead assist in the identification of technical resources. Liaise with the CPM STTA Manager to identify potential technical resources. 5. Understand donor’s technical reporting requirements and assist in the preparation of necessary reports, as needed. Support Country Director in project management reviews and reporting. This includes support to performance results management tracking and reporting, as needed, coordinating preparation of CPM quarterly programmatic and financial reviews. 6. Provide training to SCMS staff on the MSH subcontract, SCMS contract regulations, signature authority training, etc. as part of new employee orientation and on an as needed basis. 7. Design and manage the project documentation system. Centralize and organize key contractual documents, project deliverables, and electronic communications and make them available to the project team in both electronic and physical form. 8. Supervise the SCMS Administrative Coordinator(s) (AdCo), and Project Support Associate(s) if added to the team at a later date. 9. Provide resource information to Country Director and team. Activities may include the following: Liaise with home office support teams supporting other projects in both CPM and other Centers in order to identify areas for cross-fertilization and synergies. Keep abreast of MSH technical exchange networks and other sources of information on MSH’s technical priority areas and share with SCMS Country Director and field team. 10. Develop and maintain systems to ensure compliance with key contractual requirements and project standard operating procedures related to training, inventory management, international travel, consultants, and field expense accounting. Act as liaison with the assigned MSH Contract Officer regarding compliance with donor’s contractual requirements and with the CPM Finance team regarding financial management. 11. Support work planning and financial management. As needed, assist in the preparation of work plans and provide inputs into work plan budgets. Provide project activity information to the finance teams as needed for financial planning, analysis and reporting. Assist the SCMS Country Director as needed to best maximize project funds during implementation. In close collaboration with the SCMS Country Director and finance team, help ensure the project’s coding structure is followed. Oversee or conduct monitoring of project accruals tracking and the routine review of field expense data, including trend analysis and to early detection of problematic transactions. 12. Oversee the use of Task Order 99 for procurement billing. Provide training and support tracking and billing, as needed. Provide support to field team management of procurements under Task Order #99. 13. Provide operations support until full transition of operations to corporate OST.

Qualifications: 1. Master’s degree and two to four years experience in public health, management or related international development field or Bachelor’s degree and four to six year experience. 2. Overseas project management support experience in headquarters of international organization or in developing country. 3. Demonstrated managerial and supervisory skills. 4. Ability to work independently. 5. Demonstrated good judgment for decision making. 6. Strong interpersonal skills; demonstrated ability in consensus building, and to constructively lead a team. 7. Fluent English required. Ability to speak second language preferred. 8. Strong computer skills; MS Office Suite, MS Project, Power Point preferred. 9. Ability to travel internationally and domestically as required to support the progress of program activities.