Job Description

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Evidence Action - India Program

Position Overview

Job Title: State Program Officer

Employment Status: Regular Full Time

Position Location: Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

Grade: 4

About Evidence Action

Evidence Action aims to be a world leader in scaling evidence-based and cost-effective programs to reduce the burden of poverty for hundreds of millions of people in the poorest places. Last year Deworm the World reached 280 million people with deworming medications, partnering with governments to launch, scale, and sustain mass school-based deworming programs, including in India. Meanwhile, Dispensers for Safe Water provided 4M people across rural Africa with clean water, saving thousands of young lives. The approach relies on an innovative and human-centric design to deliver clean water at the source. These serve as just two examples of the work Evidence Action is undertaking.

In addition to running these scaled programs, Evidence Action leverages its unique Accelerator to develop the next generation of programs. These programs are rigorously tested to ensure exceptional scale, cost-effectiveness, and clear evidence of impact. In 2019 we launched an ambitious new strategy, intending to double our impact over the next five years, with much of that impact coming from new programs identified and scaled through the Accelerator.

Evidence Action has a presence across 7 countries, with major offices in Nairobi, Kenya; Delhi, India; and Washington, D.C. Evidence Action\'s programs have been recognized by GiveWell, the Skoll Foundation, the Life You Can Save, Giving What We Can, and covered in the Economist, NPR, and the New York Times.

In India, Evidence Action\'s technical partner EAII Advisors provides technical assistance to select state government\'s ministries of health, education, and women and child development to implement the school and Anganwadi based National Deworming Day program and Iron and Folic Acid (IFA) supplementation program to improve children\'s health, education, and long-term development. In the long term EAII Advisors aims to expand to provide technical support to more state governments and on other public health & nutrition issues too.

The India program invites applications for the position of State Program Officer to be based at the Lucknow office.

About the Position:

The State Program Officer (SPO) will report to the State Program Manager, s/he will be the focal for the programs in the state and anchor the execution of technical assistance model of Evidence Action for program implementation in Uttar Pradesh.

The SPO will support the SPM in the adaptation of the organizational program strategy to state context, develop a comprehensive state program implementation plan, assist the government in preparing trainings cascade, community mobilization strategy and effective implementation of all EAII supported program including AMB components in the state that promotes high program coverage for children and adolescents.

The applicant must possess technical insight for public health & nutrition issues, in depth understanding of health systems, a sense of collaborative team work, and willingness to assist colleagues and travel approximately 40% of his/her time within state.

Roles & Responsibilities of the position

Policy advocacy

• Coordinate with IEC division of state health department to develop a comprehensive community mobilization and IEC strategy that promotes high program coverage, including out-of-school children and private school pilots.
• Support SPM in advocacy for corrective actions around Evidence Action\'s Technical Assistance (TA) areas by preparing briefs based on the data and evidence from the field.
• Support SPM in identification and coordination with partners on leveraging all opportunities for disseminating learnings of program to a wider audience through integration of NDD content in school curriculums, operational manuals, issuance of timely directives etc. to enhance program engagement.
• Support SPM in planning and organizing a broad range of advocacy efforts, such as stakeholder meetings and dissemination opportunities.
• Support the SPM in ensuring that all relevant program activities including drug procurement are well planned and sufficiently budgeted under state PIPs.
• Support the state to convene state level program review meetings.

