Project Overview

The goal of the Emergency Response Team (ERT) Health is to reduce morbidity and mortality among populations affected by acute emergencies through the provision of emergency health interventions. The Medair ERT works across all states of South Sudan in response to acute emergencies: displacement due to conflict or disasters, returnee/refugee influxes, disease outbreaks, and emergency malnutrition levels. The ERT has teams across four sectors – Health, Nutrition, Emergency Shelter/Non-Food Items, and WASH, with teams often working together in field sites. Multiple emergency response sites are active at any given time.

Key Activity Areas

Coordination/Representation

• Attend the weekly Ministry of Health Emergency Preparedness and Response (EP&R) meetings and weekly Emergency Responders Meeting (ERM) with other mobile health actors. Potentially chair the ERM on a rotational basis with other mobile health actors. Take part in other technical working groups when relevant to specific outbreak responses, such as cholera, COVID-19, and EPI technical working groups.
• Proactively network and coordinate with the Health Cluster and health agencies to seek out opportunities for locations to assess and respond to.
• Coordinate with the funding manager and advisor(s), to review and update Project Coordination Agreements, Memorandum of Understandings, and other agreements in place with UN agencies, government ministries, and NGO partners relating to ERT health work.

Quality Management/Project Design

• Responsible for ensuring project implementation is according to Medair policy and compliant with Medair, donor, South Sudan and international guidelines.
• Responsible for setting objectives of emergency health assessments and interventions, monitoring progress against agreed indicators and exit planning, in liaison with the Project Coordinator and Health Advisor.
• Decide on new activities and project sites and provide input regarding future project growth and changes needed.
• Work with Project Coordinator and Health Advisor to improve the quality of the health project, to improve the quality of the assessments, monitoring and evaluation, implementation of Core Humanitarian Standards and protection mainstreaming. Develop and maintain health ERT resources to improve capacity for rapid response.

Staff management

• Make decisions on staff planning and movement in and out of the field, based on emergency needs. Coordinate and approve RnRs and holidays for staff. Conduct staff appraisals and enforce disciplinary policies.
• Look for relevant training opportunities for all staff in liaison with Health Advisor, and advocate for different, emergency response training opportunities where appropriate to the role, such as access negotiation.
• Interview potential national, regional, and international staff, make recommendations for final hiring decisions in collaboration on technical suitability from the Health Advisor.

Logistics

• Final authority for all health requests going to the logs and finance departments. Work with ERT Logistics team to prevent stock outages and ensure stock requests, purchase requests, cash forecasts and movement requests are submitted appropriately in Juba. Work with ERT Logistics team to ensure health teams are adequately supported in the field – food, water, supplies, budget, etc.

Financial Management

• Review and approve all project expenditures and expense coding. Ensure proper financial procedures are followed by the health team. Track expenses against project budgets, working with the Project Coordinator and Finance Officer to address issues of over or under-spending.
• Draft annual budgets for health and emergency response projects. Approve expenditures or purchase requests.

Security Management

• Responsible for completing Security Risk Assessments for health interventions.
• Monitoring security situation for teams in the field and working with Project Coordinator to take actions.
• Responsible for ensuring field team compliance with security procedures; ensure teams are equipped with appropriate communications equipment, quick run bags, security money, and security equipment.
• Responsible for ongoing monitoring of security situation, gathering information from various sources and feeding back important information to Medair management.

Reporting and Communications

• Write or compile ToRs, MOUs, and reports, and send to the Project Coordinator and Health Advisor for approval.
• Provide programme data for ERT donor reports, to the Funding Manager and Health Advisor prior to submission to donors. Responsible for open communication regarding project planning and implementation with the Project Coordinator, Health Advisor, and other key staff.
• Provide photographs and information at the request of the Communications Officer, Project Coordinator, or GSO, to provide to donors and for fundraising purposes.

Team Spiritual Life

• Reflect the values of Medair with team members, local staff, beneficiaries, and external contacts.
• Work, live, and pray together in our Christian faith-based team settings. Fully contribute to the rich spiritual life of your team, including team devotions, prayers, and words of encouragement.
• Encouraged to join and contribute to Medair’s international prayer network.

This job description covers the main tasks that are anticipated. Other tasks may be assigned as necessary.

Qualifications

• Diploma or degree in Nursing / Midwifery or qualification as a Medical Doctor. Public health degree and training in tropical medicine an asset.
• Strong working knowledge of English (spoken and written).

Experience

• 2 years post-qualification professional experience in a relevant field. 1 year of management experience.
• 1 year of overseas experience in primary health care or emergency context.
• Experience in managing emergency health responses in developing countries desirable.
• Experience of acute malnutrition management in primary health care or emergency context desirable.
• Knowledge and experience of primary health care principles and management.
• Ability and willingness to manage project implementation. Willingness to support others and to share workload.

All new deploying international staff to Medair’s country programmes (and other roles which require field travel) should be fully vaccinated with a WHO-approved COVID vaccine, supported with a COVID vaccination certificate as evidence.