Save the Children is seeking a Senior Social and Behavior Change (SBC) Advisor for an anticipated 5-year USAID-funded integrated health project in Mali. The project will support the Ministry of Health in scaling up high impact maternal, newborn, and child health and nutrition services in an effort to improve health and nutrition outcomes for women of reproductive age and children under 5. The Senior Advisor will provide strategic direction and technical management for the development planning and implementation of cross cutting SBC strategies and interventions. The SBC Advisor will design the overall SBC strategy and will ensure that all SBC activities will support the adoption and consistent use of behaviors practices outside the health system and also enable the Malian communities, households and individuals to manage their own health with the adoption of healthy behaviors and the use of essential health services. The position will be responsible for the timely delivery of all SBC related activities based on state of the art SBC practices and capture lessons learned. The SBC Advisor will oversee and take a technical leadership role in coordination with all SC coordinators and other project staff and partners to participate in and adhere to the SBC strategy and approach. S/he will work closely with project technical and management staff to generate stakeholder inputs, develop implementation plans and suitable knowledge management and measurement.
This position will be based in Bamako with frequent (up to 25%) travel to the field.
- Provide state of the art and evidence-based technical inputs and programmatic leadership; guide priority setting for activities in collaboration with other technical teams and project management.
- Co-develop and implement an integrated SBC strategy and related campaign activities based on SBC theory and formative evidence, generating skilled input from all other teams as well as from local government stakeholders to generate consensus.
- Actively identify direct technical inputs from all technical areas to ensure effective support for their targets; coordinate project SBC activities and provide direct technical support to other technical counterparts as needed.
- Cultivate strategic relationships with government ministries, and other stakeholders for the smooth implementation of program activities in Mali and their public, private and civic institutions and at district levels.
- Generate consensus around and develop strong SBC vehicles that can carry varies activities and messages across key healthy behaviors, and support community engagement of local health services and health promotion and outreach activities.
- Clear understanding of needed budgets for such media and materials development work
- Coordinate pretesting and concept testing as well as materials development for target audiences, including digital health materials.
- Develop systematic capacity strengthening activities, including trainings, meeting and workshops at the national, department, district and community levels.
- Conduct regular reporting to the Chief of Party, USAID and program and technical staff, on successes, challenges and lessons learned.
- Develop specific SBC learning agenda, SBC indicators; ideas for suitable real-time monitoring and audience feedback loops as well as M&E designs; coordinate monitoring of SBC activities with other staff according to the M&E framework and assess if targets are achieved and document results (collaborate with MEAL advisor).
- Liaise and strengthen capacity of local SBC partners
- Ensure the timeliness and quality of all SBC content for reports and meet all reporting requirements.
- Extensive experience implementing tailored and integrated social and behavior change activities in developing countries, particularly with activities focused on household-level interventions and interpersonal communication.
- Minimum of 7-10 years of experience required in health communication, public health promotion, health or behavioral sciences, or related field and demonstrated experience in management of large, community-based and inter-disciplinary teams.
- Demonstrated ability to design effective social and behavior change campaigns, including community engagement, interpersonal communication, media and experiential activities in Mali preferably.
- Demonstrated technical abilities and experience in SBC strategy and materials development (a minimum of 7 – 10 years), testing, implementation and strong monitoring and evaluation of SBC interventions. Collaboration with community mobilization efforts is a plus.
- Ability to oversee and coordinate the work of partners and staff coordinators for effective implementation and monitoring of their activities.
- Demonstrated problem solving skills, collaboration experience, creativity and willingness to innovate.
- Excellent interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to lead and work effectively in team situations.
- Familiarity and understanding of USAID policies and procedures, or those of other donors, or those of donor-funded projects or community-based projects.
- Strengths in inspiring and enabling others through training, and capacity building to realize organizational objectives.
- Ability to travel up to 25% of the time.
- Strong oral, written, and presentations skills in English and French.
- Familiarity with the political, social, and cultural context of Mali and experience working in Mali is preferred.