Program Design & Development

• Coordinate with NO team, work with stakeholders (including departments of Education, Women and Child Development and Health) to ensure that the design and implementation of the programs follow standard protocols, Evidence Action\'s operational practices and ensures alignment with Government efforts in order to improve program quality and effectiveness
• Prepare state program implementation plan based on the program design in consultation with the SPM and NO team.
• Support in the design of M&E processes and development of data collection tools, in coordination with the MLE team.
• Provide inputs/support in developing state specific community mobilization, mass media and social media strategy and identify need-based IEC and social media materials to be developed.
• Assist in developing state program budgets.
• Work with stakeholder departments in preparing training cascade, develop/adapt and maintain high quality of training materials and ensure effective implementation of training cascade.
• Work closely with state teams and SPM to develop and maintain a high level of support to state governments for effective implementation of programs supported by EAII.
• Develop and manage program work-plans and timelines with team/individual responsibilities assigned to ensure timely and high-quality deliverables for internal and external purposes. Ensure the SPM is kept up to date on progress against the program work plan and timelines.
• Develop guidelines, trackers and tools to be used by state teams for program implementation and monitoring.
• Support the development and review of program activities in consultation with the SPM and prepare reports on a monthly/quarterly basis.
• Carry out field visits to districts to provide program and technical support to field team and liaison with government officials as needed;
• Work closely with SPC-M&E to qualitatively analyze field monitoring data and provide inputs to field team for better program monitoring and coverage validation.

• Work with Monitoring & Evaluation team (State & NO) for effective utilization of the results and findings for improvement in program quality;

Program Management

• Work closely with state teams and SPM to develop and maintain a high level of support to state governments for effective implementation of programs supported by EAII.
• Develop and manage program work-plans and timelines with team/individual responsibilities assigned to ensure timely and high-quality deliverables for internal and external purposes. Ensure the SPM is kept up to date on progress against the program work plan and timelines.
• Develop guidelines, trackers and tools to be used by state teams for program implementation and monitoring.
• Support the development and review of program activities in consultation with the SPM and prepare reports on a monthly/quarterly basis.
• Carry out field visits to districts to provide program and technical support to field team and liaison with government officials as needed;
• Work closely with SPC-M&E to qualitatively analyze field monitoring data and provide inputs to field team for better program monitoring and coverage validation.

Knowledge Management (KM)

• Prepare program briefs, process documentation field level success stories and good practices in the state and facilitate dissemination.
• Engage with key stakeholders along with SPM at state on critical technical issues to share findings from EA\'s state implementation experiences.
• Ensure program documentation is kept up to date for future references at state level.
• Ensure the program\'s knowledge management practices adhere to internal knowledge management guidelines with respect to file storage and access.

Requirements:

Essential Qualifications, Experience, and Competencies

Essentials:

• Post Graduate Degree in public health, nutrition, health management or related disciplines.
• A minimum of 6 - 8 years of experience working in development sector particularly on technical and advisory services with Governments
• Experience working with Government on maternal, child health and nutrition projects of Government in India required.
• Demonstrated successful experience in supporting and managing teams.
• Strong knowledge of public sector health systems and programs
• Good knowledge and understanding of public health, socio-economic issues in the state.
• Ability to synthesize information clearly and produce good quality documents keeping to tight deadlines
• Excellent communication, presentation and documentation skills in English.
• Efficient in using MS office and google tools.
• Exceptional ability to work with minimal supervision, while also proactively and regularly communicating upward relevant progress updates and bottlenecks requiring attention or support from leadership.
• Willingness to travel to field at least 40% of the time.

Desirable:

• Action-oriented, flexible approach and entrepreneurial problem-solver, with an ability to manage multiple competing deadlines
• Highly motivated to achieve exceptional quality of results, and the ability to manage multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Ability to communicate effectively with people at all levels of the organization.
• Strong interest in the development sector and desire to be a part of a young and diverse team.

Disclaimer: The duties and responsibilities described are not a comprehensive list and that additional tasks may be assigned to the employee from time to time.

Benefits:

Compensation: Competitive and commensurate with the individual\'s credentials, experience, and previous pay scale.

All contracting arrangements will be made through EAII Advisors Private Limited. EAII is an equal opportunity employer. Employment at EAII is based solely on an individual\'s merit and qualifications directly related to professional competence. EAII does not discriminate against any employee or applicant because of race, caste, creed, colour, religion, gender, origin, disability, marital status, or any other basis protected by law.

All candidates applying for the position should upload a resume along with cover letter mentioning current and expected salary.

We may end this search process earlier than the specified close date in case of exceptional candidates. Due to resource constraints, we will only be able to contact shortlisted candidates.

Evidence Action