Position: Roving Health Officer
Location: Remote, Washington DC or London with 50% travel (up to 3 to 6 month assignments) to RI countries, including, but not limited to Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sudan
Reports to: Health Technical Lead
About RI:
Relief International is a leading nonprofit organization working in 20 countries to relieve poverty, ensure well-being and advance dignity. We specialize in fragile settings, responding to natural disasters, humanitarian crises and chronic poverty.
Relief International combines humanitarian and development approaches to provide immediate services while laying the groundwork for long-term impact. Our signature approach — which we call the RI Way—emphasizes local participation, an integration of services, strategic partnerships, and a focus on civic skills. In this way, we empower communities to find, design and implement the solutions that work best for them.
Position Summary:
RI’s health and nutrition sector is its largest with approximately 50 projects at a given time. Because of the size of the sector, there is a need to continually build staff capacity and fill gaps in human resources. The person in the position of Roving Health Officer will spend 50% of their time directly backstopping country positions and 50% of their time providing remote country office support and assist on global initiatives.
Position Responsibilities and Duties:
When deployed, the Roving Health Officer will directly support the country offices. She/he will:
•Ensure implementation of programs in line with the approved project proposal and budget, anticipating and communicating issues/problems in advance to CD.
•Provide technical assistance and oversight to Relief International’s (health and nutrition) programs in close collaboration with relevant country and sector leads.
•Ensure quality of the program through compliance and adherence to Relief International, Donor and National policies, procedures and guidelines, as well as internationally recognized standards (e.g. the Sphere standards).
•Support the project teams in the fulfilment of their duties according to program requirement in particular providing supervision, direction, coaching, mentoring and training based on capacity needs of staff.
•Support and strengthen data collection form and reporting such as HMIS and EWARS.
•Ensure that medical and nutrition stocks, supplies and other logistic supports are properly planned, procured, stored, distributed and managed, to avoid stock outs .
•Represent RI at relevant coordination and technical meetings.
•Identify programmatic gaps and develop concepts to fill them. Support proposal development.
•Support the preparation and submission of donor reports.
•Assess staff capacity in technical and operational capacity to deliver quality health and nutrition programs and provide formal and informal capacity building.
When not deployed, the Roving Health Officer will:
•Develop RI health and nutrition project models, tools and guidelines.
•Provide virtual trainings , coaching and mentoring to country office staff.
•Review donor reports and provide feedback.
•Provide technical support on field requests.
Essential qualifications, experience and competencies:
•Medical doctor or qualified nurse with a Master’s in Public Health or equivalent degree.
• Minimum of three years professional experience managing health projects in emergency and transitional / development contexts.
•Proven experience of using appropriate management tools to ensure effective running of the programs, staff management and development.
•Experience managing health teams with the ability to motivate and encourage staff.
•Experience in training and capacity building.
•Experience with health systems such as HMIS, pharmacy management, disease surveillance.
•Excellent ability and flexibility to understand the cultural and political environment in areas in which RI works.
•Ability to work independently and also as a collaborative team member in complex and often difficult operating environments.
•Demonstrated ability to manage multiple priorities, deadlines, tasks efficiently with strong attention to detail;
•Ability to think critically and creatively
•Excellent interpersonal skills, including patience, diplomacy, willingness to listen and respect colleagues.
•Experience living or working in different / challenging cultures and countries.
•Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, stressful environment.
•Confident and proficient in the use of MS Office, especially Word and Excel and statistical packages. Experience with DHIS2 preferred.
•An understanding of and commitment to Relief International’s mission and values.
•Must be flexible, willing to perform other duties and work irregular hours.
Preferred qualifications, experience and competences :
•Experience in CMAM.
•Experience communicating and representing at national Health Clusters and liaising with donors.
•Program development and management experience with ECHO and OFDA funded grants.
•Good ability and flexibility to understand the cultural and political environment and to work well with local health representative.
•Fluent in written and spoken English. Fluency in French and Arabic preferred.
Relief International’s Values:
We uphold the Humanitarian Principles: humanity, neutrality, impartiality and operational independence. We affirmatively engage the most vulnerable communities.
We value:
Inclusiveness
Transparency and accountability
Agility and innovation
Collaboration
Sustainability
About RI: Relief International is a leading nonprofit organization working in 20 countries to relieve poverty, ensure well-being and advance dignity. We specialize in fragile settings, responding to natural disasters, humanitarian crises and chronic poverty.
Relief International combines humanitarian and development approaches to provide immediate services while laying the groundwork for long-term impact. Our signature approach — which we call the RI Way—emphasizes local participation, an integration of services, strategic partnerships, and a focus on civic skills. In this way, we empower communities to find, design and implement the solutions that work best for them.
