Senior Program Officer – Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – New Delhi

Foundation Summary

Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, the foundation is led by CEO Sue Desmond-Hellmann and co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.

Group Summary

The goal of the Global Development Program (GDP) is to increase opportunities for people in the developing world to lift themselves out of hunger and poverty and to help deliver targeted healthcare solutions in these regions. Our strategies focus on Agriculture Development; Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene; Financial Services for the Poor; and Family Health which includes Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, Family Planning, and Nutrition. These strategies are supported by functional teams that focus on Vaccine Delivery and Integrated Delivery. GDP also has Special Initiatives that focus Urban Poverty, Emergency Relief, Global Libraries and Value for the Money.

The India Country Office (ICO) plays a leading role advancing the foundation’s goals of reducing inequities in global health and development in India supporting the Government of India. Effective advocacy efforts are critical to understanding and shaping important public policy debates around issues affecting our work, building public support for our major program and policy objectives, and building partnerships and alliances with other influential actors who can advance shared objectives.

Our New Delhi office oversees the foundation’s work in India, which includes partnerships with India’s central and state governments, nonprofit organizations, community groups, academic institutions, and the private sector. We began our work in India more than a decade ago with an initiative to curtail the spread of HIV. Since then, the scope of our work in India has expanded tremendously to include maternal and child health, health and nutrition services, vaccines and routine immunization, family planning, agricultural development, sanitation, and the control of infectious diseases. Because our mission and India’s strategy for the future are closely aligned, we have formed fruitful partnerships with government devoted to our shared goals. Given our focus on improving conditions for the poorest populations, we are making significant investments in two states, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Given our vantage point across programs, our technical experts look for holistic, integrated or cross-cutting solutions that overcome system impediments effectively and efficiently. We encourage staff and partners to put the user at the center of our program solutions, and design integrated and efficient program models that best meet human needs – breaking the silos. We proactively identify delivery challenges across program strategy teams and develop and manage strategies and investment portfolios to advance foundation outcomes. The Integrated Delivery team is accountable for contributions to program strategy outcomes, and also indicators related to primary care system performance, improved integration, and demonstrating performance in designing, introducing, and scaling high impact interventions.

Position Summary & Responsibilities

The focus of the India Family Planning (FP) strategy is to expand method choice for birth spacing with a focus on 15-24 years old women through the public and private sectors aimed at accelerating progress towards the country’s FP2020 goals. The strategy supports the national government to introduce and scale up innovative approaches that increase supply and demand for spacing methods, with a focus on priority states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

The SPO will provide overall leadership to further develop and execute the India FP Strategy. S/he will develop and manage investments that support innovative approaches to improve access, especially among 15-24-year-old women; to improve method mix by introducing new contraceptive methods; and to strengthen quality of care through availability of counseling task shifting in family planning service delivery, and performance monitoring. S/he will also lead on investments that aim to change social norms, especially gender norms that impact decisions related to early marriage and child bearing, and use of newer contraceptives. The SPO will develop investments that support total market approaches for family planning, leveraging the private sector and partnerships with the government. This role also entails building institutional capability in government and other institutions to ensure sustainability of foundation-supported initiatives and continuous innovation in the delivery of family planning. S/he will also manage relationships with senior technical officers of national and state governments, donors, and implementing partners to ensure coordination and collaboration for greater collective impact

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

•Lead further development of the Family Planning strategy for the India Country Office (ICO) of the foundation, in alignment with the foundation’s broader/global Family Planning Program strategy and with other program strategies relevant to India
•Develop and manage investments (grants and/or contracts) to execute activities in support of programmatic goals, while ensuring that interventions and investments can be replicated and sustained at scale.
•Work in partnership with foundation colleagues in India and Seattle to build and manage relationships with donors, government, private sector, implementers, and other external partners to develop innovative results-driven plans and interventions
•Collaborate with the foundation’s Bihar and Uttar Pradesh initiative teams state Technical Support Units, and other implementing partners to ensure that the family planning program is being implemented in alignment with strategic priorities.
•Manage investment in the National Technical Support Unit (TSU) to provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) in alignment with its strategic priorities; and develop and implement a strategy to transition key technical assistance capabilities to a new institutional mechanism to be owned and sustained by the government.
•Collaborate with the Monitoring, Learning, & Evaluation (MLE) team at ICO to ensure high quality results frameworks, monitoring, and evaluation of grants and to enhance use of data to improve program performance and to inform strategic decisions and future investments.
•Use data and learning from foundation-supported investments and global evidence to consult with grantees and other partners to ensure continuous learning that shapes strategy, policy, and programs.
•Organize partners meetings, convene technical and strategic consultations as needed
•Conduct thorough analyses of grants and contracts, grantee progress reports; write high quality briefing documents and portfolio reviews that synthesize results and learnings for leadership and the FP team.
•Provide impactful thought leadership on a wide range of family planning and reproductive health issues that shape national polices and shape the global discourse and practice.

Core Knowledge, Skills and Competencies

• Passion for solving complex problems related to delivery of health care, particularly improving access to quality family planning and reproductive health services for women and girls

• Results-driven and self-motivated with ability to inspire the pursuit of excellence

• Strong, multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral strategic planning and management skills

• Extensive experience in designing and implementing innovative and impactful approaches to health care delivery, including family planning/reproductive health, through the public and private sectors

• Strong understanding of data, and ability to use diverse kinds of data to design and manage strategy and investments

• Knowledge of the family planning context in India and the region; and familiarity with related areas of health

systems, policy and financing; gender and rights; and socio-economic determinants of health.

• Experience in engaging government, donors, and implementing partners (including the private sector) to

develop and effectively manage strategic partnerships

• Proven ability to structure and manage high-return, well-risk-mitigated grants, with clear milestones and

outcomes; with experience in developing this skill in others.

• Excellent analytical thinking and communications skills, including writing and public speaking skills with a fluency

in Hindi and English

• Familiarity with policy, advocacy, and strategic communications for advancing programmatic goals

• Demonstrated ability to work in a highly matrixed and diverse work environment, and also effectively engage

diverse external stakeholders

• Work on complex matters or unique issues requiring diplomacy and judgment

• Ability to travel up to 40% of time domestically and internationally

Qualification

Master’s/MPH, MBA, PhD or MD with 15 + years of experience in family planning & reproductive health in diverse contexts including substantive experience in India. Additional, relevant experience in strategic planning, investment, and/or policy and advocacy is preferred.
•Experience in a Global Firm/Multinational company
As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be contingent upon successful completion of a comprehensive background check.

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As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We’re committed to creating a workplace where employees thrive both personally and professionally. We also believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve—in race, gender, age, cultures and beliefs—and we support this diversity through all of our employment practices.

All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve the mission of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to:

* Race

* Color

* Age

* Religion

* Pregnancy

* Sex

* Sexual Orientation

* Disability

* Gender Identity

* Gender Expression

* National Origin

* Genetic Information

* Veteran Status

* Marital Status

* Prior Protected Activity

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