Emergency Health Advisor (EHA) - Puntland, Hiran Region & Central Somalia

[Admin]

BACKGROUND The ongoing drought situation in Somalia is causing extreme food and water shortages, with population displacement occurring as people seek ways to survive. Food shortages lead to malnutrition, which is the major underlying risk factor for all the major causes of child mortality (pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria). According to the United Nations (UN), Somalia represents one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world with almost 50% of its people in need of urgent external assistance and close to 1.5 million internally displaced people The epicentre of the current crisis is in the southern regions where 58% of the 2.85 million people are in crisis reside.

Somalia has one of the highest maternal mortality ratios (1044/100,000) and under five mortality rates (135/1000). The combination of drought, economic collapse, intensification of conflict, and subsequent mass population displacement has resulted in a massive humanitarian crisis. Currently this chronically highly precarious country has been severely hit by an enormous scale of drought. Across Somalia, 3.7 million of its total 9 million Somali populations have been affected by the drought and are living in humanitarian crisis. On 20th July 2011, UN has declared famine in parts of Southern Somalia. Like in most humanitarian crises, women and children are in the most vulnerable situation with their level of vulnerability further compounded by the existing socio-cultural context in Somalia. The alarming rate of acute malnutrition among children and lack of food and water are exacerbating all the major causes of child morbidity and mortality (pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria) among children with increased risks of outbreaks of water-borne communicable diseases such as acute watery diarrhoea / cholera. These health problems are all extremely serious due to a lack of preventative activities which mean that there will be a higher incidence of these conditions, and the lack of any coverage of curative health services to treat these conditions leads to higher mortality specially among children under five years of age. Save the Children has declared the current drought crisis in the horn of Africa as a major international humanitarian crisis and is responding with multi-sectoral humanitarian assistance programme with regional and national programme scmale ups in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia. m SAVE THE CHILDREN IN SOMALIA/SOMALILANDm

Save the Children (SC) is an international organisation that has 27 member organisations across the globe. It is united by a common mission and brand but, to some extent, has until now been working independently from country to country. Through Unified Presence, Save the Children aims to create a stronger voice for children by unifying the operations in all countries where more than one Save the Children Member have programmes. This will result in one organisation at the national level in each country and a unified programme delivery structure for all Save the Children International Members.

Save the Children works in all three “zones” of Somalia: Somaliland, Puntland and Central South Somalia (CSS). Due to constraints on security, and the need to liaise with UN agencies, other NGOs and donors the country office is based in Nairobi and senior managers and directors are expected to travel extensively to monitor and support programme work in all parts of Somalia that are accessible and where security threats are being effectively mitigated. Save Children has been working in Hiran region, central Somalia, since the early 1990s. SC is currently running programmes which encompass emergency response, education, health, and water and sanitation in Hiran, Puntland and the self-declared state of Somaliland.

As a part of multi-sectoral drought response strategy, Save the Children in Somaliland/Somalia, with the support of regional and HQ team, is scaling up of its health programme to establish emergency health programme in Hiran, Mogadishu, Bosasso, Gerowe, and Karkar with an estimated budget of about £ 4 million. The emergency health programme is closely linked to emergency nutrition and WASH programmes and implemented with integrated approach. In each of the location, the emergency health project is managed by Emergency Health Project Manager with support of 15-40 health staff. The Field Manager for the respective area provides the overall operational leadership for the implementation of the programmes in the areas including health. Emergency Health Advisor is expected to be the technical lead to provide technical support to Health Project Managers and their team maintaining close coordination with Field Manager, Area Managers and other colleagues in the operational team.

The position is based in Nairobi but with over 60% of time requiring travel to the project areas with significant time in Central and Southern Somalia when security permits. Applications will be reviewed as received.

JOB PURPOSE

In order to better coordinate an emergency health support programme to Somalia (Puntland, Hiran region, central Somalia) Save the Children required a high level technical support, coordination and guidance through provision of, guidance to managers and staff involved in managing and/or implementing emergency health projects through provision of technical support on specific emergency health issues. These supports includes, among others, identifying opportunities for funding and learning through networking with donors and other agencies.

