Associate, Commodity Access, Central America

Overview

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to our mission of saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries. We work at the invitation of governments to support them and the private sector to create and sustain high-quality health systems. 

CHAI was founded in 2002 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic with the goal of dramatically reducing the price of life-saving drugs and increasing access to these medicines in the countries with the highest burden of the disease. Over the following two decades, CHAI has expanded its focus. Today, along with HIV, we work in conjunction with our partners to prevent and treat infectious diseases such as COVID-19, malaria, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Our work has also expanded into cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and other non-communicable diseases, and we work to accelerate the rollout of lifesaving vaccines, reduce maternal and child mortality, combat chronic malnutrition, and increase access to assistive technology. We are investing in horizontal approaches to strengthen health systems through programs in human resources for health, digital health, and health financing. With each new and innovative program, our strategy is grounded in maximizing sustainable impact at scale, ensuring that governments lead the solutions, that programs are designed to scale nationally, and learnings are shared globally.  

At CHAI, our people are our greatest asset, and none of this work would be possible without their talent, time, dedication and passion for our mission and values. We are a highly diverse team of enthusiastic individuals across 40 countries with a broad range of skillsets and life experiences. CHAI is deeply grounded in the countries we work in, with majority of our staff based in program countries. Learn more about our exciting work: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org

CHAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and is committed to providing an environment of fairness, and mutual respect where all applicants have access to equal employment opportunities. CHAI values diversity and inclusion, and recognizes that our mission is best advanced by the leadership and contributions of people with diverse experience, backgrounds, and culture.

Overview of the team

CHAI’s global malaria and neglected tropical disease (NTD) program provides direct technical and operational support to countries around the globe to strengthen their programs and reduce the burden of preventable, treatable diseases. We support governments to scale up effective interventions for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and surveillance, with the goals of sustainably reducing the number of illnesses and deaths worldwide in the short-term and accelerating progress towards elimination of malaria and NTDs in the long term.

Overview of Role:

CHAI is seeking a highly motivated individual to work as part of CHAI’s Global Malaria & NTDs Commodity Access Team, supporting Program Teams and Country Teams to plan and execute effective programs in the Central America region. Over the last few years, CHAI has been rapidly engaging with countries across the region and supported them to make initial but meaningful steps towards orienting their national strategic plans and systems towards malaria elimination. 

One of CHAI’s primary areas of focus is providing access to critical malaria commodities, including diagnosis and treatment. As countries move closer to elimination, it becomes imperative that all cases are confirmed by parasitological diagnostic test prior to receiving treatment with antimalarial drugs and subsequently reported into the national surveillance system. While many countries in the region have made great progress to making confirmatory diagnosis and treatment available, work remains to promote and ensure access in the often difficult to reach areas in which the last malaria cases are found.

To improve access to these and other essential products in Central American countries, primarily but not limited to Haiti, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama, the Associate is expected to support national teams in developing and executing strategies and interventions that could maximize the proportion of malaria patients that seeks care, receives appropriate treatment and is cured

The Associate will be part of CHAI’s Global Malaria Team, based in Panama and will report directly to the global malaria commodity access director. Due to multi-country support function of this role, up to 50% travel is expected and might support field activities in remote areas. The candidate will work closely with CHAI's other regional Technical Teams to advance achieve the malaria elimination goals in this region.  

The individual will bring a generalist skillset to the team and is willing to take on a variety of tasks ranging from data analytics, developing training materials, updating national guidelines  to operational support to to facilitate workshops with government stakeholders. Examples of the country support include the design and implementation of community health workers expansion or forecasting the multi-year need for malaria commodities; in addition to other commodity access needs (i.e. in prevention) that may arise.

The candidate must be able to work independently to drive implementation and have deep personal commitment to producing results. The candidate will bring outstanding analytical, problem-solving, organizational, and communication skills, be able to work independently and have deep personal commitment to producing results. CHAI places great value on the resourcefulness, tenacity, patience, humility, and high ethical standards of its staff.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain strong understanding of the malaria diagnosis and treatment landscape within the Mesoamerica region and identify the highest priority opportunities to improve the quality and coverage of malaria diagnostic and treatment services offered.
• Map coverage and quality of diagnostic and treatment services throughout national health systems in Mesoamerica countries
• Participate in field related activities such as trainings or supervision visits.
• Support government partners and CHAI country teams in designing and executing strategies to achieve programmatic goals related to diagnosis and treatment, including:
• Increasing availability and quality of malaria diagnostic and treatment tools
• Developing materials for health care workers to improve diagnosis utilization and adherence to national guidelines
• Establish and maintain communication channels with regional partners to support the consolidation of logistical processes that ensure sufficient supplies in the countries.
• Expanding community engagement strategies for malaria elimination
• Designing health promotion and education campaigns to increase the demand of services for malaria
• Strengthening of national supply chains for malaria commodities
• Exploring implementation of new diagnostic and treatment tools, as necessary
• Support government partners and CHAI country teams in the drafting and/or updating of national guidelines related to diagnosis and treatment and quality assurance and control for medicines and diagnostics.
• Assist in the national forecasting and quantification of diagnosis and treatment commodities to support accurate procurement of all malaria-related health products.
• Expand access to and effectiveness of community case management networks through targeted and context specific strategies.
• Draft presentations and reports for national and global teams on topics related to malaria case management.
• Coordinate meetings and facilitate knowledge sharing between the government program and partner organizations in the region to ensure effective coordination.
• Provide training to country teams on case management and organize information update sessions.
• Assist in internal reporting, budget forecasting, and grant reporting.
• Represent CHAI at regional and global meetings around commodity access.

Qualifications

• A university degree plus 3+ years of working experience with increasing levels of responsibility and leadership.
• High levels of proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and internet applications.
• Demonstrated excellent analytical, quantitative, and problem-solving skills.
• Knowledge of malaria and/or other major global infectious disease problems.
• Ability to work independently in unstructured settings and to adapt to new environments and challenges.
• Enthusiasm for applying research methods to solve global health problems; and,
• Exceptional written and oral communication skills
• Fluent in Spanish and English.
• Developing world experience (living and working)

Advantages:

• Strong spoken and written French
• Experience working in public health, epidemiology, management consulting, investment banking, or similar fast-paced, output-oriented environments
• Experience working in health system strengthening and/or healthcare worker engagement
• Preferred to have some knowledge in the following areas: malaria, diagnosis, supply chain, forecasting, LMIS
• Advanced degree
• Experience working with infectious disease control programs