Overview

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you.

For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

Purpose for the job:

The Health Specialist (Newborn) reports to the Health Specialist (NOD) for guidance and general supervision. The incumbent of the post will be accountable for working with UNICEF Tanzania Country Office (TCO) to improve newborn survival and health by scaling up interventions and accelerating progress in Tanzania. Specifically, in close coordination with colleagues in UNICEF TCO health section and other key development partners, the Health Specialist (Newborn) supports preparation of implementation plans, devises and monitors performance metrics and provides advice on technical aspects of improving newborn survival and health to achieve country aspirations for improving newborn health. Equity-focused approaches and those which focus on gender equality will be especially prioritized. The role will also combine technical work on newborn and maternal health given their significant overlap. The incumbent will be the country lead for the implementation of newborn related activities such as the Every Newborn Action Plan (ENAP), the Every Mother Every New-born (EMEN) approach, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-UNICEF joint project on improving maternal and newborn health. The Health Specialist (Newborn) supports the development and preparation of the health programme and is responsible for managing, implementing, monitoring, evaluating, and reporting the programme progress of a sector of the health programme (e.g. gender, maternal, neonatal, child survival/development) within the country programme. The Health Specialist (Newborn) provides technical guidance and management support throughout the programming processes to facilitate the administration and achievement of concrete and sustainable results according to plans, allocation, results-based management approaches and methodology (RBM), organizational Strategic Plans and goals, standards of performance, and accountability framework.

Key function, accountabilities, and related duties/tasks

The Health Specialist will be accountable for the four areas of work;

1. Programme management: Management of Newborn/ MNH QI programme
2. Technical support: Applying a public health approach to Quality Improvement for perinatal care
3. Partnership and Advocacy: Development of newborn profile for advocacy
4. Knowledge management: Documentation of quality improvement related activities including development of costed investing case on newborn

Further detailed duties/tasks are as follows;

1. Programme management: Management of Newborn/ MNH QI programme

• Lead timely, regular data-driven situational analyses, country program planning and monitoring of the state of newborn health, neonatal mortality and the implementation status of newborn survival related activities in TCO Health section.
• Provide leadership on data-driven prioritization and implementation of newborn survival and health strategies and interventions within Tanzania.
• Provide technical and operational guidance and support to government and non-government partners for the acceleration of national level scale-up essential newborn care services and quality improvement of maternal and newborn services in Tanzania.
• Monitor program and project implementation strength as per standard methodology and formats.
• Provide TCO health section team guidance on advocacy and partnership building for the development of context responsive national and sub-national newborn health policies and programs.
• Collaborate with Monitoring and Evaluation officers to timely, efficiently, rigorously and transparently monitor, evaluate and report on newborn health program effectiveness and impact.
• Ensure programme, sectoral and/or inter-sectoral efficiency and delivery through a rigorous and transparent approach to evaluation.
• Submit timely reports to donors and other partners that meet contractual obligations and UNICEF standards and methods.
• Ensure UNICEF, government and non-government staff understand and comply with the project financial rules and guidelines for smooth implementation, monitoring and reporting.

2. Technical support: Applying public health approaches to Quality Improvement for perinatal care

• Support development and adoption of innovative program strategies and technologies that reduce program delivery bottlenecks and improve quality of maternal and newborn care services.
• Participate in major evaluation exercises, programme and sector review meetings with government counterparts and partners as related to the assigned areas of responsibilities.
• Provide technical leadership and coordination of relevant operational research, thus contributing to the knowledge base in maternal and newborn health.

3. Partnership and Advocacy: Development of newborn profile for advocacy

• Advocate for and support efforts to leverage resources for scaling-up and replication of effective neonatal survival interventions within country, including the acceleration of access, use and effective coverage of quality maternal and newborn health care for the attainment of country targets.
• Provide technical guidance to all administrative levels of governments and decision making settings for the inclusion of high-impact interventions for maternal and newborn survival and health development in the health sector components of UNDAF and other UN harmonisation processes.
• Provide in-country technical and operational leadership and guidance on scaling-up key interventions within the scope of any maternal and newborn survival activities.

