Location: Kenya - Garissa (including other locations in agreement with the Programme Director)
Reporting to: Technical Director, for technical planning + Programme Director, for daily activities
Start Date: ASAP
Duration: 1 year
Fee Structure: Consultancy Fee and package commensurate to experience
Overall Task
This person will help to lead the work of a specialist malaria control team for a four year special Initiative funded by the UK charity
Comic Relief which started in January 2010 to establish an effective and replicable model for malaria control in the epidemic prone area
of north east Kenya, one of the worst climate change affected areas of Africa. The programme will work with a network or local,
regional, national and international partners to achieve new standards and guidance for malaria control amongst pastoralist
communities, in semi arid areas of Kenya and other countries.
This person will be directly responsible for the effective planning, coordination and implementation of all malaria control activities at
heath services level, in partnership with affected communities, the Ministry of Health District Health Team, the MoH Division of
Malaria Control, international, and national malaria control and research partners.
Specific tasks:
• Support Vector Borne
Team Building and Management
• Manage the national malaria case management and surveillance technical team, including recruitment, team building and
activity management
• Coordinate and collaborate with the district and regional teams of the Ministry of Health, and national organizations working
in Garissa in the development of malaria work plan priorities and schedules for all activities planned at health service level.
• Build the capacity of the national clinical team and the MoH counterparts in Garissa, to reinforce their technical planning and
delivery capacity.
Operational Research
• Oversee the implementation of the health services M&E malaria plan for the programme to ensure that the data for indicators
is being collected accurately, analysed and reported
• Design, plan and implement periodic follow-up surveys of health facility services and capacity, health worker capacity and
practices for malaria, malaria diagnostic and treatment accuracy.
• Periodic monitoring and evaluation of health service malaria case management capacity and service quality
• Support several Master Degree students in the implementation of the operational research projects designed under the Grant,
including P. Falciparum and P. vivax prevalence surveys; potential benefits of RDT usage in health facilities for malaria RDT
negative patients and others in partnership with KEMRI, DoMC, Welcome Trust and other international research partners.
• Collaborate with the clinical data entry clerk to ensure that data management remains timely and robust.
• Ensure that research deadlines are met.
Building High Quality Malaria Case Management Capacity:
• Work with the MoH District Heath Team to ensure the joint planning and delivery of technical training of district health
workers for differential disease diagnosis, confirmatory malaria diagnosis and case management of uncomplicated and severe
malaria cases.
• Establishment and management of, as well as active participation in, joint technical coaching of health workers at facility level
and standardized supervision and monitoring of health services indicators for malaria case management
• Production and dissemination of job aids and technical guidelines for health workers
• Improving the capacity of health facility teams to effectively identify, record and report patient symptoms and confirmed
malaria and non malaria cases through existing epidemiological surveillance systems
• Reinforce the capacity of heath facility teams to manage and record malaria commodity consumption rates and needs and
reinforce reporting chain for supply chain needs through to regional and national partners in coordination with the Technical
Director.
• Manage programme contingency supply chains to health facilities for malaria commodities in co-ordination with the DHT to
minimize stock outs.
Establishing effective early detection systems for malaria epidemics and reinforced supply chains
• Train health workers from each sentinel site in the use of ARGOS satellite early warning information systems
• Conduct regular technical coaching visits to sentinel sites to ensure correct and regular utilization of ARGOS.
• Provide technical training and support to the DHMT epidemiological officer to utilize the ARGOS web analysis of weekly data
• Work with the Technical Director to ensure that KEMSA (national drug supply) and DoMC counterparts are also trained and
supported in the use of the ARGOS web reporting and analysis in order to strengthen weekly monitoring of sentinel site
reports.
• Compare and monitor operational and cost advantages and disadvantages between the ARGOS early warning system,
existing paper driven early warning systems and mobile phone based early warning systems.
• Ensure string co-ordination between all users of the ARGOS system (local, regional and national) to ensure maximum benefits
are achieved.
Reporting and Information Dissemination
• Responsible for the production of relevant sections of internal, partner, programme and donor reports.
• Responsible for the joint production and publication/dissemination of relevant operational research papers on all related
programme activities.
Other
• Backstop the Programme Director and the Technical Director to ensure that all program objectives are being met and
international best practices adhered to.
• Represent MENTOR at technical meetings and at donor meetings when discussing technical and/or program issues.
• From time to time and where mutually agreed, support the MENTOR training team to implement international training
courses.
o Oversee other MENTOR Initiative activities as agreed with the Programme Director
o Possible transfer from Kenya to another MENTOR program (or HQ) to take up a similar senior technical or general
management role in mutual agreement with the Director.
Qualifications
• Senior Nursing Degree or Medical Degree
• Post Graduate Qualification in Public Health, Epidemiology or similar
• Minimum of 5 years working with international NGO outside Kenya (Experience working in Somalia preferred)
• Fluent Kiswahili and English (knowledge of Somali language is a plus)
• Cultural understanding and previous experience of working with pastoralist and nomadic communities
• Excellent capacity of data analysis, programme process evaluation and problem solving
• Significant experience in Operational Research, including knowledge of and experience in qualitative and epidemiological
research methods
• Excellent capacity building skills, demonstrated by training and team building experience
• Working knowledge of data analysis (i.e. Epi info, STATA etc)
• Excellent report writing skills
• Should be Kenyan citizen
Please send CV, letter of motivation and contact information of three recent line managers and HQ to personnel@mentor-initiative.net.
Closing date 17th June 2011