The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to our mission of saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries. We work at the invitation of governments to support them and the private sector to create and sustain high-quality health systems.
CHAI was founded in 2002 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic with the goal of dramatically reducing the price of life-saving drugs and increasing access to these medicines in the countries with the highest burden of the disease. Over the following two decades, CHAI has expanded its focus. Today, along with HIV, we work in conjunction with our partners to prevent and treat infectious diseases such as COVID-19, malaria, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Our work has also expanded into cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and other non-communicable diseases, and we work to accelerate the rollout of lifesaving vaccines, reduce maternal and child mortality, combat chronic malnutrition, and increase access to assistive technology. We are investing in horizontal approaches to strengthen health systems through programs in human resources for health, digital health, and health financing. With each new and innovative program, our strategy is grounded in maximizing sustainable impact at scale, ensuring that governments lead the solutions, that programs are designed to scale nationally, and learnings are shared globally.
At CHAI, our people are our greatest asset, and none of this work would be possible without their talent, time, dedication and passion for our mission and values. We are a highly diverse team of enthusiastic individuals across 40 countries with a broad range of skillsets and life experiences. CHAI is deeply grounded in the countries we work in, with majority of our staff based in program countries. Learn more about our exciting work: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org
CHAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and is committed to providing an environment of fairness, and mutual respect where all applicants have access to equal employment opportunities. CHAI values diversity and inclusion, and recognizes that our mission is best advanced by the leadership and contributions of people with diverse experience, backgrounds, and culture.
Program Summary
Unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions drive high rates of preventable mortality and morbidity in low and middle income countries (LMICs). CHAI’s Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) program aims to ensure that all individuals are empowered to access information, products and services that will meet their sexual and reproductive health needs. We aim to significantly reduce unmet need for modern contraception and the incidence of unsafe abortions in program countries within the next 5 years. To accomplish our goals, we’re pursuing 3 strategic objectives:
- Scale up access to new and underutilized products to increase choice for women and better meet their needs and preferences.
- Increase SRH commodity security through global and country supply chain strengthening and improved financing for SRH products.
- Design and strengthen client-centric service delivery models that will reach key populations with SRH services.
We pursue global and country-focused market shaping opportunities for SRH products to create an enabling environment for the introduction and scale up of quality-assured products and services in LMICs. At the global level, we are working to ensure that a diversified supplier base can meet demand for key products and ensure commodities are affordable and of high quality. We also coordinate donors and partners around a global product strategy. At the country level, CHAI works with governments to develop national SRH scale-up plans with clear targets; use data to coordinate partner resources against the plan and achieve targets; strengthen national forecasting and quantification; address supply chain bottlenecks; improve health worker training; and strengthen performance management for the health system.
The Global SRH Team works across the CHAI matrix to support the application of global learning and best practices and provide thought-partnership and technical assistance to programs implemented by in-country teams who own our valued relationships with partner governments and who possess critical knowledge of local context and operating conditions. Underlying our approach is our commitment to achieving sustainable, transformational change at scale by working in a way that strengthens health systems and government capabilities to improve SRH outcomes. In addition, leveraging our experience in product introduction, the SRH program is pioneering new approaches to transform the way product introductions are done by establishing processes and systems that support governments to lead management of SRH markets in Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zambia, and by proving out a responsive demand-side funding mechanism that incentivizes alignment with government plans (the Catalytic Opportunity Fund).
Position Summary
The Associate will support two separate work streams focused on 1) evaluating the Catalytic Opportunity Fund’s (COF) impact on product introduction and its effectiveness as a funding mechanism and 2) establishing a knowledge management database for previous and existing SRH work streams.
This position will report to the Associate Director, Operations & Finance. This position will work in close partnership with other GSRH team members focused on SRH Supplies and those focused on regional and country support of SRH programs. This role will solicit input and interact with key internal cross-functional stakeholders and country teams working on the broader SRMNH portfolio. This is a 10–12-week position with a flexible start and end date, with a preference for a start date no later than June 1, 2023.
Global SRH: Supplies-focused Support Opportunities
The availability of a broad range of quality reproductive health products – including contraceptives, maternal and newborn health medicines, and commodities for safe abortion – is essential to avoiding unwanted pregnancies, maternal mortality, and unsafe abortions. CHAI is currently supporting the introduction of several reproductive health products globally, including medication abortion (MA), subcutaneous injectable contraceptives (DMPA-SC) and hormonal IUD.
CHAI manages a mechanism that pools funds from several donors to fund product introduction activities at the country level. The Catalytic Opportunity Fund (COF) funds high-impact product introduction activities that cannot be funded by in-country resources, as identified through the country’s planning and resource mapping processes. This model allows for rapid deployment of funding for strategic gaps in a country’s product introduction plan. Governments may be recipients of the funds, further supporting government-led implementation of scale-up activities. The COF currently funds Hormonal IUD, DMPA-SC, and MA Combipack scale-up activities and advocacy activities to tackle policy barriers for DMPA-SC. Evaluation of the COF’s impact on product introduction and its effectiveness as a funding mechanism is critical to help it transition and evolve as part of the future of demand-side financing for product introduction. Examples of key questions the Associate will be tasked with evaluating include: What % of scale-up has the COF contributed (e.g., comparing # of trained providers trained by COF funds vs. those trained by other scale-up funds)? What is the cost per trained provider via the COF? In what ways is a short-term financing mechanism effective at addressing policy barriers?
Global SRH: Knowledge Management Support Opportunities
The Associate will be responsible for developing and editing a variety of materials that effectively articulate the work of CHAI’s SRH program to both internal (CHAI country and global teams) and external (donors, partner organizations, governments) audiences. The Associate will work closely with the Global SRH Senior Director to develop a knowledge management database that ensures best practices and lessons learned are appropriately documented and shared. Writing assignments will focus on synthesizing and documenting successes and key lessons learned, leveraging content from donor reports, proposals, and annual reports to create 2-pagers, compelling case studies, and slide deck presentations, among others. The Associate will be responsible for managing timelines with relevant content contributors.