4. Knowledge management: Documentation of quality improvement related activities including development of costed investment case on newborn

• Document and disseminate lessons learned of scaling-up services to improve newborn survival, quality of maternal and newborn care interventions and of efforts to improve partnerships for strengthening maternal and newborn health care delivery systems along the home to hospital continuum of care.
• Share good practices in equity-based and gender equality programming, and scaling up good newborn care and systems strengthening practices at the national and regional level.

 Impact of Results

The efficiency and efficacy of support provided by the Health Specialist (Newborn) to programme preparation, planning and implementation facilitates the delivery of concrete and sustainable results that directly impact the improvement of the health of the most marginalized and vulnerable women and children in the country. This in turn contributes to maintaining and enhancing the credibility and ability of UNICEF to continue to provide programme services to protect the rights of children, and to promote greater social equality to enable them to survive, develop and reach their full potential in society.

Competencies and level of proficiency required (based on UNICEF Professional Competency Profiles)

Core Values

• Commitment
• Diversity and inclusion
• Integrity

Core competencies

• Communication (II)
• Working with people (II)
• Drive for results (II)

 Functional Competencies:

• Building Trust [ II ]
• Managing Resources [ II ] 
• Communication [ II ]
• Influence [ II ]
• Judgement [ II ]
• Technical Knowledge [ II ]
• Team Leadership [ II ]
• Planning, Setting Standards, and Monitoring Work [ II ]

Recruitment Qualifications

 Education:

An advanced university (Master's) degree in Public Health or a related discipline. Clinical training in paediatrics or obstetrics preferred.

Experience:

• Eight years of relevant professional work experience at national or international level. Clinical and technical knowledge of maternal and newborn health required.
• Experience in project and performance management in a public health context.
• Experience of working in the UN or other international development organizations is an asset.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language or local language of the duty station is considered as an asset.

Common Technical Knowledge Required:

Knowledge of theories and practices in:

• Newborn care
• Child and Maternal Health
• Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
• Public Health
• Educational Interventions in Health Care
• Health Education 
• Environmental Health
• Health Financing
• Knowledge Management
• A computer software application, including word processing, spreadsheet, and corporate software packages

 

General knowledge of:

• Methodology of programme/project management
• Programmatic goals, visions, positions, policies and strategies in Health
• Knowledge of global health issues, specifically relating to children and women, and the current trends, methods and approaches.
• Policies and strategy to address national and global health issues, particularly relating to conflicts, natural disasters, and recovery.
• Emergency programme policies, goals, strategies and approaches

Specific Technical Knowledge Required:

Knowledge of the latest theories, principles, methods, and technology in several of the following areas:

• Newborn health care
• Maternal health care
• Child health care
• Health system planning and management
• Health Economics and Financing
• Global Health
• Public Health, International Health, Health Policy and Management, Environmental Health Sciences, Family Health
• Health Research, Biostatistics, Socio-medical Sciences, Epidemiology
• Programmatic goals, visions, positions, policies and strategies for health programmes
• Knowledge of global human rights issues, specifically relating to children and women, and the current UNCEF position and approaches
• Rights-based and Results-based approach and programming in UNICEF.
• UNICEF programme policy, procedures and guidelines.
• Mid-Term Strategic Plan; Millennium Development Goals
• Accelerated Child Survival and Development programme
• Knowledge of one of the technical areas of UNICEF programmes (e.g., primary health care systems, PMTCT, Paediatric AIDS, malaria, WASH).
• UNICEF policies and strategies promoting and supporting gender equality and diversity

Gender and diversity awareness

 

Technical Knowledge to be Acquired/Enhanced:

• Knowledge of the latest developments and technology in related fields.
• Knowledge of local conditions and country legislation relevant to UNICEF programmes
• UN policies and strategy to address international humanitarian issues and the responses.
• UN common approaches to programmatic issues and UNICEF positions

UN security operations and guidelines

 

"UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse, and on any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks."