CHAI has a long history of supporting ministries of health to strengthen community-based approaches to expand access to care, increase service uptake, and accelerate progress toward universal health coverage and disease-specific objectives. We focus on developing evidence-based community health policies and implementation plans, building robust community-based information systems, fostering multi-sectoral collaboration, and aligning Community Health Worker (CHW) programs with best practices. CHAI seeks a highly motivated individual to lead this portfolio of work within Cameroon.

This role involves supporting the government of Cameroon in fortifying existing CHW platforms to optimize their case management and surveillance contributions. The goal is to integrate CHWs as sustainable, cross-cutting community health infrastructure within the country’s health system. Beyond providing technical support to ongoing CHW programs, the successful candidate will identify and pursue strategic opportunities to further strengthen community health. This includes contributing to the implementation of the BIRCH project, developing sustainable, scalable community health systems integrated into primary healthcare, and optimizing CHW contributions to preventive and curative malaria, TB, and HIV intervention coverages.

The ideal candidate has experience strengthening CHW programs, from a policy or implementation standpoint. The individual should possess strong technical, organizational, and project management skills, coupled with exceptional communication and cultural sensitivity. The ability to conduct rapid analysis and effectively convey findings is essential. Given the role’s focus on Cameroon, frequent domestic travel is required.

• Serve as a trusted community health advisor to the CHAI country team and external stakeholders, including (national and subnational) government bodies and non-governmental organizations.
• Lead comprehensive assessments of the community health program to generate evidence for updating the national CHW strategy, including conducting midterm reviews, maturity assessments, financial resource mapping, gap analysis, and developing strategic tools and interventions.
• Assist in developing and executing evidence-based community health policies, strategies, and operational plans to increase effective coverage of community-based malaria and non-malaria interventions.
• Strengthen systems and processes for the collection, integration and analysis of CHW data.
• Routinely track and analyse CHW data to make recommendations for continuous quality improvement processes within CHW programs; use data and evidence to inform targeted improvements to training and supervision, resource mobilization strategies, and grant applications.
• Identify opportunities for multi-sectoral collaboration, ensuring that community health is integrated across health initiatives and that efforts are aligned with broader health and development goals.
• Lead knowledge-sharing activities to document and exchange lessons learned across regions.
• Foster strong relationships and collaboration with community leaders and organizations and engage them to contribute to building effective community health systems.
• Identify new opportunities within Cameroon for collaboration, partnership, and funding.

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent with 5 years of work experience; or advanced degree with 2 years of relevant work experience.
• Fluency in English and French, with proficiency in both written and verbal communication.
• Demonstrated technical expertise in community health systems and community health work.
• Strong cross-cultural communication and diplomacy skills.
• Demonstrated analytical, leadership, and problem-solving skills.
• Experience conducting evaluations and literature reviews.
• Ability to work independently and with teams across time zones and locations, managing multiple tasks effectively in high-pressure situations.
• Experience working in high-risk and low/middle-income countries
• Strong work ethic, integrity, credibility, and dedication to CHAI’s mission and values.
• High proficiency with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Advantages

• Experience working and communicating with government officials and multilateral organizations in Africa.
• An MPH or MS in public health, Epidemiology, or relevant public health experience.
• Familiarity with monitoring and evaluation of surveillance systems and public health programs.
• Experience with research or programming on malaria or other infectious diseases.
• Experience with case management, disease surveillance, and/or supply chain management.
• Practical experience in providing technical support in developing countries, preferably in Africa.

This position offers a unique opportunity to significantly impact public health in Cameroon. If you are passionate about health systems – especially community health systems – and possess the necessary skills and experience, we encourage you to apply.

Responsibilities

We are seeking an Associate to join the Global Vaccines Delivery Team to strengthen CHAI’s work in Immunization Supply chains both at the global level and in focal countries. This role falls within the global Cold Chain Logistics (CCL) team, which works with governments to remove cold- and supply-chain issues as a barrier to improved coverage. However, the position may also require working beyond CCL topics to address programmatic gaps affecting immunization objectives

The Associate will partner with CHAI country teams, CCL team leadership/members, and regional managers and other stakeholders on the following initiatives:

1. Provide high-value strategic and programmatic support to dramatically improve the performance of country immunization supply chains in collaboration with countries

• Provide critical input on the approaches needed to meet in-country grant and program objectives related to immunization cold chain and supply chains, in line with the program strategy and model
• Support development of both program-wide and country-specific objectives and strategies regarding immunization cold chain and supply chain, emphasizing ambitious and transformational goals
• Contribute to the design, planning and execution of high-impact projects to sustainably transform the vaccine supply chain and cold chain in one or more CHAI focal countries. Projects could include:
• Supporting in-country introduction or scale-up of last-mile delivery approaches to improve vaccine stock availability and system efficiency for the goal of increasing immunization coverage
• Supporting in-country scale-up of immunization supply chain data review mechanisms to improve program performance
• Enabling improved cold chain integration to store other essential health commodities like oxytocin in vaccine cold chain equipment by assessing bottlenecks and system enablers required to scale efforts safely and effectively
• Introducing effective cold chain management systems, with a focus on performance monitoring and maintenance of CCE
• Identifying and implementing immunization supply chain interventions to enable service network extension strategies that increase access to immunization in under-served and/or low-coverage areas

2. Support CHAI’s ability to deliver and disseminate high-quality and impactful work across diverse operating contexts and content areas

• Support the continuous development and effective dissemination of programmatic strategy across CHAI teams, including the development of ‘tool kits’, lessons learned, and other know-how related to immunization supply chains and cold chains
• Support the ramp-up of new and existing CHAI staff (at both the global level and in focus countries) in supply chain and cold chain topics, leveraging the institutional knowledge from the CHAI vaccines program and new insights developed by the associate

3. Inform global practices and policies related to immunization and immunization supply chains

• Cultivate robust evidence bases, insightful analytical perspectives, and lessons learned from CHAI and other partners to inform global policies/practices and promote improved vaccine supply chain and cold chain outcomes
• Distill CHAI’s programmatic insights into formats that can influence the global immunization community, global policies and country practices beyond CHAI focus countries. This includes supporting CHAI’s participation in key working groups (e.g., EPI manager meetings, ESA regional meetings, Immunization Supply Chain Steering Committee, TechNet, etc.)
• Develop and expand productive relationships with critical global stakeholders (e.g., Gavi, BMGF, UNICEF SD/PD, PATH, JSI, VillageReach) and foster effective exchange of know-how across them

4. Support program and grant management — with a focus on vaccine supply chain and cold chain work — in collaboration with program, regional and country leadership

• Assess progress against overall objectives and milestones in focus areas and help prepare high-quality briefings for donors and CHAI management, including achievements to date, action plan going forward, and key risks/opportunities
• Working with regional and program management, ensure that progress is properly monitored and evaluated, in line with grant commitments and internal review needs
• Contribute as a member of the global vaccine team to the effectiveness and collegiality of the team, helping identify opportunities and improve CHAI’s vaccine program and team

• Bachelor’s degree (Master’s preferred); preference for fields related to business, health policy, logistics systems
• At least 4 or 5 years of relevant professional experience
• Exceptional skills in problem-solving and system design
• Strong analytical skills, including qualitative and quantitative data (e.g. data, business case, and health impact analyses)
• Excellent communication skills in English, including synthesis and presentation across common business media (summary reports, slide decks, and other presentations)
• Strong interpersonal and cross-cultural communication skills, with a proven ability to build relationships in a multicultural (and often remote) work environment
• Demonstrated capacity to synthesize evidence into effective presentations and actionable recommendations for a broad range of audiences, anticipating working in-country (e.g. Ministries of Health, district officials) and globally (e.g. donors, policymakers)
• High emotional intelligence, patience and thoughtfulness even in high-pressure, stressful situations. This includes a proven ability to build and maintain strong relationships in a complex environment with occasional tensions or conflicts
• Proven project management skills, including the ability to work effectively in a high-pressure environment, handling multiple tasks simultaneously
• Entrepreneurial mindset, including the ability to set priorities, be self-motivated, propose and implement new initiatives
• Strong commitment to CHAI’s and the Vaccine team’s mission; a dedicated team player
• Ability to travel extensively (at least 20% of the time) to focus on countries and other locations as needed for work (for in-country support, global working groups, conferences, etc.)

Advantages

• Knowledge of vaccines, health programs, health supply chains, or cold chain
• Understanding of capacity development and change management approaches
• Experience in a top-tier management or supply chain consulting firm
• Experience working in developing countries or ‘last mile’ operating environments – preferably within health or public sectors

• Lead program management and reporting for the SCD program with support from their supervisor.
• Manage, coordinate, and develop inputs for routine reporting and donor updates, as well as ad hoc reporting needs, including requesting, reviewing, and consolidating inputs across numerous CHAI teams.
• Support the SCD Leadership Team in fostering a collaborative environment by facilitating information sharing, drafting agendas and meeting slides, supporting meeting planning, taking and organizing notes and follow-ups, etc.
• Ensure strong working relationships with key stakeholders across government and non-governmental organizations, working on relevant SCD sustainability goals.
• Support strategic collaborations with numerous internal teams and stakeholders, donor(s), and other external stakeholders to advance Program goals and facilitate cross-organizational coordination and execution.
• Develop clear presentations and reports to share findings and recommendations for internal and external audiences.
• Represent CHAI effectively in presentations and forums on SCD.
• Work with their program supervisor to evolve responsibilities as The Program demands.
• Any other tasks assigned by the supervisor

In addition to those capabilities listed above:

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent plus ten years work experience; Advanced Degree or equivalent plus eight years work experience; or equivalent work experience.
• Experience managing complex programs and providing strategic guidance or supporting business strategies in fields pertinent to global health.
• Strong interpersonal and stakeholder engagement skills, with proven ability to build and maintain strong relationships in a diverse environment.
• Previous experience managing and leading teams to deliver high-impact results.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• High proficiency in Microsoft Office, project management tools such as MS Project or Smartsheet, and robust data visualization skills.
• Exceptional problem-solving and critical-thinking skills.
• Able to identify and pursue high-impact strategies in an evolving environment.

Advantages:

• Extensive knowledge of Sickle Cell Disease.