Job Vacancy’s Title: Head of Data and Analytics, Amref

REPORTING TO: Executive Director, SEMA
DEPARTMENT/PROJECT: SEMA
PHYSICAL LOCATION: Preference for Nairobi, Kenya; potential to consider other locations in Africa or Europe with travel

Amref Health Africa was founded in 1957 and has since grown to become the largest African-based international health development organization; currently implementing more than 140 programs, directly reaching more than 12 million people across 35 African countries. Headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, Amref Health Africa has offices in eight countries in Africa, namely, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Malawi, South Sudan, Zambia and Senegal. Amref’s work in each country responds to local needs and priorities, strengthens existing capacities in communities to have
ownership of their health and strengthens the local health systems. An additional eleven advocacy and fundraising offices are located in Europe and North America. Amref has a staff complement of over 1,500.

Amref Health Africa is driven by its vision of ‘Lasting health change in Africa’ and its mission ‘To increase sustainable health access to communities in Africa through solutions in human resources for health, health service delivery, and investments in health’.

About SEMA Reproductive Health
Shaping Equitable Market Access for Reproductive Health – SEMA Reproductive Health – is a new, innovative partnership that aims to transform SRH markets so that people everywhere have sustained access to comprehensive, quality, and affordable SRH products. It emerged from a collective reflection by partners that although we have made tremendous improvements in SRH markets, we need to do business differently moving forward. In particular, we need to support countries to be stewards of their total markets and build a collaborative platform for countries, donors, and other partners to align on priority market problems, jointly problem-solve, and
coordinate resources more efficiently to overcome SRH market challenges.

To that end, SEMA has been designed to strengthen countries’ and global partners’ capacities to build healthier, more equitable, and more resilient SRH markets to ensure sustained access to comprehensive, quality and affordable SRH products and services. To do so, SEMA will focus on aligning and strengthening efforts across geographies and private and public sectors through three core focuses:

1. Proactively monitor SRH market health by aggregating, analyzing, and monitoring market data to develop a holistic, unified view of user demand and current market supply of different SRH markets across regions and sectors to generate critical insights that can drive strategy & execution
2. Identify market barriers across geographies and co-design strategic solutions, tapping the unique strengths of existing networks and organizations in-country and globally to align on the most strategic approach
3. Support countries and global partners to finance and implement interventions including helping governments mobilize domestic funding against the problems, crowding in new players, directly funding market interventions and encouraging coordination of global investments to drive impact.

SEMA was announced in July 2021 alongside the Generation Equality Forum in France, with country governments from Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Uganda; financial support from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (MAE); and strategic partnership from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO), and the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition.

The donors have currently committed approximately $55-70 million over five years to launch this organization with the aspiration to mobilize additional resources.

SEMA will operate in a lean coordinating structure backed by in-country focal points. SEMA will implement select functions directly and manage a pool of re-granting or contracted services via implementing partners to leverage and invest in ecosystem partners. SEMA is being incubated within Amref Health Africa to rapidly scale and deliver quick wins from the get-go and will spin out to form an independent entity once established. It is overseen by a governing body and leverages a technical oversight committee of a diverse group of experts for strategic and technical advice.

Job Purpose
The Head of Data & Analytics is responsible for leading how SEMA thinks and uses data and analytics with its partners to monitor and analyze market problems, design and track market interventions, and help the field get smarter and better at tackling market problems. This is a new position so the individual will have an opportunity to define the scope, approach, partnership strategy, technological approach, investment strategy, etc. Success for this role is that over time SEMA is known as a trusted and respected organization for supporting and working with country and global partners to gather, analyze and synthesize market data to support data-driven decisions to enhance SRH markets.

Reporting Structure
The Head of Data & Analytics will report directly to SEMA’s Executive Director. This role is one of three to four key Senior Management Team roles reporting to the Executive Director that will be hired within the first 6 months. Within the first year, this role will be leading a team of two to three additional staff and overseeing investments with different partners. Until the Data & Analytics team is built, this person will have the support of interim consultants and strategic partnerships to support the critical work needed to progress toward SEMA’s goals.

Main Responsibilities

Leadership/Strategy

• Oversee process to define SEMA’s vision and approach to aggregating and synthesizing public and private market data (e.g., R&D pipeline, financing, availability, pricing, consumption) in collaboration with partners to facilitate market analyses and strategic decisions. Note: SEMA is interested in data regarding the full SRH portfolio although the initial focus will be on family planning/contraceptives and safe abortion products/services.
• Design working groups that include experts and key stakeholders to advise on SEMA’s approach (i.e., scope, sources, gaps, business model, phasing) and execute the vision/approach for the market data (including consumer insights portion of market data).
• Design and manage investment strategy that solves for short-term needs/solutions while building the foundation for a longer-term vision and strategy.
• Collaborate with SEMA country leads to ensure the data approach is responsive to country needs and is organized in a manner to optimize uptake/use by country stakeholders.
• Collaborate with SEMA leadership team to ensure data approach not only supports market strategy discussions but also other SEMA operational and strategic needs (e.g., measurement, learning and evaluation; communications; etc.).
• Present and gather feedback on strategic data approach with the Technical Oversight Committee.
• Develop and present strategic updates and recommendations to Governing Body as necessary.

Programmatic/Results

• Translate vision/approach and multi-country needs for market data (including consumer insights) into initial workplan (with objectives, budget, and initial metrics) including contracts, investments, or other activities to execute the strategy.
• Develop and manage contracts, budgets, investments, or other activities to execute workplan (e.g., investment in market data partnership to build/access information including platforms such as the GFPVAN, launching a consumer insights hub, launching new partnerships to leverage commercial data sources, strengthening country-level data generation and analytics capacity).
• Collaborate with Head of Operations to design an approach to generate data to support SEMA’s overall ME&L approach including managing continuous assessments, incorporating learnings and sharing outcomes with the SEMA Management Team.

Communications/ Stakeholders
• Organize and communicate SEMA’s market data vision and approach with key stakeholders – including countries, technical experts, and key stakeholders – to build awareness and alignment, gather feedback, and develop partnerships.
• Develop and manage effective relationships with key stakeholders and related activities in the ecosystem to advance the SEMA market data vision and approach including any partnership agreements.
• Document progress, challenges and lessons learned to share with the working groups, Technical Oversight Committee, SEMA Governing Body, and SEMA Management Team as appropriate.

Organizational Development
• Participate and contribute to Management Team to support effective launch and evolution of SEMA organization including providing input on business model, staffing, and strategic priorities.
• Recruit and manage great people to promote the desired culture to build a highly functioning, motivated, and effective team where people bring their best to the work.

Minimum Qualification Requirements, Skills and Competencies
Essential:
• 10+ years of professional experience working in the field of global health data
• Master’s degree in Public Health, Information Sciences, Social Sciences, or a related field
• Proven experience designing and managing working groups and partnerships among diverse sets of players to align on a common strategic direction and execute against the strategy related to encouraging partners to aggregate and share data
• Experience developing scopes of work for vendors/contractors and managing vendors
• Strategic and visionary leader with deep experience in global health market data and analytics and best practices for aggregating, synthesizing and sharing data for use
• Strong understanding of key market data requirements to enable assessing market health, informing market intervention development, and monitoring market impact
• Strong understanding of market data landscape (i.e., coverage and strengths/weaknesses of data systems, data sources) for family planning at global and country levels. Understanding of market data landscape for safe abortion or sexual and reproductive health more broadly is a plus
• Demonstrated team management experience
• Ability to think strategically (where are we going, how to organize the work) and drive project management (plan and manage numerous processes and projects simultaneously and meet deadlines)
• Ability to work independently in an ambiguous and changing environment
• Eagerness to contribute and collaborate to management team working in a start-up environment (i.e., enjoy creating, can be leader and also execute on operational tasks where needed)
• Ability to integrate consumer insights with market data to inform market shaping priorities
• Excellent written and communication skills, including areas of presentation and reporting writing, with experience presenting to multi-cultural and executive level bodies
• Demonstrated effectiveness to work in a multi-cultural work environment and committed to promoting an inclusive culture where everyone is valued and belongs
• Deep personal commitment to sexual & reproductive health & rights, including the right to safe abortion for all who need it
• Language proficiency: English (required) Ideal:
• Experience working in sexual & reproductive health & rights markets specifically in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC)
• Experience working with and creating databases and dashboards using data to inform decisions
• Experience in management of data warehouse
• Working knowledge of data mining principles: predictive analytics, mapping, collecting data from multiple data systems on premises and cloud-based data sources
• Understanding of and experience using analytical concepts and statistical techniques: hypothesis development, designing tests/experiments, analyzing data, drawing conclusions, and developing actionable recommendations for business units
• Knowledge of Excel, R and SQL; familiarity with business intelligence tools (e.g., Tableau, Power BI)
• Language proficiency: French (highly desired)

How to apply
Interested? Please visit our website https://amref.org/vacancies/ to make your application. You will be directed to our online portal where you will need to create an account in order for you to be able to submit your application. Your application should include a cover letter detailing why you are the best fit for this position and your CV with relevant skills and experience. Closing date will be January 18, 2022. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Duly note that Amref Health Africa does not require applicants to pay any money at whatever stage of the recruitment and selection process and has not retained any agent in connection with recruitment.

Amref Health Africa is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff to share this commitment.

Amref Health Africa is an equal opportunity employer and has a non-smoking environment policy.