Strategic Information Advisor at Palladium Group Full Time

Job Title: Strategic Information Advisor

Requisition ID: req17780
Location: Abuja,

Project Overview and Role

• In April 2019, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded the implementation of the Translating Data for Implementation (Data.FI) cooperative agreement to a consortium led by Palladium. Data.FI is a $180 million, 5-year project which will serve as USAID’s primary mechanism for data, technology, and health information systems to support HIV activities across strategic President’s Emergency Program for AIDSRelief (PEPFAR) countries as part of a suite of large-scale global HIV programs representing the next generation of HIV/AIDS programs. The project will play a key role in USAID’s goals of helping partner countries on their journey to self-reliance and transitioning local organizations to prime recipients of US Government funding.
• The project’s overall goal is to improve in-depth global, regional, and national analyses of HIV epidemiologic and program data that can be directly applied to expedite the achievement of PEPFAR targets to attain and sustain control of the HIV epidemic.
• The focus also includes directly supporting host country governments and implementing partners to enhance existing health information system platforms further to inform management responses to well-defined HIV/AIDS programming gaps.
• To ensure rapid access to high-quality data, Data.FI is working towards accelerating data utilization to rapidly course-correct and take to scale cost-effective and impactful activities, models, and approaches required to attain and maintain HIV epidemic control; scaling and optimizing in-country health information system capabilities to collect, exchange, adapt, govern, and visualize information to track the attainment and maintenance of HIV epidemic control, and supporting the transition of prime funding and implementation to capable local partners.

Purpose of Position

• Palladium/Data.FI is seeking a Strategic Information (SI) Advisor to support USAID and Data.FI Nigeria SI teams and in collaboration with PEPFAR service delivery implementing partners (IPs), the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs (FMWA), and other stakeholders in the Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) program.
• The Advisor will provide holistic technical support for the OVC program and key focal point in the deployment and scale-up efforts for the National OVC Management Information System (NOMIS) application across states in Nigeria.
• Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
• The SI Advisor will report to the Deputy Country Director.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

• Provide technical support in OVC indicators performance management at the national and state level, working with OVC partners to implement best data practices and tracking the performance of OVC custom indicators.
• Provide technical M&E backstop for USAID OVC SI, program teams in relation to reporting requirements in the Automated Partner Performance Reporting (APPR) platform and OVC custom indicators.
• Conduct routine analysis of the OVC and Gender programs to provide key insights for the realignment of strategies; regular analysis and reviews of National and state-level performance on key priority indicators.
• Act as the Product Owner for the NOMIS system and lead the deployment effort across the Operation Unit (OU) – USAID, DOD, and CDC IPs.
• Provide technical support in implementing routine data quality assessment for the OVC program across the USAID-supported states adopting a standardized approach per the PEPFAR, USAID Mission, and national guidelines.
• Working with the Senior Data Use Advisor, lead the institutionalization of Data.FI’s Situation Room approach at the OVC Situation Room, collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs (FMWA), support implementation of the situation room methodology for data review across other USAID states of interest.
• Provide technical support for the National OVC situation analysis and lead Data.FI technical role at the consortium of partners in the activity
• Collaborate with the FMWA to strengthen the OVC Information Technology Team (ITT) to sustain the support for NOMIS.
• Represent Data.FI in OVC, Gender, and NOMIS national technical working groups.
• Lead the capacity-strengthening efforts in data use, data analytics, and visualization at the FMWA staff in a bid to sustain Data.FI efforts at the FMWA.
• Facilitate trainings on data use and related topics with FMWA, implementing partners teams, and state ministries, including taking creative approaches to providing support in low-bandwidth environments.
• Build a case and action plan for increasing data use for programmatic and budget decision-making at national and state levels.
• Develop and implement quality assurance and improvement approaches, plans, and tools, focusing on data quality assessments and program improvement plans for the OVC program.
• Conduct quarterly data quality scores across the data systems for the OVC program, i.e., Data for Accountability, Transparency and Impact Monitoring (DATIM), APPR, National Data Repository (NDR), and patient-level data.
• Produce data quality dashboards and reports; implement data quality strategies to effectively govern data and improve data quality.
• Work with other implementing partners to strengthen the data analytics and visualization capabilities of APPR System 2.0, DHIS2, situation rooms, and other platforms.
• Provide ad-hoc support for GIS mapping requests for the COVID-19 activity.
• Support the USAID SI team as required in response to data demands.
• Implement any other duties assigned per the dynamic programming environment defined by USAID.

Required Qualifications

•  A Bachelor’s Degree in Public Health, Statistics, Health Informatics, Computer Science, Monitoring and Evaluation or a related field.
• At least five years’ experience working with health management information systems or routine health information systems.
• Experience working with HIV/AIDS and OVC programs, including DHIS 2 preferred.
• Skills in data analysis with proficiency in a statistical package i.e., Stata, SPSS, advanced excel, or Business Intelligence applications.
• Previous experience conducting State/LGA, and facility data assessments and data reviews.
• Working knowledge of patient-level and aggregate data management systems.
• Ability to work well under pressure, skills in crisis management and problem solving.
• Excellent written and verbal skills in English; ability to communicate technical information to audiences with varying levels of technical expertise.

Application Closing Date
Not Specified.