Senior Health and Nutrition Advisor - Switzerland

Role and Responsibilities

Offer strategic and technical health and nutrition advice to headquarters and field staff, as well as training and coaching Medair field health and nutrition staff in emergency (acute and chronic) as well as transitional programming.  Assist in strengthening, supporting and standardising the technical quality of Medair’s health and nutrition sector programming at field and HQ levels to ensure we meet international health guidelines and best serve our beneficiaries.

Medair Headquarters

Medair Headquarters (HQ) provides operational guidance for country programmes and activities, along with both technical and compassionate support for our relief workers. Within our headquarters, we are also responsible for promoting the work of Medair to the world, to raise and manage the funds needed to run our life-saving and sustaining programmes. Our headquarters teams are also responsible for recruiting international and HQ staff, and like our field teams, we are committed to serve the world’s most vulnerable with practical and compassionate care.

Medair

Medair is a humanitarian organisation inspired by Christian faith to relieve human suffering in some of the world’s most remote and devastated places. We bring relief and recovery to people in crisis, regardless of race, creed or nationality. As signatories of the Red Cross Code of Conduct, we believe that aid should be given to everyone who is in need, regardless of political, social or religious viewpoint. We save lives in emergencies and then stay to help people recover from crisis with dignity—working side by side with communities to leave a lasting impact. We provide a range of emergency relief and recovery services: health care and nutrition; safe water, sanitation, and hygiene; shelter and infrastructure.

Workplace         

Medair Headquarters, Ecublens, near Lausanne, Switzerland

Starting Date

As soon as possible

Initial Contract Details

Full time, open-ended contract

Key Activity Areas

Planning and Implementation

• Review, implement, and monitor the health support strategy for Medair field programmes.
• Develop and monitor metrics for activities under your responsibility from an organisational, portfolio, country, and project perspective. 

Policy Development

• Assist in the development of health related organisational policies.

Quality Management and Technical Assistance

• Provide technical health advice to Head of Country Programmes and field advisors at all key stages of the project management cycle including needs assessment, technical strategy and design, implementation as well as sector specific monitoring and evaluation. This includes travel to field programmes as well as review of proposals, key reports and surveys prior to external submission.
• Stay abreast of current best practice. Research and stay informed on academic and technical health and nutrition issues, techniques, and guidelines to inform and improve programming.

Training

• Assist in developing internal training materials and resources and providing training to staff at appropriate venues, including but not limited to the ROC, HQ Briefing, HQ Inductions and online sessions.

Human Resource Management

• Manage consultant activities or relationships as necessary.

Human Aid Networking

• Develop and maintain public health and relief oriented networks in order to share ideas, best practices, lessons learned, and stay informed on current health, nutrition, and humanitarian aid trends including CORE group, global sector clusters and academic institutions.

Institutional Donor Development and Management

• Assist in developing new institutional funding sources for health and nutrition related activities as requested.

Qualifications

• Medical Doctor plus Masters preferably in Public Health
• Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene desirable

Languages

• Strong working knowledge of English (spoken and written)
• Working knowledge of French (spoken and written) desirable

Experience / Competencies

• At least 3 years’ experience managing PHC programmes in developing countries, with at least 2 years’ experience managing and coordinating acute and chronic complex emergency responses such as: outbreaks, displaced populations, nutritional emergencies and /or natural disasters
• Experience conducting field research
• Experience in epidemiology, designing monitoring and evaluation systems in developing countries as well as conducting rapid health and nutrition assessments and baseline surveys using cluster and LQAS sampling methodology desirable
• Prior health service delivery experience in Africa and Asia desirable
• Proficiency with statistical health software packages such as EPI info, SPSS, STATA, or ENA for SMART desirable
• Demonstrable training skills; proven successful proposal writing and editing skills
• Demonstrable health technical expertise in humanitarian settings
• Capable to develop and motivate people in a servant and supportive manner; familiar with inter-cultural differences
• Strong ability to think strategically along with analytical skills
• Tactful, high level communication skills; strong people centred management expertise

Medair Standard Working Requirements for the International Headquarters

• Committed Christians; commitment to the Medair values
• Reflect the vision and values of Medair when interacting with team members and external contacts
• At least one year of professional experience in a relevant field (more experience preferred)
• Strong working knowledge of English (spoken and written)
• Working knowledge of French (spoken and written) for French-speaking roles
• Competent with MS Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
• Motivated by a spirit of service
• Solid team player

Benefits

• Salary commensurate with pay-grade of the position
• Travel expenses to country programmes (for staff who are required to make field visits)
• Annual leave; Accident insurance and pension; Death and disability insurance; Health insurance for loss of earnings
• The opportunity to work in a Christian organisation where your contributions make a difference for the world’s most vulnerable

HQ Working Conditions

• Swiss or eligible EU citizens, or those with a valid work permit for Switzerland, can apply.
• This is an HQ based position in Lausanne Switzerland with travel for up to 2 - 3 months per year.

Application Process

Follow this link: www.medair.org/work-with-us, check if you fit our standard working criteria, then: apply for this vacancy (or another position that matches your profile).

Please do not make multiple applications. We will not review email applications. Only English-language applications / CVs will be reviewed. Medair does not set closing / deadline dates for applications; recruitment is on-going until the position is filled.