GH-TAMS is seeking Angolan national candidates for two consultancy positions (Team Lead and Team Member) to support USAID/Angola in implementing COVID-19 integration and to strengthen the MOH Routine Immunization Program. The assignments will begin in early April 2024 and end late June. The Team Leader will have roughly 57 days of level of effort and the Team Member approximately 37 days of effort.
NOTE - Resumes for the Team Lead position must be in English-resumes in Portuguese will not be considered
Background
In Angola, as in many countries, the healthcare system was negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. As of January 13, 2024, Angola had recorded 107,271 COVID-19 cases and 1,937 deaths. As part of the COVID-19 response strategy, the Ministry of Health (MoH) of Angola rolled out the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in March 2021. Since its inception, the program has administered over 16,566,108 first doses, 9,597,939 second doses, and 3,026,241 booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, translating into 80 percent of the total population reached with one dose and 50 percent fully vaccinated. The vaccination campaign was rolled out in phases: first to priority groups and later extended to the general population from 12 years of age and above.
Despite this notable success in ensuring widespread coverage of COVID-19 vaccination, continued progress against COVID-19 vaccination is important to sustain the gains made to support the smooth transition from the emergency response to routine programming. Even though COVID-19 is no longer a public health emergency, it remains a global public health threat. Thus, it is recommended to continue vaccinating and foster continued uptake of available services. The MoH of Angola intends to integrate the COVID-19 vaccine into the Primary Health Care (PHC) services.
There is a need for technical support to the Ministry of Health (MoH) to implement and institutionalize the integration strategy, recently approved, with particular emphasis on continuous monitoring to ensure sustainability and better preparedness for vaccine-preventable diseases. USAID/Angola proposes to hire two local consultants to support the MoH in implementing the COVID-19 vaccination integration strategy into routine immunization.
Role and Responsibilities
USAID/Angola proposes to hire two local consultants to support the MoH to implement the COVID-19 vaccination integration strategy and strengthen the routine immunization program.
The COVID-19 Vaccination Integration Consultants will:
Local Consultant #1: Team Lead
● Managing the team’s activities
● Ensure that all deliverables are met in a timely manner.
● Serving as a liaison between the USAID/Angola and the assessment team, and Leading briefings and presentations
● Provide technical support to the MoH/Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) Team to accelerate the implementation of C-19 vaccination integration into routine immunization & Primary Health Care (PHC) services.
● The consultant will also travel to selected provinces to support local health authorities to implement the COVID-19 integration strategy.
● Provide technical support to institutionalize the standard operational procedures for COVID-19 integration into PHC services to ensure the timely execution of the integration plan.
● Develop training materials, training plan and conduct training to cascade implementation of the COVID-19 integration strategy from national to provincial and municipal levels.
● Support the documentation of lessons learned, case studies, and best practices from COVID-19 integration implementation.
Local Consultant #2: Team Member
• Support the team lead in planning and implementing activities to reach the deliverables.
• Work with Provincial Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) Focal Points to accelerate the implementation of the COVID-19 vaccination integration into routine immunization.
• Travel to selected provinces to support USAID implementing partners to apply the COVID-19 integration strategy.
• Support the training cascade from the provincial to municipal levels.
• Provide travel and training reports
Qualifications
Team Lead
▪ Master’s degree in public health, medicine, health education, epidemiology, or another relevant technical field,
▪ At least 5 years of experience designing, implementing, and monitoring immunization and public health programs.
▪ Familiarity with relevant national level COVID-19 and Immunization guidelines in Angola.
▪ Demonstrated experience with vaccination campaign (i.e., Polio) is considered an advantage.
▪ Ability to work independently, under pressure, and within deadlines, including strong planning and coordination skills.
▪ Good communication, advocacy and people skills and the ability to communicate with various stakeholders and to express concisely and clearly ideas and concepts in written and oral form.
▪ Strong communication and writing skills, with ability to lead/train a group of individuals and impart knowledge.
▪ Fluency in English and Portuguese is required.
Team Member
▪ Bachelor’s degree medicine, nursing, public health, social science, health education, epidemiology, or another relevant technical field.
▪ Three years of work experience with immunization programs (i.e., Polio, yellow fever, COVID, etc.)
▪ Familiarity with relevant national level COVID-19 and Immunization guidelines in Angola.
▪ Good communication, advocacy and people skills and the ability to communicate with various stakeholders.
▪ Strong interpersonal communication and writing skills,
▪ Ability to conduct training for healthcare providers.
▪ Fluency in Portuguese is required.
International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. (IBTCI), is the prime contractor implementing the $125 million USAID-funded Global Health Technical Assistance and Mission Support Project (GH-TAMS) activity. Along with its subcontractor, Dexis Consulting Group (Dexis), IBTCI provides the Bureau for Global Health (GH) and USAID field missions with high quality technical expertise to achieve the Agency's foreign assistance global health mission (October 2019-October 2024). GH-TAMS technical assistance supports over 65 Missions and 19 GH Offices and other Bureaus covering a broad range of technical areas and cross-cutting issues such as HIV/AIDS, family planning, MNCH, infectious disease, TB, health finance, reproductive health, organizational development, OVC, project design, facilitation, M&E and strategic planning.
Project assignments are located in Washington D.C. and worldwide in Africa, Asia and elsewhere. Assignments typically range from two weeks to six months in duration.