This is an international post based in Nairobi. While working from Nairobi, the post-holder will be required to provide support to the emergency health team remotely and may travel into, north and central Somalia for short monitoring and support visits. Barring security clearance to travel to central Somalia, the health advisor will be requested to travel to Somaliland on a regular basis for support, monitoring and management meetings with the Hiran health team.

Key accountability

• Provide high level technical support in writing emergency health project proposals/concept notes that will assist Save the Children respond to emerging crisis in Somalia • Contribute to the development of a other health programme proposals for Save the Children in Somalia to more appropriately address the longer term health impact of drought and conflict in Somalia • Identify opportunities for funding and learning through networking with donors and other agencies with focus on organizational capacity to respond to emergency health in crisis and also feed into a longer term strategic heath program development • In collaboration with the technical health manager, participate in emergency health cluster coordination meetings and ensure co-ordination with other emergency health providers in the country, avoiding duplication and sharing learning. Coordination to be undertaken through relevant forums in Nairobi and locally, when security allows. • Maintain inter-thematic linkages and actively coordinate synergy and integration between emergency nutrition and health programmes • Provide leadership and co-ordination of emergency health activities and their scale up in the program sites, ensuring that emergency health response activities are in line with SC policies and plans • Guide managers and staff involved in managing and/or implementing emergency health projects through provision of technical support on specific emergency health issues • Sharing relevant guides and tools needed for implementation and monitoring of emergency health response plan to ensure that health interventions delivered are in accordance to the agreed international standards. • Play technical advisory and support role, working closely with the field team and Grants Manager. The Emergency Health Advisor will also play an advisory role and work in close coordination with the Somalia Emergency Manager • Ensure that appropriate and consistent health and nutrition education messaging to mothers and other care takers at facility and in the community are developed in line with Save the Children values and principles • Feed-in to monthly and quarterly internal and donor reports, ensuring that the emergency health component of reports is high quality, accurate, reliable and available in a timely fashion as per plan • Assist in the dissemination of the findings and results of assessment/surveys and ongoing analysis both within Save the Children and the wider community • Co-ordinate emergency health assessment/surveys, including training, planning, analysis and report writing. Guide Save the Children emergency health response as indicated by the results of surveys/situation analysis and related data. • Establish and support the development of standard indicators to help monitor work progress, measure quality and impacts on the target population. Analyse thehealth data and feed in to the management for necessary decision regarding emergency health programme; • Ensure linkage/coordination with ERP health advisor/s and Humanitarian Health Advisors in London for technical support in emergency health programming; • Identify training needs of health staff on emergency health programming and delivery and organise training as per the need;
• To perform any other assignment required by the line manager (agreed according to workload)

Person specification

Essential

• Medical/health professional with Masters in Public Health or equivalent • Substantial emergency health experience of ( at least 5 years) including emergency health programme design and implementation at international level and under complex emergency context • Substantial and proven experience in providing high level technical advisory role in emergency health • Proven capacity to supervise, train and coach national staff. • Experience and ability to represent Save the Children's emergency health work in external meetings. • Willingness and capacity to be flexible and accommodating when faced with difficult and frustrating working conditions. • Demonstrable ability at report writing and excellent communication skills • Experience of working safely in hostile and insecure environments • Self-motivated and enthusiastic personality, commitment to understanding and improving the lives of children in an emergency context • Ability and willingness to frequently travel and stay in the field • Ability to work under extreme pressure and meet deadlines with minimal guidance • Fluent written and spoken English

Desirable • Awareness and understanding of food security and livelihoods programming options and other generic programming options for addressing health needs in emergency • Experience of distance management of staff/resources in a remote location • Somali language skills • Knowledge of the region – Horn of Africa in general; Somalia especially • Coaching and training skills with a view to capacity strengthening of staff and partners • Experience of participative processes involving children, and ability to coach staff in mainstreaming good practice

Child Protection

The responsibilities of the post may require the post holder to have regular contact with children or young people and, in the overseas context all posts are considered to be level 3 posts in view of potential situations which may allow expatriates unsupervised access to vulnerable children and young people.

Application Procedures: All interested candidates please forward your CV with application letters to: vacancies@scsom.org and the application deadline is on 10th Sept 2011