Uganda: Senior Advisor I, Community Access

Overview:

Ipas is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending preventable deaths and disabilities from unsafe abortions. Through local, national and global partnerships, Ipas works to ensure women can obtain safe, respectful and comprehensive abortion care; including counseling and contraception to prevent unintended pregnancies.

The Senior Advisor I, Community Access has national level responsibilities to assure meaningful and effective integration of women’s reproductive health perspectives across Ipas’ outputs. The Senior Advisor I provides strategic guidance and technical assistance in designing, implementing and evaluating projects, and in integrating content and participation in Ipas’ programs across multiple community groups (unions, adolescents and youth, women’s groups) development coalitions and national bodies. The position is a country-level position, which primarily works with a country-based team and collaborates with other technical units organizationally, as well as with a range of external partners and stakeholders.

Responsibilities:

Key Responsibilities

• Leads the strategic design processes and the development of technical strategies for community access projects using proven Project Management Principles


• Leads in the design and implementation of country-level Social and Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) strategies to support local partnerships, activities and materials


• Designs community engagement and advocacy strategy and implement appropriate activities to build to promote women’s SRHR among stakeholders as appropriate


• Establishes and develops links with organizations, institutions and interested groups to promote knowledge, skills and social support so women can exercise their sexual and reproductive rights


• Leads in the design of curriculum and training for activities to increase knowledge, skills and abilities of women and community members to access SRHR.


• Identifies, designs and adapts qualitative tools to capture project outcomes, documents and shares results organizationally and as appropriate to stakeholders


• Designs and implements Ipas’ training and awareness raising programs in coordination with institutions/organizations with established agreements


• Monitors and conducts oversight to local partnerships and other Ipas-supported initiatives on comprehensive abortion care in the community


• Monitors and contributes to the analysis of community access results and summarizes technical results for cross-unit sharing and organizationally as appropriate


• Identifies, documents and shares best practices and seeks peer review for improving community outcomes and results


• Contributes to the design, implementation and analysis of evaluation of community based interventions and leads in the documentation and reporting of this body of work


• Participates in the planning, monitoring and evaluation processes of programs and projects, including new Ipas Clinical Affairs initiatives as they relate to institutional results


• Provides strategic guidance and technical inputs to ensure the project plans are consistent with the organizational strategy and operational plan


• Supports fundraising through donor document writing, reporting, and donor communication


• Ensures that all training and orientation materials include content that is applicable to different community groups


• Supports the accurate documentation and data from the field office to the Global Teams to ensure support documentation and organizational learning


• Represent Ipas at local community stakeholder fora as necessary as appropriate.

Performs other duties as assigned

Key Characteristics

• Strong communication skills


• Ability to work under strict project deadlines and milestones


• Attention to detail


• Drive for results

Professional Knowledge

• Must be able to independently produce project workplans, timelines and budgets, subject to supervisor approval


• Must have the ability to work with differing community populations including adolescents and women’s groups, especially in the areas of communication and training


• Working knowledge on behaviour change communications (SBCC or BCC preferred)


• Experience as a trainer/facilitator and working knowledge of adult learning techniques

Impact on Business

• Responsible for ensuring that processes, activities, programs and documents generated by Ipas integrate sufficient content appropriate for the audience


• Accountable for developing and improving comprehensive abortion care and contraceptive access for women and young girls


• Responsible for monitoring implementation progress of all community based demand generation initiatives to increase access to CAC and CC services in the community.

Internal & External Customers/Suppliers as well as Third Parties

• Collaborates with Advisors, Managers and appropriate colleagues to improve and implement community access activities and projects


• Works with advisors, managers, directors and technical units to uncover issues with existing programs and to brainstorm improvement initiatives


• Communicates with Research & Evaluation staff around field data and internal studies


• Communicates with outside project consultants to ensure projects are implemented in the appropriate manner and that community specific content is emphasized where applicable


• Manages relationships with key external stakeholders to promote youth friendly comprehensive abortion care services

People Leadership

• Serves in a lead capacity (activity lead) over assigned staff employees or consultants which typically involves scheduling, assigning tasks, providing guidance, and monitoring work output

Requirements:

Minimal Requirements

• B.A., B.S., or other relevant degree with a major in public health, communications, community development, or a related field required


• 9 – 10 years related experience with Bachelor’s degree or 7-8 with an advanced degree required


• Over 7 years’ project management experience required


• Experience working with a reproductive health projects


• Previous supervisory experience preferred

Preferred Requirements

• Knowledge and experience in community mobilization, capacity building and training of community groups


• Working knowledge of grant management


• Must be familiar with working with youths


• Knowledge of Uganda Ministry of Health Systems and community strategy.


• 60% travel

Physical Requirements

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  Kneeling – Light

  
  


• 
  

  Standing – Light

  
  


• 
  

  Walking – Light

  
  


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  Bending – Light

  
  


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  Lifting – Moderate

  
  


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  Sitting – Moderate

  
  


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  Talking – Moderate

  
  


• 
  

  Hearing – Moderate

  
  


• 
  

  Seeing – Moderate