The Family Planning and Reproductive Health Department at PSI HQ supports programs in 37 countries (and counting!) to deliver high-quality family planning and safe abortion services to women and girls.
The Technical Advisor (TA) for the USAID SIFPO2 Project is passionate about improving the lives of women and their families by ensuring access to voluntary family planning services and is experienced in implementing family planning programs. The TA is a talented and strategic thinker and implementer in the area of women’s health, with at least 5 years’ experience working in international development and a demonstrated track record of successfully delivering technical assistance for design and implementation of family planning programming.
You will be a key technical representative and resource for PSI’s Support for International Family Planning and Health Organizations 2: Sustainable Networks (SIFPO2) project, a five-year USAID-funded program designed to strengthen family planning programs and other health services worldwide with a focus on strengthening private sector channels.
The role will include technical and program management support for multiple projects, including FP service delivery in USAID’s PRH priority countries, and technical representation of PSI and the SIFPO2 project at key events and technical meetings in Washington DC.
You will collaborate with other HQ technical departments, regional support teams, and country offices to help execute SIFPO2’s objectives and deliverables.
In this role you will:
- Oversee program management and technical support for 4-5 SIFPO2-supported family planning initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa, in close collaboration with relevant regional support teams. Countries are likely to include those in West and Southern Africa.
- Work closely with Senior Technical Advisor for SIFPO2 on management of the project’s core workplan, including setting technical direction, tracking that activities are delivered on time and to budget, and supporting communication of project achievements to USAID and other key stakeholders.
- Lead on content development, delivery of PSI’s technical content (in conjunction with other team members), and collaboration with other USAID implementing partners for 2-4 technical meetings in 2019, focused on priority FP/RH topics.
- Represent PSI and the SIFPO2 project in priority technical working groups, conferences, and workshops related to family planning service delivery and other high-priority FP/RH technical areas.
- Influence the context in which PSI conducts family planning programming through production of high-quality technical and programmatic briefs and other external-facing FP technical products.
- Provide in-country technical assistance on family planning programming, as needed.
- Other tasks as assigned by the Senior Technical Advisor and/or other senior members of the SIFPO2 team.
Note, currently the position is until April 2020, with extension subject to additional funding. PSI typically has a broad range of FP/RH projects that require technical assistance.
The candidate we hire will embody PSI’s corporate values:
- Measurement: You use hard evidence to make decisions and guide your work. You set clear goalposts in advance and explain clearly if you need to move them.
- Pragmatism: You’ll strive to deliver the best possible result with the resources available. You won’t be paralyzed by a need to make things perfect.
- Honesty: You own your mistakes and are open about your shortcomings – it’s the only way you’ll learn and improve.
- Collaboration: You’ll quickly establish a mental map of whom you can rely on for what, on your team, at headquarters, and in our country offices – if you try to do it all yourself, you won’t succeed.
- Trust: You accept limits to your sphere of control and give colleagues the benefit of the doubt
- Commitment: You are in it for the long-haul and want to grow with the organization, just like PSI serves its consumers and partners with host-country governments through thick and thin
Our ideal candidate will possess:
- A Master’s degree or higher in a relevant area.
- At least 5 years of experience designing, implementing, and managing FP/RH focused public health programs in or for developing countries and demonstrated understanding of current technical FP/RH technical priorities for USAID.
- Strong communication and presentation skills; demonstrated technical writing skills. Experience creating communication products for USAID is preferred.
- Experience working on USAID-funded FP/RH programs a plus. Experience working on other donor funded RH programs, such as BMGF and DFID also valuable.
- Proactive, self-starter with ability to forge relationships across a large and diverse international organization, as well as with donors, technical leaders, and other implementing partners.
- Commitment to and demonstrated experience in taking an activity from start to finish with high quality results.
- Fluent English required; French language skills preferred.
- At least two years of experience living or working in a developing country highly preferred.
- Willingness to travel up to 25% of the time, primarily to sub-Saharan Africa.
- References will be required.
- Must be authorized to work in the United States. N.B. PSI will not consider work visa sponsorship and relocation expenses will not be covered for this position.
- The successful candidate will be required to pass a background check.
What would get us excited?
- FP/RH Service Delivery Knowledge: You have worked on LARC service delivery programs and have a keen sense of what is needed to ensure high quality, productive programs.
- A problem solver. You are able to quickly diagnose problems and propose practical solutions in collaboration with key stakeholders.
- Team player: You are nice to work with, can take the highs and the lows, you enjoy the job and are a more of glass half full than glass half empty kind of person, an attitude that helps if we are to succeed in the complex environments we work in (in exchange we aim to be the same for you!)
- And a good writer. We really appreciate good technical writers!