Associate, Global Geospatial Health Information Full-Time

Overview

CHAI’s global malaria program provides direct technical and operational support to countries around the globe to strengthen their malaria programs and reduce the burden of this preventable, treatable disease. We support governments to scale up effective interventions for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and surveillance, with the goals of sustainably reducing the number of malaria-related illnesses and deaths worldwide in the short-term and accelerating progress towards malaria elimination in the long term.

Overview of Role

CHAI is seeking a highly motivated individual to support government programs in the storage, usage, and management of geospatial information using a Common Geo-Registry (CGR) towards the elimination of malaria. The Associate will work with CHAI regional and country teams, Ministries of Health (MoH), and other stakeholders in Mozambique and up to four other countries to assess the availability, quality, and accessibility of geographic data core to public health, understand and validate government interest, and develop CGR implementation plans for further investment.

A successful candidate will need to possess exceptional communication, organizational, and management skills as well as be able to work independently to drive implementation in complex environments and have deep personal commitment to producing results.  CHAI places great value on relevant personal qualities including resourcefulness, tenacity, independence, patience, humility, and strong work ethic.

Conduct a situational assessment for the implementation of a CGR in Mozambique and up to four additional countries.

• Develop an assessment framework to understand the current vision and use cases for a CGR in a country, technical capacity to manage and update master lists, partner landscape, and the current state of geospatial data;
• Work with CHAI country and regional teams to engage and work with relevant agencies, departments, and partners to conduct the situational assessment and advocate for the use of the CGR if appropriate;
• Assess the availability, quality, and accessibility of geographic data core to public health and malaria programs;

Formulate implementation plans for the CGR in Mozambique and up to four additional countries

• Work with stakeholders to develop a vision, strategy, and plan for the management and use of geospatial data using a CGR;
• Identify and engage appropriate agencies and departments to govern and manage the contents of the CGR, through guidelines and standard operating procedures;
• Work with MoHs to develop and document a plan to update or complete existing master lists of health-related objects, build data management capacity, and develop or update standard operating procedures to use the data in the CGR for public health activities;
• Plan for the deployment, technical setup, population, maintenance, and long-term sustainability of the CGR, including the integration of MoH information systems with the CGR.

Development of a global guidance framework and advocacy material for deployment of a CGR in other countries

• Contribute to and develop resources to enable rapid deployment of a CGR including core product features, customization guidelines, training collateral, hosting and maintenance options;
• Support the development of an online knowledge base for the CGR including a resource hub and global sandbox environment to facilitate demonstrations of the CGR platform;
• Develop communications materials and participate in relevant global meetings to advocate for the use and deployment of a CGR to support public health initiatives including malaria elimination;
• Engage global stakeholders and multilateral agencies on opportunities to strengthen global geospatial information management through the deployment of a CGR.

Project management and operational support

• Update project team and partners on assessment and implementation progress;
• Support contracting process of technology partners, including managing progress report and update process.

Other responsibilities as needed

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Bachelor or Master’s degree in relevant field (disease information system, epidemiology, computer science, geography) with 3+ years of working experience as a business analyst, technical project manager, GIS specialist, or other information technology roles;
• Proven experience managing complex projects, preferably technology projects, with multiple stakeholders from different backgrounds;
• Experience managing (collection/extraction, processing, validation, cleaning, maintenance, linkage, databasing) different types of geographic data (vector and raster), including field-based and desktop geodata capture;
• Proficiency using GIS software (ArcGIS, QGIS, R, etc) for spatial analysis;
• Experience working and communicating with government officials and multilateral organizations, particularly in communicating technical concepts to non-technical users. Exceptional communication skills with people of varied professional and cultural backgrounds;
• Experience working in a fast-based entrepreneurial environment, with demonstrated ability to work with a sense of urgency and in high pressure situations;
• Exceptional project management skills and proven ability to execute complex projects in short timeframes;
• Ability to work well both independently and as part of a multidisciplinary team;
• Ability to think strategically and anticipate future consequences and trends;
• Strong work ethic, integrity, credibility, and dedication to CHAI’s mission;
• High levels of proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint;
• Ability to travel approximately 40-50% of the year;
• Fluency in English and Portuguese.

Advantages

• Knowledge of malaria or other global infectious diseases;
• Understanding of disease surveillance with knowledge of global health issues; knowledge of common health information management systems;
• Familiarity with open-source mapping platforms and applications, such as OpenStreetMap, FieldPapers, etc;
• Familiarity with remotely-sensed satellite data and/or related modelled surfaces, including high-resolution imagery, settlements, population, nighttime lights, environmental data, etc. (i.e. Digital Globe, CIESIN, WorldPop, MAP, Google Earth Engine, etc.);
• Experience in implementing technology-based solutions with users, preferably for disease surveillance;
• Experience working remotely with a decentralized team;
• Experience working in an international context, including experience living or working in resource-limited settings;
• Fluency in French.