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The Health Officer reports to the Senior Health Specialist (Emergency) (Level 4) for guidance and general supervision. The Health Officer supports the development and preparation of the health programme and is responsible for managing, implementing, monitoring, evaluating, and reporting the programme progress of health emergency preparedness and response sector of the health programme within the country programme. The Health Officer provides technical guidance and management support throughout the programming processes to facilitate the administration and achievement of concrete and sustainable results according to plans, allocation, results based-management approaches and methodology (RBM), organizational Strategic Plans and goals, standards of performance, and accountability framework. The technical guidance is provided with reference to (i) The Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action (ii) Health System Strengthening approach and (iii) The Sendai Framework.

Key function, accountabilities and related duties/tasks

Health Emergency Preparedness

• Support and contribute to the preparation, design and updating of various national level emergency / contingency plans, situation analysis for the health sector. Keep abreast of development trends to enhance programme management, efficiency and delivery.
• Participate in strategic programme discussions on the planning of health programmes. Formulate, design and prepare a sector of the health programme proposal, ensuring alignment with UNICEF’s Strategic Plan, the Country Programme, as well as coherence/integration with the Health Cluster, regional strategies, and national priorities, plans and competencies.
• Technical review of the disease surveillance reports and provide alerts to enable action.
• Plan and follow-up with pre-positioning of emergency related supplies and its distribution.
• In conjunction with programme sections and zonal offices, provides a lead in planning, implementation and monitoring of mobile health and nutrition teams.

Health Emergency Response

• Participate in needs assessment in coordination with the programme section and zonal offices, to determine priorities and appropriate interventions by UNICEF.
• Participate and represent UNICEF in emergency related meetings and contribute to assessing the crisis and humanitarian situation in the country with special regard to the survival, protection and wellbeing of children, adolescents and women.
• Assist the Senior Health Specialist (Emergency) in oversight of the operations and program management to ensure that the funding, budget, management, reporting, and field presence coordination are managed efficiently and effectively with clear accountabilities.

Programme management, monitoring and delivery of results

• Plan and/or collaborate with internal and external partners to achieve the monitoring benchmarks, performance indicators, and other UNICEF/UN system indicators and measurements to assess and strengthen performance accountability, coherence and delivery of concrete and sustainable results for the assigned sector in health programmes.
• Participate in monitoring and evaluation exercises, programme reviews and sectoral reviews to assess progress and to determine required action/interventions to achieve results.
• Contribute in preparation of donor proposals and regular and mandated programme / project reports to stakeholders like management, donors and partners to keep them informed of the programme progress. Identify gaps, strengths and/or weaknesses in programme management, identify lessons learned and use knowledge gained for development planning and timely intervention to achieve goals.
• Actively monitor programmes/projects through field visits, surveys and/or exchange of information with partners/stakeholders to assess progress, identify bottlenecks, potential problems and take timely decisions to resolve issues and/or refer to relevant officials for timely resolution.
• Monitor and verify the optimum and appropriate use of sectoral programme resources (financial, administrative and other assets) confirming compliance with organizational rules, regulations/procedures and donor commitments, standards of accountability and integrity, ensuring timely reporting and liquidation of resources.
• Build and sustain effective close working partnerships with health sector counterparts, national stakeholders, as well as allies, donors, and academia. Through active networking, advocacy and effective communication, build capacity and exchange knowledge and expertise to facilitate the achievement of programme goals on child rights, social justice and equity.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• A university degree in one of the following fields is required: public health/nutrition, pediatric health, family health, health research, global/international health, health policy and/or management, environmental health sciences, biostatistics, socio-medical, health education, epidemiology, or another relevant technical field.
• A minimum of two years of professional experience in health emergency/humanitarian preparedness and response is required.
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.
• Relevant experience in a UN system agency or organization is considered as an asset.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.