Senior Program Officer, Program Advocacy and Communications, Malaria

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Seattle, WA, United States

Your Role

The Senior Program Officer (SPO) will serve as the global PAC strategy lead for Malaria. You will be responsible for leading efforts in partnership with the PAC Malaria team and with teams across the foundation to refine, implement and evaluate advocacy and communications strategies that support the foundation’s Malaria strategies. This includes engaging policy and financing agencies globally, regionally in Sub-Saharan Africa, South-East Asia and Latin America. You will support the foundation’s Malaria strategies and be a partner across Program and Strategy Team (PST) strategies which focus on R&D for vector control, malaria chemoprevention and treatment, and systems to equitably, sustainably deliver tools and interventions that can drive down malaria burden in high burden countries and in countries nearing malaria elimination.

You will work within the PAC Infectious Diseases team that also includes advocacy portfolios for NTDs, HIV and TB and their related financing entities, and will be expected to allocate approximately 10% of your time to advocacy beyond Malaria. You will also be accountable for participating in both individual and group learning and work to increase the diversity, equity and inclusion of the foundation and our work.

What You’ll Do

Partner with the PAC Malaria team, programmatic teams, country, and regional offices (in particular, Africa Regional Office, India and China Country offices, Europe, Middle East and East Asia team, and North America Team team), and the GPA division to update, implement and evaluate PAC Malaria strategies that include market-specific approaches and assessments of political economies, ensure long-term sustainability and impact, and are synergistic to other foundation strategies.
Work individually and with other program officers to develop, refine, implement and evaluate advocacy and communications strategies that support the foundation’s Malaria strategies.
Work individually and with other program officers to develop, negotiate, and manage a portfolio of investments, including conducting research and analysis to strengthen investment recommendations, oversight of portfolio budget and all related grant making processes (e.g., investment reviews, strategic alignment, grantee engagement, etc.)
Develop medium-term portfolio execution plans aligned with Malaria PAC and PST strategies.
Conceptualize and lead high impact and complex partnerships, grants, coalitions, and advocacy campaigns, including relationship and partnership building within and outside the Malaria community at global, regional and country levels.
Serve as the initiative lead for the Malaria GPA initiatives, and drive linkages between Malaria and other health and development priorities.
Serve as a point of contact on strategy and portfolio for internal and external partners and form partnerships with people and organizations – in both the public and private sector – to improve implementation of the Malaria strategies.
Represent the foundation and our strategies to external constituencies. This could include formal and informal presentations such as making speeches, attending conferences, committee representation and other meetings. May serve on boards and working groups.
Identify and assess key risks at the portfolio level; develop and manage mitigation and contingency plans.
Proactively work with peers/fellow SPOs to ensure a consistent approach as well as application of appropriate rigor to portfolio management across PAC Infectious Diseases.
Consult with partners regularly to maximize the impact of projects and ensure optimal learning to inform our work. This may include site visits, providing operational guidance and convening meetings of key stakeholders.
Write and produce clear, concise, and insightful briefings, reports, email updates, and other materials on key Malaria and other relevant issues for foundation leadership.
Participate in and learn from the program strategy team, and GPA and PAC Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) efforts to ensure that we are continuing to make progress towards realizing our commitments.
Participate in cross PAC efforts to enhance our integration, accelerate impact, and maintain a cohesive and dynamic culture.

Your Experience

Bachelor’s degree in public policy, international relations, public health, development, or a related field with significant (10+) years of progressive senior level experience leading advocacy strategies in global health and development.
Understand the role of advocacy and communications efforts to increase awareness of global health/development issues and shape political and financial support for these issues with governmental and non-state organizations.
Experience working on advocacy globally and in partnership with organizations in donor countries and in sub-Saharan Africa and South & Southeast Asian countries with high infectious disease burden, including interaction with senior level policy makers, civil society organizations, coalitions, and governments.
Understand the issues driving the Malaria epidemics and broader global health issues, and an understanding of the networks and communities supporting malaria programs at global, regional, and country levels, desirable.
Experience designing and leading resource mobilization strategies and initiatives is desirable.
Understand bilateral and multilateral institutions and mechanisms (US Presidential Malaria Initiative, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, and the World Health Organization) including how they make policy and fund development programs at national and regional level.
Proven ability to provide vision and influence others in a constructive, optimistic manner, while building and sustaining collaborative relationships.
Outstanding project and team leadership skills including ability to lead strategy development through execution, develop shared goals and execution plans, prioritize, facilitate meetings, manage budgets, developing consensus, and work both autonomously and collaboratively.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills, able to effectively synthesize information to reach diverse audiences and build consensus, ideal.
Experience managing a grants portfolio either as a grantee, receiving and reporting on a grant or as a grant manager, with direct responsibility for grant making and management.
Experience developing and managing complex projects and/or grants in support of policy initiatives, advocacy programs and events at the global, regional, and national level.

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