Job
Public Health Traineeship

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Organization Name: United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR)
Location: Regional / Global
Apply email: Not Specified
Start Date: 25 Nov 2020, 07:07 am
Closing Date: 20 Dec 2020, 12:00 am

Duration of the contract: twelve months. On an exceptional basis, the duration of a Traineeship assignment may be reduced to meet the availability and academic requirements of the Trainee, as well as the needs of The Defeat-NCD Partnership.

Organizational Unit: The Defeat-NCD Partnership

Remuneration: A monthly stipend of CHF 700 shall be paid for trainees.

AREA OF SPECIALIZATION/THEMATIC AREAS

Public health, health policy development, health system strengthening and transformation, primary health care, project planning and management, capacity building, health innovation.

OVERVIEW

UNITAR is an autonomous body within the United Nations that was established in 1965 pursuant to a UN General Assembly resolution. UNITAR’s mission is to develop the individual, institutional and organizational capacities of countries and other United Nations stakeholders through high quality learning solutions and related knowledge products and services to enhance decision-making and to support country-level action for overcoming global challenges.

UNITAR hosts the Defeat-NCD Partnership and other relevant strategic initiatives working in the field of noncommunicable diseases and addressing related risk factors - such as road crashes, deaths and injuries, and assisted technologies for improved health outcomes.

The Defeat-NCD Partnership is a multi-stakeholder partnership anchored in the United Nations and includes Governments, multilateral agencies, civil society, academia, philanthropies, and the private sector. It was established in January 2018 to help tackle the most significant global health problems of the age: premature death, sickness, disability, and the associated social and economic impacts of selected non-communicable diseases (NCDs). It is based on the expert guidance and the technical norms and standards issued by the World Health Organization for managing NCDs.

This assignment will enable populations in priority countries to access a range of interconnected essential services and resources through four pillars of interventions:

• NCD National Capacity Building (Pillar 1): Work with Governments and other in country stakeholders to assess gaps in their NCD capabilities. Through technical support develop a multi-year NCD National Costed Action Plan. Facilitate engagement of relevant partners to ensure expansion of NCD services in line with national targets. The overall objective is to ensure that countries have institutional capacities, structures, systems, and financing in place to tackle NCDs.
• Community Scale-Up of NCD Services (Pillar 2): Aim to demystify, democratize, decentralize, and where safely possible, demedicalise NCD service provision. Enable the earlier screening and management of risk factors as well as the mitigation of established disease. at the community level. By increasing the use of self-care interventions, improve patient compliance, resulting in better treatment and health outcomes. The overall objective is to bring more of the necessary prevention and management of NCD services directly to the communities and people who need them most.
• Affordability and Accessibility of Essential NCD Supplies (Pillar 3): To make the provision of NCD supplies simpler and more cost-effective by designing a Marketplace to create a fair, competitive environment that serves the interests of both buyers and suppliers. Using market-sizing and price-tracking studies, the Marketplace’s methodology will correct current market failures due to information imbalances. It will also help address regulatory bottlenecks in an appropriate manner. The overall objective is to enable the consistent provision of affordable essential NCD medicines, diagnostics, and equipment in low-resource countries.
• Sustainable NCD Financing (Pillar 4): Governments need to invest more in health, with a greater share allocated to finance their national costed action plans for NCDs. While cost savings can be achieved by linking NCD programming with other conditions and improving service delivery and by reducing the cost of NCD supplies, additional and innovative financing will be needed outside of the ongoing aid support and expanding fiscal allocations. The overall objective is to establish a long-term sustainable financing model for NCD programming in low-resource countries.

GENERAL OBJECTIVES OF THE CONTRACT

The strategy of the Partnerships directs actions around four interconnected pillars that, taken together, constitute a comprehensive service package to tackle the most common gaps and constraints that challenge the 90 plus focus low-resource countries of the Partnership.

The purpose of this assignment is to give the trainees hands-on experience across the four pillars of the Partnership work. This assignment will prepare the trainees to pursue a leading career in public health and NCDs. The trainee will support the Defeat-NCD Partnership in its efforts to lead the design, implementation, resource mobilization and reporting of its programme activities, in support of the Sustainable Development Goal 3.4. This assignment will enable populations in our programmatic countries and other priority geographies to access a range of interconnected essential services and resources through our four pillars of interventions.

