Sabin Vaccine Institute Consultant Opportunity: Senior Program Officer, Sustainable Immunization Financing

Organization: Sabin Vaccine Institute

Location: Vietnam, Mongolia or Bhutan

Program: Sustainable Immunization Financing

Position Title: Senior Program Officer

Reports to: Director, Sustainable Immunization Financing

Organization Summary:

Sabin Vaccine Institute (Sabin) is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization of scientists, researchers and advocates dedicated to reducing needless human suffering caused by vaccine preventable and neglected tropical diseases. Sabin works with governments, leading public and private organizations, and academic institutions to provide solutions for some of the world’s most pervasive health care challenges. Since its founding in 1993 in honor of the oral polio vaccine developer, Dr. Albert B. Sabin, the Institute has been at the forefront of efforts to control, treat and eliminate vaccine preventable and neglected tropical diseases by developing new vaccines, advocating use of existing vaccines, and promoting increased access to affordable medical treatments. For more information please visit www.sabin.org.

Program Summary:

Sabin’s Sustainable Immunization Financing (SIF) program is engaged in fifteen African and Asian countries, and is expanding to include three more countries. Its aim is to increase national immunization funding by strengthening alliances between Ministries of Health and Finance and Parliaments as well as community service organizations and the domestic private sector. The program provides these groups with the information they need to better understand the benefits of improved health and the contribution that immunization can make in this regard and it supports their acting collectively to achieve sustainable immunization financing. For more information about Sabin’s SIF Program, please visit www.sabin.org/sif.

Position Summary:

Sabin Vaccine Institute is currently seeking a full-time Senior Program Officer for its Sustainable Immunization Financing (SIF) Program. The Senior Program Officer will be responsible for field activities in Vietnam, Mongolia and Bhutan. The incumbent will maintain working relations with senior policymakers and elected officials in those countries as well as with representatives from the SIF Partner Group: World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank and the GAVI Alliance. The Senior Program Officer will also work directly with civil society organizations, the private business sector and media counterparts to increase immunization program stakeholdership in each country. S/he will act as a facilitator to these principals, identifying resource needs, fostering teamwork and developing creative approaches to domestic immunization finance. S/he will help build managerial capacity among counterparts in ministries of health, finance and planning. The Senior Program Officer will report frequently to the Institute, both informally and formally.

This is an independent contractor position reporting to the Director of Sustainable Immunization Financing. The Senior Program Officer will be contracted for an initial one year term, with the possibility of renewal for up to five years.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

  • Work with national counterparts to analyze the current immunization system and organize collective action efforts in each assigned program country. This will entail regularly:
  • Reviewing basic immunization system documents, particularly its financing component
  • Contacting and interacting with senior government officials (ministries of finance, health) and with legislators to assess government immunization planning, levels and trends of fiscal support and health legislation affecting immunization
  • Contacting representatives of the national Interagency Coordinating Committee for immunization (WHO, UNICEF, World Bank, other partners) to discuss details of the financial sustainability of the national Comprehensive Multi-Year Plan (cMYP)
  • Working through the ICC to identify and invite key individuals from immunization stakeholder agencies to become program collective actors
  • Orienting and educating new collective actors on immunization issues
  • Identifying proposed short-term activities each ICC member can undertake to meet cMYP fiscal benchmarks
  • Preparing the first Advocacy Brief for each given country, which will include an outline of the agreed-upon short-term activities, and submitting it to Sabin.
  • Assess how well collective actors are carrying out their advocacy activities during quarterly visits to each program country. This will entail individual consultations with the ICC members and external collective actors. S/he will also attend ICC meetings. In consultation with the ICC members, s/he will update the Advocacy Briefs each quarter based on the new information.
  • Prepare annual reports summarizing program activities. The report will identify actors who contributed to the program’s work and to overall immunization system fiscal sustainability. S/he will then work with the ICC to identify a second set of short-term activities and prepare a revised work plan for the subsequent year (up to program year 5).
  • Identify key ministry of finance, ministry of health and legislative branch officials whose particular skills and experience may be relevant to peers in other program countries. S/he will propose exchanges of these Program Advisors, demonstrating how each proposed Advisor meets a particular need in the receiving program country.
  • Distribute feedback reports and other materials from Sabin to the collective actors in each program country.
  • Contact newspapers, television and radio stations in program countries to ensure that contributors to the national immunization systems are publicly recognized.
  • Represent the Sustainable Immunization Financing program in regional and global meetings as assigned by Sabin.
  • Work with the Program Director and the Institute’s Executive Vice- President to prepare individual quarterly and annual work plans. S/he will also help prepare the program’s annual work plan.
  • Perform other duties as assigned by the Program Director and Sabin’s Executive Vice-President.

    Experience and Educational Requirements:

    The Senior Program Officer must be a citizen and have a right of residence in one of the three countries. S/he will be a seasoned global health or economic development professional with extensive field experience in this region. S/he will be intimately familiar with public finance and public expenditure management and will possess the initiative and diplomatic skills necessary to instrument collective action by an array of national and international immunization actors. S/he will be detail-oriented, possess strong oral/written communication skills and be comfortable using web-based tools including the SIF management information system. S/he will also be proficient in English and one of the local languages.

    How to Apply:

    To be considered, please submit your cover letter, resume and compensation requirements via e-mail to jobs@sabin.org, fax to 202-842-7689 or mail to HR Manager, Sabin Vaccine Institute, 2000 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 7100, Washington, DC 20006. Please be sure to reference “SIF Consultant” in the subject line. Your cover letter should: (1) address the reasons for your interest in this consulting opportunity; and, (2) describe the knowledge, skills and abilities you would bring to the Sabin Vaccine Institute and its Sustainable Immunization Financing Program. No phone calls, please. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.