MEDICAL COORDINATOR NORTH EAST SYRIA (NES) – Syrian Arab Republic

Position Title: Medical Coordinator

Location: North East Syria

Period: 12 months, with possible renewals

Closing date of the vacancy: 06th October 2024 (applications on a rolling basis)

Starting date: ASAP

Context Presentation: Un Ponte Per (UPP) is an Italian NGO established in 1991. It started its activities as “Un ponte per Baghdad”, in the aftermath of the first Gulf war, with the aim of organizing solidarity initiatives in support of the Iraqi civilian population. In subsequent years, UPP missions expanded to include Serbia and other Middle Eastern and Mediterranean countries. The NGO aims at preventing armed conflicts, protecting human rights and supporting local civil society, especially in the Middle East, by promoting the nexus between its humanitarian, peacebuilding and development programs.

Since 2015, UPP has been one of the leading INGOs in the North East Syria (NES) response. Providing humanitarian aid and capacity building of local actors in Health and Protection as well as environmental health, including waste management. In partnership with local partners, UPP has been able to develop a comprehensive system of health services delivered in 26 facilities, including mobile units, hospitals, primary health care centres, and an ambulance network. For further information please refer to our website: www.unponteper.it/en/

CONTEXT BACKGROUND: Conflict and displacement continue to affect North East Syria (NES), while needs are heightened due to the recurrent outbreaks (Covid-19, Cholera, Measles, etc.) impacting the provision of healthcare services, especially in remote areas and IDPs camps across all governorates. UPP and partners aim to ameliorate living conditions and save lives of war-affected persons in NES by improving access to emergency and primary health care, life-saving obstetric and Reproductive Health (RH) services, secondary health care and referral services, and support outbreak’s preparedness and response. Through a strengthened community-based strategy, UPP and partners will provide prevention outreach in health and protection to support local resilience. Through a flexible structure and a wide geographic coverage, UPP and its local partners aims to provide the capacity to quickly assess and respond to emerging health needs in different locations in NES.

DEFINITION OF THE POST: The Medical Coordinator is responsible for the technical design and the implementation of the UPP Health Strategy in NES. The Medical Coordinator works under the operational Line Management of the NES Head of Programme (HoP) and the functional Line Management of the Health Desk Officer at HQ level, and will coordinate with the relevant technical and supporting departments at mission level (Protection, WASH, MEAL, HR, Log). She/He will ensure high-quality of health care and the successful implementation of health programs in all supported health facilities and areas of intervention, in line with best international standards and donors’ regulations. The Medical Coordinator represents UPP in the relevant sectoral working groups; organizes, supervises and coordinates the work of the UPP Health Department in NES; coordinates with relevant departments to ensure harmonization, alignment and efficiently achieve the defined objectives; and provides technical and health strategic inputs during reporting and proposal development, and anytime he is required by the Line Managers.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

The Medical Coordinator will be responsible for:

Management, Coordination, Monitoring and Supervision

• Coordinates, supervise and monitor the work of the UPP Health Department in NES, in line with UPP Health Strategy, best international standards and donors’ regulation, ensuring a conducive environment and an efficient task division between the members, providing coaching and guidance, monitoring progress and analysing outcomes.
• Coordinates the members of the Health Dep. to provide sector specific stakeholder mapping per geographical areas of operations identifying key roles managed by authorities, actors and capitalizing partnership development
• Through the Health Department management&coordination, she/he ensures the high quality (up to best international standards and donors’ regulation) of services delivered in UPP supported Health Care Facilities and services, remaining the final responsible of the performance of the services delivered.
• Engage with staff and programs teams to ensure all teams have solid understanding of Health and its components as per the (Donor) guidelines
• Work closely with the HR Department, lead on identifying Health staffing needs (national and international) for NES programs; ensure rapid recruitment, induction and training of new staff
• Work closely with the Protection team, ensuring that accountability measures are in place in all the health facilities and feedbacks from beneficiaries and relevant stakeholders are considered in programme design specifically for MEAL
• Work closely with the WERL Coordinator to ensure full comprehension and linkage of HWM to HF, whilst advising sectoral working groups on these developments
• Work closely with the MEAL Dep. to improve the Health Information System in supported services and reinforce UPP internal monitoring capacity to increase the quality of care in the health facilities
• Work closely with the Programme teams to ensure constant information flow on their respective interventions, timely highlighting issues and challenges and providing support for re-assessment and re-prioritisation
• Ensure that the minimum standards of humanitarian relief are maintained in accordance with UPP Code of Conduct and “Right to Health” Chart of Principles
• Continuously monitor medical and humanitarian needs in the Mission in new areas of intervention or in areas where UPP is already present through exploratory missions, monitoring and review of project proposals, determining the resources needed to define health and nutrition priorities and possible new programmes to cover the medical and humanitarian needs of the population at risks.

Programme Design And Development

• Responsible for defining, monitoring and updating the medical strategy, annual plan of UPP, reflecting the identified health needs from the field into the strategic vision and project objectives, priorities and resources required to meet the medical and humanitarian needs of the population at risk, and ensuring that the objectives and targets set out in the annual plan and project plans of the Mission are achieved
• Continuously lead at field level on the actualization of the NES health strategy via its adaptation into programming with the HoP and Desk Officer NES (Health), being primary responsible of developing response plans at field level, incorporating partner’s inputs and aligning with UPP empowerment strategy towards local partners
• Lead, or, when assigned to Health Specialists, coordinate comprehensive Health technical assessments, together with relevant UPP departments, local partner, health authorities, actors, and technical working groups, ensuring assessment findings are relevant including a specific analysis of at-risk persons, such as children, women, IDPs’
• Lead, or, when assigned to Health Specialists, coordinate the development of Protocols and SoPs, in compliance with sectorial working groups, donor’s guidelines and internationally recognized standards;
• Lead, or, when assigned to Health Specialists, coordinate on technical design and follow implementation for health programmes, remaining the final technical responsible of the proposals to the HoP, HQ desks, and PMs in NES (Health) for the different awards
• Provide high quality technical input during proposal development and technical reviews being engaged and aware of developments in the field impacting PIN, incorporating secondary data and engaging with donor’s technical advisors; in coordination with Desk Officer NES (Health) and HoP
• Lead on the implementation of the Area Based Approach (ABA) by ensuring smooth coordination of different programs at area level
• He/she is engaged in the development of strategies of collaboration with other UPP thematic sectors (HWM, Protection, etc..) at mission and area level.

Partner and Peer Coaching and Capacity Building

• The medical coordinator will coordinate the UPP Health Department, being responsible of coaching, supporting, leading and supervising objectives, performance, activities and outcomes assigned to the different staff members;
• Develop learning needs assessment and capacity building plans for both UPP and partner staff, linking capacity building initiatives to wider opportunities identified via coordination and networks;
• Develop, implement and monitor a standard yearly capacity building plan, pooling the skills and competences of each member in the different health programmes and coordinating with relevant sectors for a comprehensive and do no harm approach (WASH in Health, Protection, etc.) and including TOT for local partners with the objective of empowering the local partner in health decision making and autonomous running of their activities;
• Develop the linkage between health seeking behaviours, removing barriers to improved patient safety, effective medical care and enhanced patient-centred activities, Professional health care services with a focus on quality of care;
• Establish a very active and open communication line with the corresponding posts of local partner organizations, in order to facilitate a consensus management style, both at strategic and at operational levels
• Engage and coordinate with other health actors, be aware, advised and informed on their intervention, seeking opportunities for collaboration, cooperation and alignement.

Medical Leadership in Emergency Response

• In case of an emergency, related mainly to health and COVID the medical coordinator will assume the overall responsibility for the appropriateness and quality of technical medical leadership, coordinating actions and response with the HoP, both internally and in front of partners, authorities and sector working group
• Lead UPP participation in coordination mechanisms created to respond to health related emergencies, reporting points of action to UPP HoP and relevant staff members.

Representation, Advocacy and Organizational Learning

• Participate and collaborate with other partners within the established working groups or consortium mechanisms.
• Under the delegation from UPP HoP and in close collaboration with UPP PMs, coordinate and communicate with local and regional authorities about the development of UPP services and programs, proposing durable solutions, with respect to the authorities’ initiative and priorities, ensuring the specific needs of the population remain into account;
• Ensure a positive image and overall credibility of UPP, abiding to the organization Code of Conduct, ethics, values and stand-point;
• Participate in project kick-off’s and closeouts, take the initiative in documenting lessons learnt, best practice and case studies to shape in-country strategic direction in line with programme approaches, and contribute to broader sector learning
• Pro-actively identify advocacy opportunities, case studies and research opportunities which link with wider organizational strategic objectives, and turn these into action;

Quality Internal and External Reporting

• Remain engaged and up to date, on the health facilities data collection and evolving requirements (seasonal outbreaks, contextual changes, VECTOR) for health facilities in close coordination with the MEAL team Ensure reporting requirements are met by the Health Department. Inputs are provided timely and with high quality in order to meet UPP and Donors’ requests;
• Ensure a proper communication flow between Programme and Health Department in order to utilize the proper reporting mechanisms and avoid overlap and emergency requests;
• Supervise, in coordination with the MEAL department, the collection and timely reporting of data and statistics for all programs (including objectives, indicators and outcomes of health programs) according to internal and donor requirement.

ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS:

• Medical degree with doctorate in public health or health management specialties
• Minimum of five years’ professional experience in the medical sector.
• Minimum of three years as health care manager or health care developer, having experience of coordinating medical teams and/or health related projects
• Minimum of two years involved in health related humanitarian projects
• Knowledge of international health standards and main donors’ health policies and requirements (EU, USAID, UN, WHO, etc.)
• Good understanding of the project life cycle management and reporting
• Excellent capacity to work in team
• Proven capacities to plan activities successfully targeting results and objectives.
• Ability to supervise and/or mentor the medical staff.
• Excellent oral and written English. Arabic is an asset. Italian is an asset
• Working experience with local counterparts (CSOs, local NGOs, local institutions).
• Five years’ experience of planning, organizing and prioritizing work, working under pressure and meeting deadlines.
• Ability to work under pressure in stressful environments

DESIRABLE REQUIREMENTS

• Knowledge of the Middle East. Specific knowledge about Syria economic context is a strong asset;
• Knowledge of Arabic and/or Kurdish.

UPP requires criminal background check certificate (released max 3 months before the date of job offer) to confirm a job offer. We are aware that in some countries the release of criminal background certificate by the competent authorities might require several weeks. However, UPP runs selections to deploy staff in emergency programs and time-lapse between job offer and field deployment is often very short. Thus, we kindly ask all candidates to get prepared on time and be able to submit their certificate promptly in case of success in the selection.

OTHER REQUIREMENTS:

Un Ponte Per is an International NGO committed to diversity and inclusion within its teams, in line with the principle of non-discrimination. UPP encourages all candidates irrespective of gender, religion and ethnicity including persons with disabilities to apply and become part of the organization.

Ethical Conduct

UPP upholds all the minimum standards in terms of Ethical Conduct and strives to increase its standards over the minimum. Zero tolerance is reserved to Sexual Abuse and Exploitation and to Child Abuse, Violence, Harm, Injury and Negligence. UPP participates in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme, therefore, any candidate assures that s/he has never breached any standard in terms of SEA and Child Safeguarding and that s/he will not in the future. UPP will conduct extensive reference check and vetting on shortlisted candidates that might compromise candidates’ privacy. Shortlisted candidates shall promptly provide an up-to-date criminal background check. By submitting an application, the job applicant confirms his/her understanding of these recruitment procedures.