Advisor, Monitoring & Evaluation, Saving Newborn Lives (Job Code: AME-SNL)
Save the Children, India
Location: New Delhi with travel as needed
Last date of Applications: 22nd December 2013
Save the Children (SC) is the world’s leading independent child rights’ organization: it fights for children’s rights and delivers immediate and lasting improvement to children’s lives worldwide. SC has existed in India since the pre-Independence days. Save the Children, India (SCI) is the 28th independent member of the International Save the Children Movement.
SC has agreed to make Newborn and Child Survival (NCS) the focus of their premier campaign around the world over the next 5 years with SCI playing a lead role in the campaign. In October 2009, SCI launched the EVERY ONE campaign. Our vision is that no child under the age of five die from preventable causes, and public attitudes in India will not tolerate a return to previously high levels of infant and child deaths. Our goal is that Millennium Development Goal 4 is achieved.
The Saving Newborn Lives (SNL) program of Save the Children, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has made a major contribution over the last decade in bringing the issue of newborn survival to global and national agendas. It has produced landmark publications on critical newborn needs, helped in identifying interventions to address the major killers of newborns, and assisted 19 countries in developing policies and strategies for newborn health including introduction of cost-effective new interventions. In India, SNL led the development of the country’s first ever report on newborn health titled ‘The State of India’s Newborns’ in 2004, and facilitated the development and sharing of SEARCH’s ground-breaking field trial on ‘Home-Based Newborn Care’ which has now been adopted by the Government of India as one of the key national health programs.
There is growing recognition that the key to achieving MDG-4 is to tackle the increasing proportion of neonatal mortality as a subset of under-five mortality, and the next critical step is to demonstrate effective implementation at scale of the newborn health programs. In order to ‘bend the curve’, SNL in its third phase (2013-2017) is working through active collaborations and strategic partnerships in India to develop, apply and document successful implementation approaches to achieve effective coverage at scale.
Job Purpose
One of the key objectives of SNL’s work-plan is to provide state-of-the-art technical assistance and catalytic resources for strengthening monitoring of implementation and outcomes, in order to promote accountability and action. In this regard SCI is looking for an Advisor to provide technical support in achieving the above mentioned objective. He/she will work under the overall guidance of the Technical Advisor – Newborn & assist the Director-Programmes and Director-Knowledge Management of SC India as and when required.
Main responsibilities
Specific responsibilities include but will not be limited to:
Measuring SNL progress, results, and performance
• Work with SNL global M&E staff to develop indicators and metrics to measure program success across all objectives, such as advocacy and partnership building.
• Work in close coordination with the SNL India team in design and implementation of research efforts (household surveys, formative research, qualitative research) to answer key questions on urban poor and other implementation questions
• Lead the process of data management (collection, validation, analysis) and presentation of results in user friendly formats
• Maintain databases of activities, reports, and products, compiled across all SNL geographical areas of work, and link them to SC India’s
• Compile and submit reports on time, including routine quarterly (QPR), annual (APR), and any other report required by SNL/BMGF.
Monitor implementation and outcomes of newborn health programs to promote accountability and action• Advocate for inclusion of globally standardized Neonatal Health Indicators within the Government Health Information systems (MCTS, HMIS, NFHS-4 etc.) for use in national programme management and decision-making; assist in making recommendations on how data can be used at state and district level for management and program planning
• Understand existing government and non-government monitoring and reporting systems, identify opportunities to improve reliability of data, and increase use of existing data for improving implementation of newborn programmes especially for urban areas
• Support SC India staff, government partners and other stakeholders to analyze and use information for evidence-informed policy making at the National, State and District levels.
• Assist the Child Health division, MoHFW in developing plans for routine information generation for Newborn Health programs (Facility-Based Newborn Care, Home-Based Newborn Care) using the available datasets, and support the development and dissemination of technical reports to various stakeholders
• Develop, pilot and support the implementation of new monitoring tools at various levels (National, State, District) to facilitate use of programmatic data for immediate action and remedial measures
General responsibilities:• Assist the SNL program team in the development of annual work-plans (AWP), including timelines and budgets, based on the 5 Year Strategic Plan, and help in in the preparation of Project Monitoring Plan (in the format as prescribed by the donor)
• Support SNL/SCI staff and counterparts to generate tables and graphs that help communicate information in such a way that it facilitates planning, action, and presentation of performance of SNL activities.
• Advise the KM/M&E team of SC India on how to strengthen monitoring and data management of Newborn Health under H&N projects, document results of data analysis in a form which is publishable and available for widespread circulation
• Represent SNL/SCI in professional meetings, conferences, technical advisory groups and seminars related to the advancement of M&E, and share the results and findings from the data analysis.
• Work in a collaborative environment with other SNL/SCI staff, and travel as needed to provide technical assistance to other SNL staff and counterparts for the design and implementation of monitoring and evaluation activities.
• Participate in regular meetings/phone calls with SNL global M&E staff and M&E staff from other countries.
Professional Qualifications & Experience
• Master’s degree or higher from a reputed institute/ university in Public health, Statistics, economics, demography, or related field
• Five years of progressively responsible, professional level experience with International NGOs/Donor agencies related to monitoring and evaluation, social science research, demographic research, and MIS
• Experience of working with government MIS systems viz. NRHM, RCH, NACP-3, RNTCP and handling large scale data sets preferred
• Demonstrated expertise in the use of Statistical and Demographic packages, including SPSS, STATA, EPINFO, etc. Preference will be given to those with experience in qualitative research methods.
• Ability to plan, implement and monitor project activities by applying proven management principles
• Thorough knowledge of monitoring and evaluation, social science, demographic research, data dissemination techniques, and data utilization for policy analysis and policy development in the area of NB.
• Ability to handle sensitive and complex issues diplomatically and to inspire confidence in GOI and other counterpart
• Knowledge of Government of India (GOI) health & population policies and programs
• Excellent interpersonal and communications skills in English and in Hindi, including writing skills in English and Hindi
• Willingness to travel to project field sites, if necessary
• Ability to build support from staff across teams, and to build the capacity of others.
• A commitment to support cross organisational initiatives.
• Experience working within budget constraints
• Ability to operate within a predominantly administratively self-servicing environment.
• Commitment to SC’s mission and values.
• Computer literate.
Save the Children aims to be an equal opportunity employer. Women candidates are encouraged to apply. Recruitment and selection procedures & checks reflect our commitment to protect children from abuse.
Senior Manager (Admin & Finance) (Apply by: Closed)