RESPONSIBILITIES/DESCRIPTION OF PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

1. Perform extensive, high quality research and prepare comprehensive analysis in support of the various programmatic areas of the Partnership.
2. Prepare opinion pieces, policy briefs, speeches, and presentation in support of the team.
3. Prepare communication material, donor updates, and reports.
4. Lead on developing e-learning curriculums in support of country programmes.
5. Prepare comprehensive situation analysis of NCDs in scale-up programme countries and support country programme development.
6. Evaluate innovations in NCD care and assess their applicability in LMICs environment.
7. Assist in the monitoring and evaluation of the national costed action plans for NCDs.
8. Develop and refine tools and methods on programme implementation at country level and identify technical resources requirements.
9. Support the strengthening of the policy framework work for NCDs, including Monitoring Frameworks that improves data availability for better analysis.
10. Analyse existing or proposed primary health care systems and services on their inclusion of NCDs; identify needs for improvement and the methods and resources to accomplish such improvements.
11. Support efforts that result in making the provision of NCD supplies simpler and more cost effective in programme countries.
12. Contribute to the market monitoring studies and The State of the World’s Essential Medicines and Diagnostic Supplies for Noncommunicable Diseases report.
13. Keep the knowledge bank of the Partnership updated and provide technical support to non-technical personnel where needed.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After the assignment, the trainee should be able to:

• Translate vision into actionable objectives.
• Work independently and take initiative.
• Be familiar with the Defeat-NCD Partnership’s four pillars of work.
• Plan and organise programmes and projects.
• Work in a multicultural environment.
• Exposure to professionals and experts with various and unique skill sets.

MEASURABLE OUTPUTS / DELIVERABLES / SCHEDULE OF DELIVERABLES

• Develop timely and accurate research papers, opinion pieces, speeches and presentations.
• Keep updated situation analysis for NCDs and document initiatives and developments globally and nationally in programme countries.
• Develop and prepare relevant e-learning curriculums as part of the capacity building efforts in programme countries.
• Develop concept notes for identified innovation and best practices to scale up NCD services at the community level, in particular national screening efforts for NCDs.
• Contribute to the M&E of the Partnership impact in programme countries.
• Perform market research and analysis to improve availability and affordability of NCD supplies.
• Circulate and keep up to date the Partnership’s knowledge bank in all matters related to the 4 pillars on work.

PERFORMANCE INDICATORS FOR EVALUATION OF RESULTS

The performance indicators for evaluation of results for this assignment are the following:

• Timely and quality submission of deliverables.
• Activities implemented with a high degree of effectiveness and efficiency.
• High degree of professionalism demonstrated by the trainee.

SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES

• Will have strong research and analytical skills, with the ability to quickly understand and internalize different public health and partnership related topics.
• Demonstrated diplomatic skills and excellent interpersonal skills with sensitivity to cultural and political differences.
• Good knowledge and experience of outreach and internal communication tools for a wide audience.
• Excellent oral and written skills; excellent drafting, formulation, reporting skills.
• Knowledge in using project management tool Asana (https://asana.com) on a daily basis is required for this assignment. Certification as an Asana Certified Pros (https://academy.asana.com/series/certified-pro-courses) or Asana Ambassador (https://academy.asana.com/series/asana-ambassador-courses) is preferred. Completion of relevant courses on Asana Academy (https://academy.asana.com) in order to enrol on the Asana Ambassador programme is required within one month of starting this assignment.
• The assignment requires the trainee to be self-sufficient and arrange to be equipped with the requisite professional tools and equipment to carry out this assignment such as laptop and a mobile phone.

REPORTING STRUCTURE

The reporting line will be determined based on the assignment location.

QUALIFICATIONS

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

Eligibility Criteria

• Master's degree or equivalent in public health, global health, and/or Graduate degree in Medicine or equivalent, from an accredited and recognized academic institution is required.
• Applicants must be enrolled in an undergraduate/graduate/postgraduate degree or be a recent graduate of the aforementioned qualifications (if selected, they must commence the traineeship within two years of graduation).
• Candidates should also have demonstrated, interest in event planning, customer service, administrative support, research and drafting, communications and marketing.

Languages

• Fluency in spoken and written English is required.

DESIRED REQUIREMENTS

Knowledge of another United Nations official language is an asset.

Deadline for submission of applications: We accept applications on a rolling basis

Duration of Assignment: twelve months. On an exceptional basis, the duration of a Traineeship assignment may be reduced to meet the availability and academic requirements of the Trainee, as well as the needs of The Defeat-NCD Partnership.

This is a full-time Traineeship assignment, and the selected trainees shall be expected to work five days a week.

Number of Vacancies: Multiple

Duty Station: Multiple

Indicative starting date: as soon as possible

HOW TO APPLY

Send a letter of motivation and P11 form or Curriculum Vitae to secretariat@defeat-ncd.org with the following subject line: “Public Health Traineeship – The Defeat-NCD Partnership”

Due to the high number of expected applications, UNITAR will only contact shortlisted applicants.

Job Email id: secretariat(at)defeat-ncd.org