The Ethiopian Red Cross Society (ERCS) wants to hire employees in the following vacant positions the details of which are mentioned bellow.

About the Ethiopian Red Cross Society 

The Ethiopian Red Cross Society (ERCS) was established in 1935 and is one of the oldest and largest humanitarian organizations in Ethiopia. ERCS provides services to communities affected by natural and manmade disasters through the provision of emergency responses, ambulance and first aid, family reunification, essential drugs, water and sanitation, and other humanitarian services. ERCS also runs disaster risk reduction programs with the aim of creating resilience households and communities. Currently the ERCS has a structure consisting of 12 Regional Offices, 34 Zonal Branches and 131  District/Woreda Branches, 599 Woreda Red Cross Committee  and 5871 Kebele Red Cross  committees.

ERCS also runs disaster risk reduction programs relating to food security, climate change adaptation, livelihood diversification, and institutional capacity building interventions, with the aim of creating resilience households and communities. ERCS works in partnership with the Ethiopian Government, International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC), International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), partnering National Societies, members, volunteers and the communities we serve.

KEY PERFORMANCE AREAS 

BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT

The USAID/Ethiopia Health Resilience Activity is a 5-year project (28th Mar 2023 – 27th Mar 2028) aims to strengthen local capacity to detect, prepare for, respond to, and mitigate the impact of public health emergencies and ensure the continuity of essential health services during emergencies. The Activity will result in improved local capacity and health system resilience in focus areas through strengthening woreda leadership and capacity to manage emergencies; improving early warning and alert response system (EWARS) and data management capacity; developing core capacity on gender in emergencies (GiE); and increasing innovative funding for emergencies, leading to reduced morbidity and mortality related to public health crises. 

Management Sciences for Health (MSH) and the Ethiopian Red Cross Society (ERCS) will work together and in close collaboration with zonal and woreda offices, health facilities (HFs), communities, and other stakeholders to achieve these results. The USAID/Ethiopia Health Resilience Activity will focus on selected woredas in three regions (Amhara; Oromia; and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region [SNNPR]) and one city administration (Dire Dawa). 

OVERALL RESPONSIBILITIES

The PHEM Officer will be responsible for providing continues technical assistance on emergency preparedness, EWARS and Response (EWARS/PHEM) for PHEM officers, HCWs & HEWs at project woreda’s, health facilities and community levels. The incumbent will also work with zonal health departments and woreda/HF public health leaders to ensure that resilient PHEM systems are built at all levels of the health system. 

SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES 

•  Conduct supportive supervision and mentorship for Woreda Health Offices (WrHO) and health facilities (HFs) regarding EWARS (Preparedness, Early warning/surveillance, Response & Recovery components of PHEM)

• Provide capacity-building trainings on various PHEM agendas for PHEM officers, HCWs and HEWs.

• Assist WrHOs/HFs to conduct the early warning, alert and response tasks (EWARS)

• Provide technical assistance to WrHOs/HFs to conduct both event and indicator-based surveillances.

• Provide Technical Assistant (TA) to strengthen cross-border surveillance activities at point of entries.

• Assist public health risk communication & community engagement tasks (RCCE)

• Provide technical support to ensure the surveillance data qualities like report timeliness, completeness, etc are kept at national/international standards.

• Assist WrHO, HFs and ZHD in EWARS/PHEM data management and visualization, report-write ups, and dissemination.

• Assist in periodic surveillance reports productions like weekly epidemiological bulletin, feedbacks, SitRep/SpotRep, technical reports, presentations, and ad hoc reports on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis.

• Support emergency coordination platforms like PHEOC, RRT, TWG, DRM Council and DMAT in order to establish a functional PHEM system.

• Participate in public health emergencies responses and investigations like epidemic/pandemic response, health and nutrition emergency response and the likes

• Participates and represent the organization in different regional/sub-regional level review meetings, annual work plan, conference calls, coordination forums, etc

• Prepare different proposals and budget plans to implement surveillance agendas and emergency response.

• Prepare all weekly/quarterly progress reports, annual project report, ad-hoc technical reports, success stories and timely submit to the central team using required formats.

• Monitor and evaluate progress towards annual work plans, expected outputs, including selecting and monitoring progress in meeting indicators.

• Collaborate and work with key technical and program stakeholders on different PHEM agendas.

Work Unit :- ERCS Zonal Branch.

 Reports to:- Senior PHEM Advisor. 

Terms of employment: - Contract for one year . 

Job Requirements

Qualification Requirements

•  BSc degree in any health backgrounds plus master’s degree in Field Epidemiology/Epidemiology, or other public health fields. 

• At least five (5) years’ work experience at regional or sub-regional level in the field of Public Health Emergency Management (PHEM)

Key competencies

• Deep understanding and knowledge of the Early Warning and Alert Response System (EWARS), particularly public health surveillance and emergency response.

•  Having previous work experience in PHEOC is an added advantage.

• Experience of conducting trainings, supervision and mentorship

• Experience in proposal development, scientific report write ups and disseminations, as proven with publications.

• Excellent ability in software’s like Microsoft offices, Power BI, DHIS2-PHEM, ODK, SPSS, etc.

Note: The duty station might change to other areas based on needs.

How to Apply

We invite candidates meeting the required qualifications to fill out online employment application form  using THIS LINK before the closing date of this announcement on April 3, 2024.

Qualified women are strongly recommended to apply!